Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight. This book is about Phil’s view of building Blue Ribbon into Nike. Knight ran track at Oregon and finished an MBA at Stanford in 1962. His goal was to start an athletic shoe store.
Shoe Dog feels like a PR firm wrote large sections including the events which reveal Knight’s shallow views of his early employees, testifying in court for hiring a spy working within a Japanese shoe factory, and his ‘buttface’ offsite meetings.
Knight reveals himself in these chapters, and is certainly not a leader. Many will be surprised, because this is set against the hero-worship of sports in America.
Certainly the early 1960s were a different time in Japan. Lingering colonial (post World War II) attitudes of business found Knight confused about commitments from Tiger. So roughly two-thirds of Shoe Dog is interesting.
Knight grew a company after struggling for years. Phil began by bringing Tiger shoes from Japan to Oregon and then down the West Coast. This is the essence of his story.
There are many insights to Phil’s travels across the world as a gift to begin his life’s work understanding the Japanese advantage of shoe manufacturing. The stories and struggling business practices in which Knight learned the ropes launching his shoe own shoe company Blue Ribbon.
His role establishing Blue Ribbon and countless efforts to launch against his ‘Marlboro Man’ shoe competitor is very interesting to discover how the US consumer shoe market began in the early 1970s. Japan’s Tiger shoes and Germany’s Adidas were early mainstream athletic shoe brands across America. Interesting to learn how the west coast began first, then shoe sales jumped east, and then to the midwest.
Steve Prefontaine
Phil’s story of Pre, from landing at Oregon to his untimely death was a section of Shoe Dog and would rather have skipped. Pre was revered while I was running track and cross country. So learning this was somewhat sad.
Most will certainly jump to how Nike’s superstar contracts evolved. From signing Ilie Nastase in 1972 for $10,000 for the most part lead to a late chapter, chest bumping of every Nike mega star under contract is a bit much. On the contrary an odd passage in the this late chapter about running into Bill Gates and Warren Buffet at a movie theatre in Florida with his wife seems very odd.
Meeting North Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap
In 1979 Knight wrote about his trip to Vietnam and meeting with General Vo Nguyen Giap. Knight asked him “How did you do it?” and Giap’s reply “I was the professor of the jungle.” But the 1968 Tet Offensive against America had almost no role defined by Giap. Le Duan pushed both Giap and Ho Chi Minh out of the country during the planning and run up to launching the Tet Offensive:
General Giap was alleged to be in poor health and went to Hungary for medical treatment in mid-July—and then was encouraged to stay there. While he was gone, soldiers on his staff were arrested. So was Ho Chi Minh’s former secretary. Ho himself was sent to China for medical treatment in September.
Page 234, Excerpt From: Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns. “The Vietnam War.”
Phil wrote about his seven year commitment in the Oregon reserves during the height of the Vietnam war. Get the history correct next time. He also shared a memory of running with his fellow soldiers during one of many weekends supporting supply chains for the army on the west coast.
America’s culture of sports hero-worship
It is easy to push the media hype of all things Nike today. Yet details of a lawsuit with Tiger, including a two day deposition was well written. Yet his deep flaws are covered as well as a PR writer could establish. There was a great opportunity to reveal leadership and growth in Phil’s life. Sadly, the opportunity was missed.
Addressing Nike’s sweatshops felt hollow as Knight belongs to the 1% club. His wealth jumped $21 billion since the COVID pandemic began. Now worth $53.1 Billion the comments about raising the life of line workers in China is not enough. Equity is now emerging and holding companies responsible. Nike should be held to that standard.
In conclusion, this book had a good story to tell as Blue Ribbon was competing early in the US shoe market. It went off the rails when the spin took over. Nevertheless, the timing of launching Nike on television, sports endorsements to Olympic athletes and expansion of new business markets including clothing is a worthy learning process.
Good Morning America | Phil Knight Discusses His New Book ‘Shoe Dog’
CBS Sunday Morning | How Phil Knight’s “crazy idea” conquers the sporting world
Fox News | Inside Nike empire with founder Phil Knight
Evan Carmichael | Phil Knight’s Top 10 Rules For Success