![]() ![]() ![]() So begins the story of how the multibillion-dollar Nike empire was born. After stowing the shoes in his parents’ Portland, Oregon, basement, under and around the ping pong table (leaving room on top for his mother to fold laundry), Knight began driving to high-school track meets and selling his Tigers from the trunk of his Plymouth Valiant. “How long do you think you’re going to keep jackassing around with these shoes?” That’s what Phil Knight’s father said in 1964, when his 26-year-old son asked for money to help pay for $1,000 worth of Tiger running shoes, manufactured by a Japanese company that improbably had agreed to make Knight its West Coast distributor (it helped that Knight’s partner in the venture was legendary University of Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman, whose wife had written Knight a check for $500 from her Christmas fund). ![]()
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