I’d like to take a break from Sun City sports and recreational activities this week to ask our readers a question: Who is Phil Knight? And Bill Bowerman? Carolyn Davidson? Jeff Johnson?
They weren’t star athletes, coaches, or athletic leaders. They didn’t participate directly in sports or athletics, but their impact on the world of sport has been enormous for the past 40 years. Their names are not household words. By themselves, most sports enthusiasts probably have no idea who they are, or were.
Here’s a clue: swoosh. Here’s another: running shoes.
Some of you may be with me now. Knight is the co-founder and retired CEO of Nike, the most successful sports marketing company in history. Brad Herzog, sports journalist and author, named him 62nd on a list in his 1995 book, “The 100 Most Important People in American Sports History.”
Knight combined talents as a fanatic sports fan, businessman, and philosopher and co-founded a company that transformed the field of athletic endorsements, changed the way the public views athletics and sports, and spawned a huge nationwide jogging and fitness boom.
A native of Portland, Oregon, Knight was born in 1938 and became a talented middle distance runner at the University of Oregon under legendary track coach Bill Bowerman in the early 1960s. He became the coach’s guinea pig, testing out Bowerman’s homemade track shoes. While studying for his MBA at Stanford Business School, he was asked to write a term paper on starting a small business.
His professor said, “Write about something you know.” Knight knew running shoes. His paper became a $3.7 billion blueprint, according to writer Frank DeFord. Knight’s premise was both highly innovative at the time and later controversial: manufacture high-quality shoes in Asia, where labor was inexpensive, and sell them in the United States at lower prices.
He and Bowerman teamed up to start Blue Ribbon Sports, a firm distributing shoes for a Japanese company. In 1964, they sold $20,000 worth of shoes and made a profit of $3,000. By 1971, BRS sales topped $1 million and changed its name. By then, it was responsible for one in three shoes sold in the U.S. It sold more than 100 million pairs annually in more 100 countries and employed more than 6,500 people. Today, Knight himself is worth $14.4 billion, making him the 47th richest person in the world and the 19th richest in America. He is one of the nation’s foremost philanthropists, giving millions to his high school alma mater, the University of Oregon, and sports-related organizations throughout the world.
The name change is also fascinating. Later in the 1970s, Knight asked Davidson, a graphics student at Portland State University, where Knight taught briefly, to design a logo for his company. For $35, she presented Knight with several options. He reportedly wasn’t impressed, but picked the one he disliked the least. It was described as a “fat checkmark.” Soon afterward, Johnson, a friend of Knight’s and his first full-time employee, suggested they name the company after the Greek goddess of victory. Today, in the public psyche, “swoosh” and Nike are as familiar as Coke, Apple, or General Motors, and most of us know exactly where “just do it” came from.
Initially, Knight offered endorsement contracts to athletes that represented the anti-establishment culture, for publicity purposes. But after Reebok rose up to compete in the 1980s and Nike’s profits fell, he decided to change tactics. Knight began to define his clients as heroes, as offering the very best attributes that the human spirit has to offer. To accomplish this, he teamed up with basketball star Michael Jordan and turned him into an American icon along the way.
Sportswriters described what Jordan did on a basketball court, but Nike told the public who Jordan was. Nike pays Jordan millions annually, and “Air Jordan” shoes sell by the millions all over the world.
Knight re-defined the relationship between business and sports and has made one of the greatest fortunes ever from athletics. Now 74, he retired as Nike’s CEO in 2004.
Swoosh.
