Submitted photo Youngstown State University graduate Sonny Vaccaro, right, talks with actor Matt Damon on the set of "Air," which opens Wednesday nationwide.

Sonny Vaccaro is a gambler, but he never would have bet that one day he would watch Matt Damon play him in a movie.

The 1962 Youngstown State University graduate did just that on Monday when he and his wife, the former Pam Monakee of Boardman, attended the Hollywood premiere of “Air.” Directed by and co-starring Ben Affleck, the movie about Vaccaro’s efforts in 1984 to lure NBA rookie Michael Jordan into an endorsement deal with Nike also features Viola Davis, Jason Bateman and Chris Tucker.

“It was surreal,” said Vaccaro, 83. “Honestly, I sat there with Pam across the aisle from Matt and right behind him is J Lo (Jennifer Lopez), Ben’s wife. They’re icons, and here I am, this kid from Transfer (Pa.). For two hours I just sat there thinking, ‘How the hell did this happen?’ … I believed I would be successful, but this was out of the realm.”

One thing Vaccaro does know — it wouldn’t have happened without the years he spent at YSU.

YSU YEARS

Football was Vaccaro’s sport growing up. He was named one of the top 33 players in the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League in 1956 by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

He was good enough on the field to attract the attention of the University of Kentucky, but his grades weren’t strong enough, so he played a year of junior college football after high school.

That earned him a scholarship to YSU, but it was clear after a couple of weeks of practice that an injury suffered the previous season left him unable to compete.

“I never played a down,” Vaccaro said

After a couple of weeks of practice, YSU football head coach Dike Beede said he couldn’t keep him on scholarship, but added that basketball coach Dom Rosselli wanted to talk to him.

“Dom said, ‘I like your enthusiasm. Do you think you could get some players to come play basketball for me?’ I had nothing to do with basketball, but he liked something about me. It sounds like an imaginary story. No one should believe you when you write this. But that’s what happened.”

While still attending classes and staying on scholarship, Vaccaro began scouting players in Greater Pittsburgh. The first two players he brought to YSU ended up being inducted into its sports hall of fame.

“I never could have graduated if they didn’t keep me on scholarship,” Vaccaro said. “I might not have ended up in the mills like my daddy, but those two guys turned my life around.”

ON TO NIKE

Vaccaro continued coaching and scouting high school basketball talent after graduating from YSU with a degree in physical education.

With Pittsburgh concert promoter Pat DiCesare (of DiCesare-Engler Productions), he started the Dapper Dan Roundball Classic, the first national high school all-star basketball game.

Many future NBA all-stars and Hall of Fame inductees played in the tournament, which was in Pittsburgh from 1965 until 1992 and in other locations until 2007.

Vaccaro’s involvement with basketball and marketing led him to Nike in the late ’70s.

There he developed the strategy of paying college basketball coaches to outfit their teams in Nike shoes and gear. Those contracts have become the norm in college athletics.

‘AIR’ BACKSTORY

The movie “Air” takes place before the start of the 1984 basketball season. Nike was popular brand with joggers at the time, but it was a distant third in the basketball market behind Converse (endorsed by NBA superstars like Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Larry Bird) and Adidas (popularized by rappers such as Run-DMC).

The top two players drafted that year, Akeem Olajuwon and Sam Bowie, already had committed to their competitors, and third pick Michael Jordan wouldn’t even meet with Nike.

Instead of dividing their resources among lesser choices in the draft class, Vaccaro lobbied Nike President Phil Knight to wow Jordan by offering him the entire budget – $250,000.

As the movie shows, even that wasn’t quite enough, and the final contract ultimately revolutionized endorsement deals between athletes and shoe manufacturers and turned Nike into one of the most recognizable brands in the world.

Some of this territory was covered in an ESPN “30 for 30” documentary in 2015 about Vaccaro called “Sole Man.” Alex Covery, who was an intern at the production company that made “Sole Man,” decided to turn part of that story into a screenplay.

‘AIR’ TIME

“This movie, I had no idea until they were a month away to start shooting, and they brought me in to make me a part of it,” Vaccaro said. “I had nothing to do with writing, I had nothing to do with Matt Damon being cast.”

“Matt took me under his wing. We did an hour-and-a-half, two-hour Zoom, we talked on the phone. The young guy who wrote the script drove up and spent three hours with Pammy and I, so they got to know me. Then they invited Pammy and I on the set. We spent six, eight hours there.”

Vaccaro also talked regularly during filming with Jon Weinbach, who was the director of “Sole Man” and a producer on “Air.”

Like every “based on a true story” movie, the makers of “Air” took some liberties with the facts, but Vaccaro said the film is faithful to the spirit of what happened.

In a pivotal early scene, Damon as Vaccaro keeps replaying a video of Jordan’s game-winning shot for North Carolina over Georgetown to win the 1982 NCAA Championship.

In real life, Vaccaro said he didn’t replay a video over and over. He didn’t need to. He was at the game … and rooting for Georgetown because it was a Nike team. But the scene visualized what did happen internally and subconsciously, and it shows the audience why Vaccaro was so determined to sign Jordan.

One thing that’s true in the movie and real life is the confidence and determination of Jordan’s mother, Deloris, played by Davis.

“Michael loved both of his parents, but she fought for her kid from day one,” he said.

VACCARO TODAY

Vaccaro’s story doesn’t end with the events portrayed in “Air.” While he had a falling out with Knight and was fired in 1991, he continued to work in sports and marketing with Adidas and later Reebok.

Now retired and living in Palm Springs, Calif., Vaccaro is part of another sports story worthy of a feature film someday.

He recruited former UCLA star Ed O’Bannon for the class-action lawsuit O’Bannon vs. NCAA, a 2015 case that was a precursor to the decisions that now allow college athletes to be paid for their name, image and likeness.

“It was great. It was the win we envisioned and prayed for,” Vaccaro said.

But he also believes changes are needed for the system to work the way it should. A nonbiased commission needs to establish a policy that applies to all 50 states instead of each state drafting its own rules and regulations, he said.

Vaccaro and his wife, who was an actor who appeared in nearly 200 commercials between 1984 and 1992, haven’t been back to Youngstown for about five or six years, but it remains in their hearts.

“There’s a deep affinity from me and from her,” Vaccaro said. “I am a Penguin, and I’ve got my shirt on right now. And the reason I am is because Dike Beede and Dom Rosselli threw me a lifeline in 1958. … My life is weird, but it’s been beautiful.”

agray@tribtoday.com