It was a Saturday afternoon in October, and Eric Dorsey was in a panic.
He had stayed up all night painting a pair of cleats for Washington Redskins cornerback Bashaud Breeland. The design featured pink roses on them in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month. It was too late to ship the cleats because the team was leaving for Atlanta to play the Falcons that day. Dorsey had no choice but to drive 2½ hours from his home in New Castle to Washington’s practice facility in Ashburn, Virginia, in order to get Breeland his shoes.
As Dorsey pulled up to the guard station at the entrance of the complex, he noticed the buses coming right at him, heading for the exit. He told the guard his situation and asked if he could stop the buses so Breeland could get his cleats. The guard told him: “I’ve been here for 10 years and I’ve never stopped a bus, and I’m not going to start now.”
Dorsey told him why he was there, so the guard radioed the police escort and allowed Dorsey to drive in the caravan to the airport.
Dorsey, however, couldn’t escape the irony. The 34-year-old is a lifelong Eagles fan, with an Eagles license plate on his car, driving in the caravan of the Eagles’ hated NFC East rivals.
“We get to a private entrance in the back of the airport,” Dorsey said. “I have no idea where we are. I get out of the car with the cleats, and Bashaud and one of their assistant coaches see me. I give him my cleats, and the coach looks at my license plates and says, ‘Eagles, huh? Go away.’ Meanwhile, Bashaud and a couple other guys are standing there laughing.”
Unlikely beginnings
Dorsey began his business, “Illustrative_Cre8ions,” last August, and it was a shock to his family. He does his painting in a back room at the house he lives in with his parents, his sister and son Eric III, 9.
Dorsey’s family knew about his passion for football. He had played running back and defensive end at William Penn, graduating in 1999. They did not know about his passion for art. Neither did Dorsey.
“I was a jock growing up, strictly football, football, football,” Dorsey said. “No art background whatsoever. For me, I have a steady hand and nice handwriting. I used to draw when I was younger, so if I see something, I can draw it.”
That was news to his family, however.
One night after Dorsey started painting cleats, his mother, Vernita, walked into the room her son was working in, saw what he was doing, and said: “When did you learn to do something like this? I was like, ‘I didn’t even know you had this talent.’
“I think back on Eric in school; there was no gravitating towards art and drawing. He really just enjoyed sports. I never thought he’d gravitate to something with this much detail.”
Dorsey said the idea came from watching a documentary last year in which Washington wide receiver DeSean Jackson had a pair of cleats made for him late in the 2014 season. The design featured the words “I Can’t Breathe” written on them to honor Eric Garner, who died in a choke hold by police in New York that summer. Those were Garner’s last words.
Jackson couldn’t wear the cleats in a game, and neither could Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch, who intended to wear a pair of gold-painted cleats in the NFC Championship game last January. The NFL allows cleats to be black or in the team colors. Violators may be fined.
Still, it got Dorsey’s attention.
“Those cleats were really colorful and artistic, and I saw that [very few people] were really manufacturing them,” Dorsey said. “I just said, ‘I want to do that.’ ”
But Dorsey already had a regular job. By day, he works as a longshoreman for Chiquita Brands at the Port of Wilmington, serving as a mechanic for generator sets and refrigerator units.
So he does his painting at night.
Dorsey said he charges about $200 to paint cleats for high school players and more for NFL players, depending on the work required.
As with any startup business, developing a list of clients is the hardest part. Dorsey, however, already had an extensive football network. After playing at William Penn, he joined the military after high school and lived in Georgia for a while. Then his father, also named Eric, asked him to move back home, saying that he could get his son a job at the Port of Wilmington, where he works as a business agent for Local 1694.
Upon moving back, Dorsey started coaching and serving as the general manager for the Delaware Buccaneers, a semipro team that also serves as a developmental team for the Philadelphia Soul of the Arena Football League.
He then moved on to the American Indoor Football League, briefly becoming the coach and general manager for the York Capitals in 2014. He left before the season started because it was conflicting with his work schedule and taking too much of his time. The AIFL is not affiliated with the Arena Football League.
When Dorsey started his business, he called some of his contacts in the AIFL, Arena League and Delaware Buccaneers.
He and Cedeno Patrick also own an athletic performance training business called “Zilla258,” working with aspiring football players. Patrick was a former assistant coach at Delaware State and coached the Soul defensive back James Romain at DSU. Patrick convinced Romain to let Dorsey paint his cleats and those of his teammates for free as a trial.
“I asked them, 'If I painted your cleats, would you wear them?' ” Dorsey said. “They did, and they loved them. Then they told other players. The only thing I asked of them was to take a picture of the cleats and post it on social media.”
In addition, some of the players Dorsey coached with the Delaware Buccaneers came from Harrisburg, and they knew Harrisburg native Danny Lansanah, who plays linebacker for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Dorsey reached out to him during the preseason last August, and Lansanah responded: “Show me what you got.”
“I was just getting started, and I was still learning the tricks of the trade,” Dorsey said. “I was using a paint brush to design the cleats, and I painted a fire design for Danny and sent them to him. When I asked him how he liked them, he said they looked great, but the paint cracked. After that, I switched to an air brush.”
‘The Grinch’ and the D.C. skyline
Gradually, Dorsey’s client base grew. Dorsey met Breeland through social media. After painting Breeland’s cleats, Dorsey designed cleats for Breeland’s teammates and defensive linemen Terrance Knighton, Chris Baker and Ricky-Jean Francois, along with safety DeAngelo Hall.
“It just added a little swag,” Knighton said after Washington lost its playoff game to Green Bay 35-18 last Sunday. “It was cool, man. When guys feel good, they play good. That’s what it’s about.”
Dorsey, 34, also paints cleats for players on the Green Bay Packers and the Houston Texans. Dorsey recently got a new client in Pittsburgh Steelers safety Will Allen. The Steelers lost to the Denver Broncos on Sunday in the NFC Divisional playoff round 23-16.
Dorsey said would love to paint cleats for Eagles players, but so far no one has taken him up on his appeals through social media.
Dorsey has also painted cleats for players in the Canadian Football League and some track athletes.
But Breeland is his most loyal customer. Against the Eagles on Dec. 26, Dorsey painted a small picture of “The Grinch,” a Dr. Seuss character, on the back of one of his cleats. Breeland wore the cleats for the first half, but changed them in the second half when it started to rain.
Washington won that game 38-24 and knocked the Eagles out of playoff contention. Three days later, Eagles coach Chip Kelly was fired.
“As an Eagles fan, that game broke my heart,” Dorsey said. “As a businessman, I was glad to see Bashaud and some of the other guys wearing the cleats I designed and doing well.”
For Washington’s 35-18 playoff loss against Green Bay, Dorsey painted Breeland’s cleats in the team’s colors – burgundy and gold. On the back of one cleat, he painted in three Vince Lombardi trophies in gold, signifying the amount of Super Bowls won by the franchise. On the back of the other, he painted the Washington skyline, also in gold.
“He comes up with his own themes, his own styles and sends them to me,” Breeland said. “If I like it, I wear it. If I don’t, I won’t. But I like it every time. He does great work.”
‘Do your thing’
Dorsey sits at his work table in a back room of the house. He is working on a white shoe belonging to Tate Martell, a quarterback at Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas who’s headed to Texas A&M in the fall. Martell reached out to Dorsey after seeing his work on Instagram.
Dorsey takes out his acrylic paints, blue and orange for the colors of Martell’s school. He fastens his goggles and surgical mask to keep the fumes out of his nose and mouth, and starts painting. First, he paints a circle of orange in four different spots around the shoe. Inside the orange circles, he paints the letter “G” in blue, to signify the school’s insignia. Then he fills in the rest of the shoe with blue.
Along the back heel, however, the shoe is covered in tape. When Dorsey finishes painting the rest of the shoe, he peels off the tape and paints the design. On one cleat, he paints Martell’s No. 18. On the other, he paints the words “Money Martell.” Dorsey said that’s in reference to Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel, who went to Texas A&M. Manziel liked to flash the money sign when he scored.
Martell told him what he wanted Dorsey to paint on the cleats. But Dorsey said typically, the players just send their shoes and he comes up with the design.
“It’s crazy,” Dorsey said. “All they say is ‘Do your thing.’ So that’s what I do.”
But Dorsey does know some of the athletes’ interests. He designed track shoes for Chantae McMillan, a heptathlete who competed in the 2012 Olympics and is trying to make the U.S. team for the Rio games this summer. He knew that McMillan was raised in a military family, so he took her shoes and painted camouflage colors on them.
But mostly, Dorsey just goes with whatever comes to mind, and the athletes typically like it.
“He did a lot of creative stuff all year,” Knighton said. “I just let him freestyle and do what he does. I’m not the artist.”
Nobody, including Dorsey, thought he was an artist, either.
