Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE

by Phil Knight

I told myself: Life is growth. You grow or you die.

I agree.

Cut to Penny, hair disheveled, dress smeared with grease, pulling up to Bowerman’s house. As she stumbled out of the car I thought for a moment that Kitami had attacked her, but she took me aside and explained that they’d had a flat. “That son of a bitch,” she whispered, “stayed in the car—on the highway—and let me fix the tire all by myself!”

Lol!

He’d never been much of a drinker, and he’d certainly never tasted a mai tai before, and we all watched in dread and dismay as the drinks took effect. And then some. Something about that tangy combination of curaçao and lime juice, pineapple and rum, hit Bowerman right on the screws. After two mai tais he was a different person. As he tried to fix his third mai tai he bellowed, “We’re out of ice!” No one answered. So he answered himself. “No problem.” He marched out to the garage, to the large meat freezer, and grabbed a bag of frozen blueberries. He tore it open, scattering blueberries everywhere. He then tossed a huge handful of frozen blueberries into his drink. “Tastes better this way,” he announced, returning to the living room. Now he walked around the room, slopping handfuls of frozen blueberries into everyone’s glass. Sitting,

Hahahahaa this part cracked me up!

“There is . . . one more suggestion,” Woodell said. “From who?” “Johnson phoned first thing this morning,” he said. “Apparently a new name came to him in a dream last night.” I rolled my eyes. “A dream?” “He’s serious,” Woodell said. “He’s always serious.” “He says he sat bolt upright in bed in the middle of the night and saw the name before him,” Woodell said. “What is it?” I asked, bracing myself. “Nike.” “Huh?” “Nike.” “Spell it.” “N-I-K-E,” Woodell said. I wrote it on a yellow legal pad. The Greek goddess of victory. The Acropolis. The Parthenon. The Temple. I thought back. Briefly. Fleetingly. “We’re out of time,” I said. “Nike. Falcon. Or Dimension Six.” “Everyone hates Dimension Six.” “Everyone but me.” He frowned. “It’s your call.”

I was waiting for this moment! Just to know how the name NIKE came about...a revelation. Lol it was like a suspense.

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.

Eloquently Put. A fan's emotions.

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.

Love this!