Shoe Dog (23 page)

They did. Marines quickly secured the building where Bowerman and the U.S. team were staying.

For this “overreaction,” Bowerman was severely reprimanded by Olympic officials. He'd exceeded his authority, they said. In the heat of the crisis they made time to summon Bowerman to their headquarters. Thank goodness Jesse Owens, the hero of the last German Olympics, the man who “beat” Hitler, went with Bowerman and voiced his support for Bowerman's actions. That forced the bureaucrats to back off.

Bowerman and I sat and stared at the river for a long while, saying little. Then, his voice scratchy, Bowerman told me that those 1972 Olympics marked the low point of his life. I'd never heard him say a thing like that, and I'd never seen him look like that. Defeated.

I couldn't believe it.

The cowards never started and the weak died along the way—that leaves us.

Soon after that day Bowerman announced that he was retiring from coaching.

A GRIM TIME.
Skies were grayer than usual, and low. There was no fall. We just woke up and winter was upon us. The trees went overnight from full to bare. Rain fell without stop.

At last, a needed boon. We got word that a few hours north, in Seattle, at the Rainier International Classic, a fiery Romanian tennis player was destroying every opponent in his path, and doing it in a brand-new pair of Nike Match Points. The Romanian was Ilie Nastase, aka “Nasty,” and every time he hit his patented overhead smash,
every time he went up on his toes and stroked another unreturnable serve, the world was seeing our swoosh.

We'd known for some time that athlete endorsements were important. If we were going to compete with Adidas—not to mention Puma and Gola, and Diadora and Head, and Wilson and Spalding, and Karhu and Etonic and New Balance and all the other brands popping up in the 1970s—we'd need top athletes wearing and talking up our brand. But we still didn't have money to pay top athletes. (We had less money than ever before.) Nor did we know the first thing about getting to them, persuading them that our shoe was good, that it would soon be better, that they should endorse us at a discounted price. Now here was a top athlete
already
wearing Nike, and winning in it. How hard could it be to sign him?

I found the number for Nastase's agent. I phoned and offered him a deal. I said I'd give him $5,000—I gagged as I said it—if his boy would wear our stuff. He countered with $15,000. How I
hated
negotiating.

We settled on $10,000. I felt that I was being robbed.

Nastase was playing a tourney that weekend in Omaha, the agent said. He suggested I fly out with the papers.

I met Nasty and his wife, Dominique, a stunning woman, that Friday night, at a steakhouse in downtown Omaha. After I got him to sign on the dotted line, after I locked the papers in my briefcase, we ordered a celebratory dinner. A bottle of wine, another bottle of wine. At some point, for some reason, I started speaking with a Romanian accent, and for some reason Nasty started calling
me
Nasty, and for no reason I could think of his supermodel wife started making goo-goo eyes at everyone, including me, and by night's end, stumbling up to my room, I felt like a tennis champion, and a tycoon, and a kingmaker. I lay in bed and stared at the contract. Ten thousand dollars, I said aloud. Ten. Thousand. Dollars.

It was a fortune. But Nike had a celebrity athlete endorser.

I closed my eyes, to stop the room from spinning. Then I opened them, because I didn't want the room to stop spinning.

Take that, Kitami, I said to the ceiling, to all of Omaha. Take
that
.

BACK THEN, THE
historic football rivalry between my University of Oregon Ducks and the dreaded Oregon State Beavers was lopsided, at best. My Ducks usually lost. And they usually lost by a lot. And they often lost with a lot on the line. Example: In 1957, with the two teams vying for the conference crown, Oregon's Jim Shanley was going in for the winning touchdown when he fumbled on the one-yard line. Oregon lost 10–7.

In 1972, my Ducks had lost to the Beavers eight straight times, sending me, eight straight times, into a sour funk. But now, in this topsy-turvy year, my Ducks were going to wear Nikes. Hollister had persuaded Oregon's head coach, Dick Enright, to don our new waffle-soled shoes for the Big Game, the Civil War.

The setting was their place, down in Corvallis. Scattered rain had been falling all morning, and it was coming down in sheets by game time. Penny and I stood in the stands, shivering inside our sopping ponchos, peering into the raindrops as the opening kickoff spun into the air. On the first play from scrimmage, Oregon's burly quarterback, a sharpshooter named Dan Fouts, handed the ball to Donny Reynolds, who made one cut on his Nike waffles and . . .
took it to the house
. Ducks 7, Nike 7, Beavers 0.

Fouts, closing out a brilliant college career, was out of his mind that night. He passed for three hundred yards, including a sixty-­yard touchdown bomb that landed like a feather in his receiver's hands. The rout was soon on. At the final gun
my
Ducks were on top of the Bucktooths, 30–3. I always called them
my
Ducks, but now they really were. They were in my shoes. Every step they took, every cut they made, was partly mine. It's one thing to watch
a sporting event and put yourself in the players' shoes. Every fan does that. It's another thing when the athletes are actually in your shoes.

I laughed as we walked to the car. I laughed like a maniac. I laughed all the way back to Portland. This, I kept telling Penny,
this
is how 1972 needed to end. With a victory. Any victory would have been healing, but this, oh boy—this.

1973

L
ike his coach, Pre just wasn't himself after the 1972 Olympics. He was haunted and enraged by the terrorist attacks. And by his performance. He felt he'd let everyone down. He'd finished fourth.

No shame in being the world's fourth-best at your distance, we told him. But Pre knew he was better than that. And he knew he'd have done better if he hadn't been so stubborn. He showed no patience, no guile. He could have slipped behind the front runner, coasted in his wake, stolen silver. That, however, would have gone against Pre's religion. So he'd run all out, as always, holding nothing back, and in the final hundred yards he tired. Worse, the man he considered his archrival, Lasse Viren, of Finland, once more took the gold.

We tried to lift Pre's spirits. We assured him that Oregon still loved him. City officials in Eugene were even planning to name a street after him. “Great,” Pre said, “what're they gonna call it—
Fourth
Street?” He locked himself in his metal trailer on the banks of the Willamette and he didn't come out for weeks.

In time, after pacing a lot, after playing with his German shepherd puppy, Lobo, and after large quantities of cold beer, Pre emerged. One day I heard that he'd been seen again around town, at dawn, doing his daily ten miles, Lobo trotting at his heels.

It took a full six months, but the fire in Pre's belly came back. In his final races for Oregon he shone. He won the
NCAA
three-mile for a fourth straight year, posting a gaudy 13:05.3. He also went to
Scandinavia and crushed the field in the 5,000, setting an American record: 13:22.4. Better yet, he did it in Nikes. Bowerman finally had him wearing our shoes. (Months into his retirement, Bowerman was still coaching Pre, still polishing the final designs for the waffle shoe, which was about to go on sale to the general public. He'd never been busier.) And our shoes were finally worthy of Pre. It was a perfect symbiotic match. He was generating thousands of dollars of publicity, making our brand a symbol of rebellion and iconoclasm—and we were helping his recovery.

Pre began to talk warily with Bowerman about the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. He told Bowerman, and a few close friends, that he wanted redemption. He was determined to capture that gold medal that eluded him in Munich.

Several scary stumbling blocks stood in his path, however. Vietnam, for one. Pre, whose life, like mine, like everyone's, was governed by numbers, drew a horrible number in the draft lottery. He was going to be drafted, there was little doubt, as soon as he graduated. In a year's time he'd be sitting in some fetid jungle, taking heavy machine-gun fire. He might have his legs, his godlike legs, blown out from under him.

Also, there was Bowerman. Pre and the coach were clashing constantly, two headstrong guys with different ideas about training methods and running styles. Bowerman took the long view: a distance runner peaks in his late twenties. He therefore wanted Pre to rest, preserve himself for certain select races. Save something, Bowerman kept pleading. But of course Pre refused. I'm all-out, all the time, he said. In their relationship I saw a mirror of my relationship with banks. Pre didn't see the sense in going slow—ever. Go fast or die. I couldn't fault him. I was on his side. Even against our coach.

Above all, however, Pre was broke. The know-nothings and oligarchs who governed American amateur athletics at that time decreed that Olympic athletes couldn't collect endorsement money, or government money, which meant our finest runners and swimmers
and boxers were reduced to paupers. To stay alive Pre sometimes tended bar in Eugene, and sometimes he ran in Europe, taking illicit cash from race promoters. Of course those extra races were starting to cause issues. His body—in particular his back—was breaking down.

At Blue Ribbon we worried about Pre. We talked about him often, formally and informally, around the office. Eventually we came up with a plan. To keep him from injuring himself, to avoid the shame of him going around with a begging bowl, we hired him. In 1973 we gave him a “job,” a modest salary of five thousand dollars a year, and access to a beach condo Cale owned in Los Angeles. We also gave him a business card that said
National Director of Public Affairs
. People often narrowed their eyes and asked me what that meant. I narrowed my eyes right back. “It means he can run fast,” I said.

It also meant he was our second celebrity athlete endorser.

The first thing Pre did with his windfall was go out and buy himself a butterscotch
MG
. He drove it everywhere—fast. It looked like my old
MG
. I remember feeling enormously, vicariously proud. I remember thinking: We bought that. I remember thinking Pre was the living, breathing embodiment of what we were trying to create. Whenever people saw Pre going at his breakneck pace—on a track, in his
MG
—I wanted them to see Nike. And when they bought a pair of Nikes, I wanted them to see Pre.

I felt this strongly about Pre even though I'd only had a few conversations with the man. And you could hardly call them conversations. Whenever I saw him at a track, or around the Blue Ribbon offices, I became mute. I tried to con myself; more than once I told myself that Pre was just a kid from Coos Bay, a short, shaggy-haired jock with a porn star mustache. But I knew better. And a few minutes in his presence would prove it. A few minutes was all I could take.

The world's most famous Oregonian at the time was Ken Kesey, whose blockbuster novel,
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
, appeared in 1962, the exact moment I left on my trip around the world. I knew
Kesey at the University of Oregon. He wrestled, and I ran track, and on rainy days we'd do indoor workouts at the same facility. When his first novel came out I was stunned by how good it was, especially since the plays he'd written in school had been dreck. Suddenly he was a literary lion, the toast of New York, and yet I never felt starstruck in his presence, as I did in Pre's. In 1973 I decided that Pre was every bit the artist that Kesey was, and more. Pre said as much himself. “A race is a work of art,” he told a reporter, “that people can look at and be affected in as many ways as they're capable of understanding.”

Each time Pre came into the office, I noted, I wasn't alone in my swooning. Everyone became mute. Everyone became shy. Men, women, it didn't matter, everyone turned into Buck Knight. Even Penny Knight. If I was the first to make Penny care about track and field, Pre was the one who made her a real fan.

Hollister was the exception to this rule. He and Pre had an easy way around each other. They were like brothers. I never once saw Hollister act any differently with Pre than he did with, say, me. So it made sense to have Hollister, the Pre Whisperer, bring Pre in, help us get to know him, and vice versa. We arranged a lunch in the conference room.

When the day came, it wasn't wise, but it was typical of Woodell and me—we chose
that
moment to tell Hollister that we were tweaking his duties. In fact, we told him the second his butt hit the chair in the conference room. The change would affect how he got paid. Not how much, just how. Before we could fully explain, he threw down his napkin and stormed out. Now we had nobody to help us break the ice with Pre. We all stared silently into our sandwiches.

Pre spoke first. “Is Geoff coming back?”

“I don't think so,” I said.

Long pause.

“In that case,” Pre said, “can I eat his sandwich?”

We all laughed, and Pre seemed suddenly mortal, and the luncheon ultimately proved invaluable.

Shortly after that day, we soothed Hollister, and tweaked his duties again. From now on, we said, you're Pre's full-time liaison. You're in charge of handling Pre, taking Pre out on the road, introducing Pre to the fans. In fact, we told Hollister, take the boy on a cross-country tour. Hit all the track meets, state fairs, high schools, and colleges you can. Go everywhere, and nowhere. Do everything, and nothing.

Sometimes Pre would conduct a running clinic, answering questions about training and injuries. Sometimes he'd just sign autographs and pose for photos. No matter what he did, no matter where Hollister took him, worshipful crowds would appear around their bright blue Volkswagen bus.

Though Pre's job title was intentionally imprecise, his role was real, and his belief in Nike was authentic as well. He wore Nike T-shirts everywhere he went, and he allowed his foot to be ­Bowerman's last for all shoe experiments. Pre preached Nike as gospel, and brought thousands of new people into our revival tent. He urged everyone to give this groovy new brand a try—even his competitors. He'd often send a pair of Nike flats or spikes to a fellow runner with a note: Try these. You'll love them.

Among those most inspired by Pre was Johnson. While continuing to build up our East Coast operation, Johnson had spent much of 1972 slaving on something that he christened the Pre Montreal, a shoe that would be an homage to Pre, and to the upcoming Olympics, and to the American Bicentennial. With a blue suede toe, a red nylon back, and a white swoosh, it was our jazziest shoe yet, and also our best spike. We knew that we were going to live or die based on quality, and thus far our quality on spikes had been spotty. Johnson was going to fix that with this design.

But he was going to do it in Oregon, I decided, not Boston.

I'd been giving a lot of thought to Johnson, for months. He was
turning into a truly fine designer, and we needed to take full advantage of his talent. The East Coast was running smoothly, but it now involved too much administration for him. The whole thing needed reorganizing, streamlining, and that wasn't the best use of Johnson's time or creativity. That was a job tailor-made for someone like . . . Woodell.

Night after night, during my six-mile run, I'd wrestle with this situation. I had two guys in the wrong jobs, on the wrong coasts, and neither one was going to like the obvious solution. Each guy loved where he lived. And each irritated the other, though they both denied it. When I'd promoted Woodell to operations manager, I'd also bequeathed him Johnson. I'd put him in charge of overseeing Johnson, answering Johnson's letters, and Woodell made the mistake of reading them thoroughly and trying to keep up. Consequently the two had developed a chippy, deeply sarcastic rapport.

For instance. Woodell wheeled into my office one day and said, “This is depressing. Jeff complains
constantly
about inventory, expense reimbursements, lack of communications. He says he's working his butt off while we're lolling around. He doesn't listen to any reason, including that our sales are doubling every year.”

Woodell told me he wanted to take a different approach to Johnson.

By all means, I said. Have at it.

So he wrote Johnson a long letter “admitting” that we'd all been colluding against him, trying to make him unhappy. He wrote, “I'm sure you realize we don't work quite as hard out here as you do; with only three hours in the working day it is hard to get everything done. Still, I make time to place you in all sorts of embarrassing situations with customers and the business community. Whenever you need money desperately to pay bills, I send only a tiny fraction of what you need so that you'll have to deal with bill collectors and lawsuits. I take the destruction of your reputation as a personal compliment.”

And so on.

Johnson answered back: “Finally someone out there understands me.”

What I was getting ready to propose wasn't going to help.

I approached Johnson first. I chose my moment carefully—a trip we made to Japan, to visit Nippon Rubber and discuss the Pre Montreal. Over dinner I laid it all out for him. We were in a ferocious battle, a siege. Day by day, we were doing everything we could to keep the troops fed and the enemy at bay. For the sake of victory, for the sake of survival, everything else needed to be sacrificed, subordinated. “And so, at this crucial moment in the evolution of Blue Ribbon, in the rollout of Nike . . . I'm sorry, but, well . . . you two dummies need to switch cities.”

He groaned. Of course. It was Santa Monica all over again.

But slowly, agonizingly, he came around.

As did Woodell.

Around the close of 1972 each man handed his house keys to the other, and now in early 1973 they switched places. Talk about team players. It was an enormous sacrifice, and I was deeply grateful. But in keeping with my personality, and Blue Ribbon tradition, I expressed no gratitude. I spoke not a word of thanks or praise. In fact, in several office memos I referred to the switch as “Operation Dummy Reversal.”

IN THE LATE
spring of 1973 I met with our recent investors, the debenture holders, for a second time. The first time they'd loved me. How could they not? Sales were booming, celebrity athletes were promoting our shoes. Sure, we'd lost Onitsuka, and we were facing a legal fight down the road, but we were on the right track.

This time, however, it was my duty to inform the investors that, one year after launching Nike, for the first time in Blue Ribbon history . . . we'd lost money.

The meeting took place at the Valley River Inn in Eugene. It was
thirty men and women crammed into the conference room, with me at the head of a long conference table. I wore a dark suit and tried to project an air of confidence as I delivered the bad news. I gave them the same speech I'd given Blue Ribbon employees a year before.
We've got them right where we want them.
But this group wasn't buying any pep talks. These were widows and widowers, retirees and pensioners. Also, the previous year I'd been flanked by Jaqua and Bowerman; this year both men were busy.

I was alone.

Half an hour into my pitch, with thirty horrified faces staring at me, I suggested we break for lunch. The previous year I'd handed out Blue Ribbon's financial statements before lunch. This year I decided to wait until after. It didn't help. Even on a full stomach,
with
a chocolate chip cookie, the numbers looked bad. Despite $3.2 million in sales, we showed a net loss of $57,000.