Who Is Philip Knight?

In 1993, the man whom The Sporting News voted "the most powerful person in sports” was Philip Knight, a dynamic form of a man who for nearly 30 years has shown the sports legends alike. He studied at The University of Oregon and had competed in the school track team. He was a rising track star setting records for himself trying to meet up with Steve Prefontaine a running sensation who died tragically at a very young age. Philip graduated in 1959 with a B.S. in Business Administration. Before that he set a record for the fastest mile run setting the record at 4 minutes and 10 seconds later he also received a MBA from Stanford University. He lead a generation through the production of shoes and
fashion trends. His legacy depends on us to keep his business alive through the green dollar bills in our wallets for the sporting and fashionable shoe line that is ever so popular.

In The Beginning, the former University of Oregon track star naturally chose running.
He outlined a plan for breaking the records Adidas had on the running-shoe market by using cheap Japanese labor to make a cheaper, better-quality running shoe. In 1964 Knight and his former track coach, Bill Bowerman, each invested $500 to start Blue Ribbon Sports, which was the start of Nike. They had both shown dissatisfaction with running shoes and decided to try to improve on shoe design. In 1972 the first shoe to appear under the Nike brand, The Cortez, came about. It became successful for the the company named after the Greek Goddess of victory. By 1979, Nike took half of the U.S. running shoe market. In the 1980s and 1990s, Nike made advertisements that helped make it the main brand of athletic shoes worldwide. He said that he didn’t like the traditional advertisements for many many businesses but soon some of his commercial advertisements featured endorsements from athletes such as Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. Nike also created a slogan also known world wide "Just Do It.". Even the people who weren’t technically caught up with all the new trends in this generations knew exactly what brand name that slogan belonged to and if they saw the so called swoosh logo the first thing that might pop into mind would be
Nike.

Next, The company has expanded over the years to make apparel and sports equipment.
It is now the world's largest sports and fitness apparel company . Nike’s first ever shoe design include the waffle sole and air cushioning. Phil’s old track coach Bill Bowerman helped think and develop of Nike’s first “waffle” sole which was very popular at the time when Reebok was the main sport and work out shoe. Knight soon also purchased the stop-motion animation company in 2002 and changed the company name to Laika. In 2006 Knight donated $105 million dollars to Stanford which, at the time, was the largest ever individual donation to an American business school. In in 2009 Phil’s other company Laika released its first feature film. After Knight’s exceptionally large donations to the campus, the campus was soon named "The Knight Management Center,”.In August 2007, Knight and his wife donated $100 million to found the UO Athletics Legacy Fund to help all athletic programs at the university.Knight had financed the UO's $68 million dollar, 145,000 square-foot Gridiron football stadium that was opened in July in
2013.

Last, currently Knight is the chairman of the board of Nike, which he co-founded with track and field coach Bill Bowerman in 1964. Knight originally thought of the business plan for Nike during an entrepreneurship course he took while in business school. In 2009 he was interviewed. He said, “It was almost certainly true that if there was no Stanford Graduate School of Business, there would be no Nike." He also observed that "it was out of [that entrepreneurship course] that I really had the courage and the enthusiasm to start this company that ultimately became Nike."Stanford meant a lot to me, and it's really my hope other students who come to Stanford have as transformative an experience as I did," said Knight.

In conclusions, Phil Knight was a trend setter and creative mind behind the magical world of Nike tennis shoes. If it wasn’t for Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman we wouldn’t have all of the shoes and a big selection to choose from. If in 1962 Philip Knight didn’t take action and struggle to show his dislike for old American running shoes Nike would be non-existent.