Bearcat alums become Tiger’s footwear designers

That’s because Hudak, a 2011 graduate of the University of Cincinnati’s School of Design, is the creative shoe designer for Tiger Woods’ new line of golf apparel and equipment called Sun Day Red (an arm of TaylorMade Golf) which officially launched May 1.

While Woods has been sporting the Sun Day Red shoes and apparel — which features  a leaping tiger logo — at various golf tournaments, Hudak has been behind the scenes leaping (for joy) himself. 

“I have to pinch myself every day when I wake up,” the shoe designer says of meeting with Tiger Woods several times a year. “Tiger is very involved in the process, down to the shoelaces."  

Before this, Hudak’s career path took him from studying design in UC’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP), to leaving his footwear imprint at athletic companies such as Puma, GREATS, DC Shoes, AND 1 and FootJoy.  

In 2023 he joined TaylorMade and embarked on a yearlong process to get Sun Day Red to the market. 

It was pretty much a startup, “with all boots on the ground,” where he oversaw not only the creative process but sourcing materials, suppliers and manufacturing, he says.  

A Pennsylvania native, Hudak first attended Miami University in Ohio to pursue a liberal arts degree, but his teenage love of athletic shoes — known as being a “sneakerhead” — led him in the direction of footwear design and a transfer to UC.   

While the undergraduate classes and design studios at DAAP are the bedrock of earning a design degree, Hudak says that real-world experiences are the building blocks to success.

“I didn’t have anyone to show me what existed out in the world when I was young,” he says.

To encourage early learning experiences, Hudak’s senior thesis/capstone project for his design degree was a program called “Tread,” that teaches athletic shoe design to middle and high schoolers. 

Hudak launched the program at Cincinnati’s Robert A. Taft Information Technology High School with major athletic shoe brands.

That same year, in 2011, the college established DAAPcamps — a summer program that attracts middle school and high school students from across the country who are interested in various DAAP degrees — and Hudak volunteered with the camp that summer. Once he established himself in the footwear industry, he returned to lead DAAP’s footwear design camp each summer and he still does so today.

“It was obvious from that first year that he had a gift for working with youth and instilling a passion for design in a subject they knew and loved — sneakers,” says Laurie Wilson, adjunct professor and DAAPcamps director.

At every place of employment, Hudak says he has implemented a co-op program and employed UC students. That step, he says, stems from his own co-op education, which at the time was far more limited than the robust athletic partnerships DAAP currently has with the industry. Hudak says that back in the day, he traveled on his own accord to athletic brands across the country looking for an internship. 

“Every time I did that, I came across somebody from UC working there,” he says of the school’s reputation for graduating leaders in the footwear industry then and now.   

He says he plans to implement a co-op at Sun Day Red as well. 

“Shoe designers are industrial designers,” says professor Wilson, “and Charley Hudak is an inspiration and a gifted motivator and educator.

"We are fortunate to call him DAAP’s own," she adds.