Before reviving a Detroit HBCU, D’Wayne Edwards was one of the top designers at Nike. Now he’s using his NBA connections to help forge the future.
The school is not just another college reopening with a new name. Pensole Lewis College is attempting to become something different in Detroit: an HBCU built around footwear, product design, brand storytelling and direct access to the companies that shape sneaker culture.
That mission starts with Edwards, a prolific shoe designer whose journey was recently profiled by The Athletic. Before he became one of the most influential Black designers in footwear history, Edwards was a 19-year-old file clerk at LA Gear. He had no college degree, no formal design training and no obvious path into the industry. So he sketched sneakers on 3-by-5 notecards and dropped them into the company suggestion box until he got noticed.
Decades later, Edwards’ work has touched LA Gear, Skechers, MVP Footwear, Nike and Jordan Brand. At Jordan, he helped design products connected to Michael Jordan, Derek Jeter, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Carmelo Anthony.
Now his biggest design project may be the school itself.
A Detroit HBCU with a sneaker-industry mission
Pensole Lewis College sits on the foundation of Lewis College of Business, an institution founded in 1928 in Indianapolis to train Black women for secretarial work. A Detroit branch opened in 1938 and eventually became the larger campus. Lewis College became an HBCU in 1987, lost accreditation two decades later and closed in 2015.
Edwards revived it as Pensole Lewis College after learning about the shuttered school from Allen Largin, one of his former students. The idea was bold: bring back Detroit’s HBCU and turn it into a design pipeline for an industry built heavily on Black culture.
Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert’s foundation helped fuel the relaunch with a $10 million investment. Gilbert, a Detroit resident and co-founder of StockX, told The Athletic that sneakers represent “creativity, storytelling and self-expression.”
Pensole Lewis College describes itself as “not a traditional education institution.” Many students take four-week, industry-certified master classes. In August 2025, the school launched its first degree program with 13 students.
Tuition and housing are covered by PLC’s brand partners. The school had 200 students in 2025, with Edwards hoping to eventually reach 500 to 550 in-person students and far more online.
From Jordan Brand to Black design access
Edwards’ move into education began during his time at Jordan Brand. His work with Carmelo Anthony helped him see that athletes could be students of design, not just endorsers of shoes.
Anthony wanted to know the “why” behind his sneakers. That curiosity helped Edwards think bigger about teaching.
He later launched Future Sole, a Nike-backed design competition for young creatives. The response exploded from 800 submissions to hundreds of thousands. In 2010, Edwards opened Pensole design academy in Portland. A year later, he left Nike to focus on education.
Since 2011, Pensole has placed more than 800 graduates in the footwear industry, including at Nike, Prada and Timberland.
At PLC, students have worked with Nike, MillerKnoll, Logitech, PepsiCo and Target. They have also worked with the NBA to design portions of the HBCU Classic court during NBA All-Star Weekend.
For Edwards, the point is bigger than sneakers. Black athletes and consumers have long powered sneaker culture. Pensole Lewis College is trying to make sure Black designers help shape its future, too.