Shoe Dog

“Driving to my hotel, however, I saw only darkness. Vast sections of the city were total liquid black. ‘War,’ the cabdriver said.”

The fact that the United States bombed much of Japan in World War II provides a subtext to nearly all of Knight’s earliest business interactions in Japan.

“I found everything about it interesting. Even musical. Each time a shoe was molded, the metal last would fall to the floor with a silvery tinkle, a melodic CLING-clong.”

Knight describes his first visit to Onitsuka, the first shoe factory he ever sees, as magical and eye-opening. This foreshadows the many shoe factories he will visit throughout his later career.

“You ask, What is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory.”

When Knight visits London during his trip around the world, he recalls these words spoken by Winston Churchill. This ethos defines Knight’s approach to both business and life and leads to the establishment of The Desire for Victory as Nike’s Binding Spirit.

“‘Buck,’ he said, ‘how long do you think you’re going to keep jackassing around with these shoes?’”

Knight’s father is originally skeptical and disapproving of Knight’s plan to sell Japanese shoes in the American market, as is evident from the above quote. It is only after years of hard work that Knight’s father begins to approve of Knight’s work with Blue Ribbon.

“Not even the Yahweh of running, Bowerman, was as pious about the sport as Blue Ribbon’s Part-time Employee Number Two.”

Though Knight is at first made uncomfortable by Johnson’s extreme enthusiasm for running, this enthusiasm later provides Blue Ribbon an invaluable foundation that Knight could never have laid by himself. Many of the figures in Knight’s memoir display a love of shoes and sports that borders on obsession; these “shoe dogs” give the memoir its name and, Knight implies, contribute heavily to Nike’s success.

“By 1965 he drank as much as he ate, which is saying a lot. And he refused to drink alone.”

In Chapter 4, Knight paints his future employee Hayes as a man of large appetites. While out drinking with Hayes, Knight also gleans valuable business lessons.

“Who was that guy who kicked the shit out of the Aztecs?”

After their original idea for a shoe name—The Aztec—is copyrighted by Adidas in the leadup to the 1976 Olympics in Mexico City, Bowerman comes up with a new shoe name: the Cortez. The shoes are an enormous success, and their name—insensitive by contemporary standards—signals a ruthless commitment to success: Cortez was a conquistador who was instrumental in the early colonization of the Americas.

“Call me Penny.”

Knight meets his future wife, Penelope Parks, while teaching at Portland State University. During their first few dates, she indicates a deepening level of comfort by asking Knight to call her Penny.

“Watakushi domo no kaisha ni tsuite no joh hou des. Here is some information about my company.”

Knight begins picking up the Japanese language during his frequent visits to the country. Such familiarity allows him to make dynamic connections with men like Fujimoto.

“Don’t you dare feel sorry for me. I’m here to kill you.” 

As Knight and Woodell search for new office space around Portland, Knight often maneuvers Woodell, who uses a wheelchair, up and down flights of stairs. Although Knight often worries about causing an accident, Woodell always maintains his composure and his competitive attitude, as evidenced by the above quote. This makes him a good fit in a company that prioritizes perseverance and victory.

“If you can’t trust the company your son is working for, then who can you trust?”

Woodell’s parents loan Knight thousands of dollars when Blue Ribbon runs into early trouble. When Knight asks Woodell’s mother why she is helping, she gives him the above response. At the end of the book, Knight enjoys imagining Woodell telling his parents that their early investment made them millionaires. The trust Woodell’s mother shows in Knight contributes to his commitment to Telling the Truth as a Successful Business Strategy.

“Onitsuka Co. Ltd. will buy controlling interest in Blue Ribbon, fifty-one percent. It is best deal for your company. And you. You would be wise to accept.”

At the end of Kitami’s travels around the United States looking for alternative distributors, he finally makes his intentions clear to Knight: Onitsuka wants to buy a controlling stake in Blue Ribbon. Knight refuses Kitami’s offer. Though doing so may not be “wise,” it pays off, underscoring the theme of Breaking Rules in Order to Succeed.

“Reluctantly, I punched out the message. Name of new brand is…A lot of things were rolling around in my head, consciously, unconsciously.”

Far from being a moment of inspiration and confidence, the moment Knight anoints his company as Nike is filled with uncertainty and hesitation.

“Thomas Jefferson was toiling to write the Declaration of Independence, you see, struggling to find the words, when little Matt History brought him a new quill pen and the words seemed to magically flow…”

Though Knight struggles to connect with his sons, one of the ways he consistently spends time with them is by reading them historical stories and inserting them as characters into the action.

“But as the judge wound down his tirade, I thought I detected the tiniest twinkle in his eye.”

Many things go wrong for team Blue Ribbon in their fight against Onitsuka, but even while being yelled at by the judge, Knight glimpses hope that things might turn in their favor. The judge would later rule in Blue Ribbon’s favor.

“And then came that fateful rainy day. A Wednesday afternoon. The spring of 1975. Hayes and I found ourselves staring into the abyss. We owed Nissho $1 million, our first-ever million-dollar payment, and, hello, we didn’t have $1 million lying around.”

One of Knight’s greatest challenges comes when his creditor demands a payment of $1 million. Trying to make such a payment sparks a chain reaction of financial consequences throughout Nike, but Knight’s commitment to honoring his debt to Nissho earns him the latter’s trust.

“‘So then,’ Ito said, ‘you hide invoices because…you…like these men?’”

Sumeragi, one of the men associated with Nissho, takes on considerable liabilities in an attempt to help Nike survive. It turns out that he does so for largely personal reasons, as Ito suggests above.

“He was wearing…Tigers.”

After an enormously successful Olympic trial in Eugene, in which many athletes who qualified for the Olympics wore Nikes, Knight is given no advance notice that one of these athletes is going to switch shoes at the last moment. What’s worse, the athlete, Shorter, has switched to the shoes of Knight’s rival.

“Still covered with sweat, I ran straight up to Strasser and told him: ‘I think we might have something here.’”

Although he is originally skeptical of the idea, Knight winds up trying M. Frank Rudy’s innovative air sole designs himself and finds potential in them. The air-infused shoe later becomes a hallmark Nike product, highlighting the benefits of risk-taking and thinking outside the box.

“So I’d erupt—at the telephone. Instead of hanging up, I’d slam the receiver down, then slam it down again, harder and harder, until it shattered.”

The relentless pressure of leading a startup to success gets to Knight. He finally quits bashing his phone when a repairman castigates him for his immaturity.

“I intercepted him in the halls and called him out. ‘You need to wear a coat and tie!’ I said. ‘We’re not a coat-and-tie company!’ he shot back.”

In a humorous anecdote, Knight and Strasser argue over what kind of company culture Nike should cultivate. As the argument escalates, Strasser and others show up to work in increasingly gaudy outfits. Strasser’s remark that Nike isn’t a “coat-and-tie company” has both literal and symbolic resonance; it is in line with what Nike produces—shoes and athletic wear—but it also reflects its maverick corporate culture.

“What creature did he remind me of? Not a worm. No, he was bigger than that. Not a snake. He was less simple than that. Then I had it. Johnson’s pet octopus.”

Knight refers to one of his bureaucratic enemies as the “bureau-kraken,” named after an octopus Johnson owned while living alone in California.

“If I live to be two hundred years old, I won’t forget the sight of those leviathans walking up and down the train car in their T-shirts and BVDs.”

During an uncomfortably hot 19-hour train ride to Shanghai, Hayes and Strasser, both of whom are large men, imitate the Chinese passengers by stripping down to their underwear to combat the heat.