"Blue Ribbon Sports" was what they named their little new company.
They wanted a still better shoe.
One Sunday morning, with his wife at church, Bowerman poured melted rubber into the family's waffle iron. Waffle-soled, square-cleated athletic shoes, made of lightweight fabric, were the ultimate result. Knight decided to concentrate on the shoes he and Bowerman were developing. But he needed a name, a trademark, an easily recognized symbol. One of his young designers, Jeff Johnson, had a bad night's sleep during 1971 in which he dreamed of Nike, the Greek winged goddess who symbolized victory. Without any better idea, Knight decided to try Johnson's suggestion.
The next year. a Portland State University design student, Carolyn Davidson, sketched a flat, floating check mark as a symbol for the running shoes. "I don't love it," Knight told her, "but maybe it'll grow on me." He bought the design from her for thirty-five dollars. Nike employees called it the "Swoosh." But by the 1990s, when it was worn by Knight endorsers Michael Jordan, golfer Tiger Woods, and tennis champion Pete Sampras, among many others, the Swoosh had become the most recognizable commercial logo in global sports. Davidson later received Nike stock from Knight, and rightly so. Her design made it possible for people in faraway lands whose languages did not easily translate the word Nike to identify Nike products simply by the Swoosh. Only an image, not words, was needed to reap profits in other cultures.
Knight had discovered that endorsement by sports champions, the most universally recognized celebrities, was the most effective marketing ploy, and coincided perfectly with the burgeoning nationwide obsession with physical fitness, especially jogging. Soon half of all running shoes sold were Nikes. Sales jumped from $10 million to $270 million in no time.
And even if one knows it already, LaFeber's saga of Michael Jordan's basketball career makes good reading.