Know your worth, have confidence, never settle.
The slogan is simple. But for Cal Poly Men’s Basketball alumni Donovan Fields and Victor Joseph, the message embodies everything from their journeys in life to the sport of basketball. That is why Fields and Joseph have harnessed the importance of self-worth into a new clothing brand, Price Is Up, which officially launched September 8.
“Price Is Up just means you know your worth,” Fields said. “You know how much work you’ve put into whatever craft you’re doing and you know what your body at work is worth.”
While their brand is no more than a month old, Fields and Joseph said the concept has been in the works since last season’s match against Cal State Northridge on January 12. In the game, Fields dropped a career-high 30-point performance and became the 24th Mustang in program history to surpass the 1,000-point mark.
After Fields’ historic match, the player tweeted #PriceIsUp in reference to the price he would potentially accept if offered a professional contract. The two began working on the brand shortly after.
=“When we first started, we wanted to tailor it towards sports in general,” Fields said. “But once we started getting deeper into it, it was like ‘Man, you can apply this to anything.’”
And while the importance of self-worth is certainly universal, Fields and Joseph have found it to be most helpful in the place they spend most of their time: the basketball court.
“We wanted to be Division I basketball players out of high school, but at that time, stuff didn’t work out in our favor,” Fields said. “[…] We’ve had people tell us we’re not big enough or not good enough.”
However, the two junior college transfers refused to let their Division I dreams fade. As a sophomore at Chaffey College, Joseph became a two-time All-Foothill Conference selection and led the league with 21.3 points per game. At Odessa College in Texas, Fields amassed a 44.3 success rate from three-point range and an impressive 88.5 percent from the free-throw line.
“We knew that we were Division I basketball players,” Fields said. “After we handled both parts of having confidence in ourselves and knowing what we’re worth, we just never settled until we got our goal.”
That goal was received in the form of official offers from the Division I Cal Poly Men’s Basketball program. The two players made a significant impact to the program in the ensuing years before both graduated in Spring 2019. Fields, who etched his name into numerous Cal Poly record books, became the only player in program history to reach 1,000 points, 300 assists and 100 steals. In his junior year, Joseph appeared in all 31 games, scored in double figures on 18 occasions and led the team in points per game.
For now, Fields and Joseph said basketball is always going to be their main passion. However, they also said it has been an exciting experience to see their ideas manifest in the real world.
“We’ve been doing pretty well with sales,” Fields said. “We understand we’re just now launching and it’s just the beginning, so any type of support that we get, we’re grateful for.”
And while the two athletes said they expect ups and downs with any business, the duo plans to stay consistent in their objective to release quality products.
“We know that our brand really means something,” Joseph said. “It’s not something that’s going to fade away after a year or two — […] even when the bad days come, just keep pushing it and everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.”