Shoe Dog (22 page)

Kitami nodded. He asked if someone could please drive him and Iwano to the airport.

I TOLD JOHNSON
to get on a plane. “What plane?” he said. “The
next
plane,” I said.

He arrived the following morning. We went for a run, during which neither of us said anything. Then we drove to the office and gathered everyone into the conference room. There were about thirty people there. I expected to be nervous. They expected me to
be nervous. On any different day, under any other circumstances, I would have been. For some reason, however, I felt weirdly at peace.

I laid out the situation we faced. “We've come, folks, to a crossroads. Yesterday, our main supplier, Onitsuka, cut us off.”

I let that sink in. I watched everyone's jaw drop.

“We've threatened to sue them for damages,” I said, “and of course they've threatened to file a lawsuit of their own. Breach of contract. If they sue us first, in Japan, we'll have no choice but to sue them here in America, and sue fast. We're not going to win a lawsuit in Japan, so we'll have to beat them to the courthouse, get a quick verdict here, to pressure them into withdrawing.

“Meanwhile, until it all sorts out, we're completely on our own. We're set adrift. We have this new line, Nike, which the reps in Chicago seemed to like. But, well, frankly, that's all we've got. And as we know, there are big problems with the quality. It's not what we hoped. Communications with Nippon Rubber are good, and Nissho is there at the factory at least once a week, trying to get it all fixed, but we don't know how soon they can do it. It better be soon, though, because we have no time and suddenly no margin for error.”

I looked down the table. Everyone was sinking, slumping forward. I looked at Johnson. He was staring at the papers before him, and there was something in his handsome face, some quality I'd never seen there before. Surrender. Like everyone else in the room, he was giving up. The nation's economy was in the tank, a recession was under way. Gas lines, political gridlock, rising unemployment, Nixon being Nixon—Vietnam. It seemed like the end times. Everyone in the room had already been worrying about how they were going to make the rent, pay the light bill. Now this.

I cleared my throat. “So . . . in other words,” I said. I cleared my throat again, pushed aside my yellow legal pad. “What I'm trying to say is, we've got them right where we want them.”

Johnson lifted his eyes. Everyone around the table lifted their eyes. They sat up straighter.

“This is—the moment,” I said. “This is the moment we've been waiting for. Our moment. No more selling someone else's brand. No more working for someone else. Onitsuka has been holding us down for years. Their late deliveries, their mixed-up orders, their refusal to hear and implement our design ideas—who among us isn't sick of dealing with all that? It's time we faced facts: If we're going to succeed, or fail, we should do so on our own terms, with our own ideas—our own
brand
. We posted two million in sales last year . . . none of which had anything to do with Onitsuka. That number was a testament to our ingenuity and hard work. Let's not look at this as a crisis. Let's look at this as our liberation. Our Independence Day.

“Yes, it's going to be rough. I won't lie to you. We're definitely going to war, people. But we know the terrain. We know our way around Japan now. And that's one reason I feel in my heart this is a war we can win. And if we win it, when we win it, I see great things for us on the other side of victory. We are still alive, people. We are still. Alive.”

As I stopped speaking I could see a wave of relief swirl around the table like a cool breeze. Everyone felt it. It was as real as the wind that used to swirl around the office next to the Pink Bucket. There were nods, murmurs, nervous chuckles. We spent the next hour brainstorming about how to proceed, how to hire contract factories, how to play them against one another for the best quality and price. And how were we going to fix these new Nikes? Anyone?

We adjourned with a jovial, jittery, elated feeling.

Johnson said he wanted to buy me a cup of coffee. “Your finest hour,” he said.

“Ach,” I said. “Thanks.” But I reminded him: I just told the truth. As he had in Chicago. Telling the truth, I said. Who knew?

JOHNSON WENT BACK
to Wellesley for the time being, and we turned our attention to the Olympic track-and-field trials, which in 1972 were being held, for the first time ever, in our backyard: Eugene. We needed to own those trials, so we sent an advance team down to give shoes to any competitor willing to take them, and we set up a staging area in our store, which was now being ably run by Hollister. As the trials opened we descended on Eugene and set up a silk-screen machine in the back of the store. We cranked out scores of Nike T-shirts, which Penny handed out like Halloween candy.

With all that work, how could we not break through? And, indeed, Dave Davis, a shot-putter from
USC
, dropped by the store the first day to complain that he wasn't getting free stuff from either Adidas or Puma, so he'd gladly take our shoes and wear them. And then he finished fourth. Hooray! Better yet, he didn't just wear our shoes, he waltzed around in one of Penny's T-shirts, his name stenciled on the back. (The trouble was, Dave wasn't the ideal model. He had a bit of a gut. And our T-shirts weren't big enough. Which accentuated his gut. We made a note. Buy smaller athletes, or make bigger shirts.)

We also had a couple of semifinalists wear our spikes, including an employee, Jim Gorman, who competed in the 1,500. I told Gorman he was taking corporate loyalty too far. Our spikes weren't that great. But he insisted that he was in “all the way.” And then in the marathon we had Nike-shod runners finish fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh. None made the team, but still. Not too shabby.

The main event of the trials, of course, would come on the final day, a duel between Prefontaine and the great Olympian George Young. By then Prefontaine was universally known as Pre, and he was far more than a phenom; he was an outright superstar. He was the biggest thing to hit the world of American track and field since Jesse Owens. Sportswriters frequently compared him to James Dean, and Mick Jagger, and
Runner's World
said the most apt comparison might be Muhammad Ali. He was that kind of swaggery, transformative figure.

To my thinking, however, these and all other comparisons fell short. Pre was unlike any athlete this country had ever seen, though it was hard to say exactly why. I'd spent a lot of time studying him, admiring him, puzzling about his appeal. I'd asked myself, time and again, what it was about Pre that triggered such visceral responses from so many people, including myself. I never did come up with a totally satisfactory answer.

It was more than his talent—there were other talented runners. And it was more than his swagger—there were plenty of swaggering runners.

Some said it was his look. Pre was so fluid, so poetic, with that flowing mop of hair. And he had the broadest, deepest chest imaginable, set on slender legs that were all muscle and never stopped churning.

Also, most runners are introverts, but Pre was an obvious, joyous extrovert. It was never simply running for him. He was always putting on a show, always conscious of the spotlight.

Sometimes I thought the secret to Pre's appeal was his passion. He didn't care if he died crossing the finish line, so long as he crossed first. No matter what Bowerman told him, no matter what his body told him, Pre refused to slow down, ease off. He pushed himself to the brink and beyond. This was often a counterproductive strategy, and sometimes it was plainly stupid, and occasionally it was suicidal. But it was always uplifting for the crowd. No matter the sport—no matter the human endeavor, really—total effort will win people's hearts.

Of course, all Oregonians loved Pre because he was “ours.” He was born in our midst, raised in our rainy forests, and we'd cheered him since he was a pup. We'd watched him break the national two-mile record as an eighteen-year-old, and we were with him, step by step, through each glorious
NCAA
championship. Every Oregonian felt emotionally invested in his career.

And at Blue Ribbon, of course, we were preparing to put our money where our emotions were. We understood that Pre couldn't
switch shoes right before the trials. He was used to his Adidas. But in time, we were certain, he'd be a Nike athlete, and perhaps the paradigmatic Nike athlete.

With these thoughts in mind, walking down Agate Street toward Hayward Field, I wasn't surprised to find the place shaking, rocking, trembling with cheers—the Coliseum in Rome could not have been louder when the gladiators and lions were turned loose. We found our seats just in time to see Pre doing his warm-ups. Every move he made caused a new ripple of excitement. Every time he jogged down one side of the oval, or up the other, the fans along his route stood and went wild. Half of them were wearing T-shirts that read:
LEGEND
.

All of a sudden we heard a chorus of deep, guttural boos. Gerry Lindgren, arguably the world's best distance runner at the time, appeared on the track—wearing a T-shirt that read:
STOP
PRE
. Lindgren had beaten Pre when he was a senior and Pre a freshman, and he wanted everyone, especially Pre, to remember. But when Pre saw Lindgren, and saw the shirt, he just shook his head. And grinned. No pressure. Only more incentive.

The runners took their marks. An unearthly silence fell. Then, bang. The starting gun sounded like a Napoléon cannon.

Pre took the lead right away. Young tucked in right behind him. In no time they pulled well ahead of the field and it became a two-man affair. (Lindgren was far behind, a nonfactor.) Each man's strategy was clear. Young meant to stay with Pre until the final lap, then use his superior sprint to go by and win. Pre, meanwhile, intended to set such a fast pace at the outset that by the time they got to that final lap, Young's legs would be gone.

For eleven laps they ran a half stride apart. With the crowd now roaring, frothing, shrieking, the two men entered the final lap. It felt like a boxing match. It felt like a joust. It felt like a bullfight, and we were down to that moment of truth—death hanging in the air. Pre reached down, found another level—we saw him do it. He opened up a yard lead, then two, then five. We saw Young grimacing and we
knew that he could not, would not, catch Pre. I told myself, Don't forget this. Do not forget. I told myself there was much to be learned from such a display of passion, whether you were running a mile or a company.

As they crossed the tape we all looked up at the clock and saw that both men had broken the American record. Pre had broken it by a shade more. But he wasn't done. He spotted someone waving a
STOP
PRE
T-shirt and he went over and snatched it and whipped it in circles above his head, like a scalp. What followed was one of the greatest ovations I've ever heard, and I've spent my life in stadiums.

I'd never witnessed anything quite like that race. And yet I didn't just witness it. I took part in it. Days later I felt sore in my hams and quads. This, I decided,
this
is what sports are, what they can do. Like books, sports give people a sense of having lived other lives, of taking part in other people's victories. And defeats. When sports are at their best, the spirit of the fan merges with the spirit of the athlete, and in that convergence, in that transference, is the oneness that the mystics talk about.

Walking back down Agate Street I knew that race was part of me, would forever be part of me, and I vowed it would also be part of Blue Ribbon. In our coming battles, with Onitsuka, with whomever, we'd be like Pre. We'd compete as if our lives depended on it.

Because they did.

NEXT, WITH SAUCER
eyes, we looked to the Olympics. Not only was our man Bowerman going to be the head coach of the track team, but our homeboy Pre was going to be the star. After his performance at the trials? Who could doubt it?

Certainly not Pre. “Sure there will be a lot of pressure,” he told
Sports Illustrated
. “And a lot of us will be facing more experienced competitors, and maybe we don't have any right to win. But all I know is if I go out and bust my gut until I black out and somebody
still beats me, and if I have made that guy reach down and use everything he has and then more, why then it just proves that on that day he's a better man than I.”

Right before Pre and Bowerman left for Germany, I filed for a patent on Bowerman's waffle shoe. Application no. 284,736 described the “improved sole having integral polygon shaped studs . . . of square, rectangular or triangle cross section . . . [and] a plurality of flat sides which provide gripping edges that give greatly improved traction.”

A proud moment for both of us.

A golden moment of my life.

Sales of Nike were steady, my son was healthy, I was able to pay my mortgage on time. All things considered, I was in a damned fine mood that August.

And then it began. In the second week of the Olympic Games, a squad of eight masked gunmen scaled a back wall of the Olympic village and kidnapped eleven Israeli athletes. In our Tigard office we set up a
TV
and no one did a lick of work. We watched and watched, day after day, saying little, often holding our hands over our mouths. When the terrible denouement came, when the news broke that all the athletes were dead, their bodies strewn on a blood-spattered tarmac at the airport, it recalled the deaths of both Kennedys, and of Dr. King, and of the students at Kent State University, and of all the tens of thousands of boys in Vietnam. Ours was a difficult, death-drenched age, and at least once every day you were forced to ask yourself: What's the point?

When Bowerman returned I drove straight down to Eugene to see him. He looked as though he hadn't slept in a decade. He told me that he and Pre had been within a hair of the attack. In the first minutes, as the terrorists took control of the building, many Israeli athletes were able to flee, slipping out side doors, jumping out windows. One made his way to the next building over, where Bowerman and Pre were staying. Bowerman heard a knock, opened the door of his room, and found this man, a race walker, shivering with fear,
babbling about masked gunmen. Bowerman pulled the man inside and phoned the U.S. consul. “Send the marines!” he shouted into the phone.