Shoe Dog

Shoe Dog is a first-person memoir written by Nike cofounder Phil Knight. It was published in 2016. Shoe Dog primarily recounts the events from 1962, the year Knight traveled around the world as a young man, to 1980, the year Nike went public and Knight became a multimillionaire. The years in between are comprised of the struggles and challenges Knight faced as he worked to build the company that would ultimately be known worldwide as Nike.

Shoe Dog is divided into 20 chapters, each one roughly corresponding to one year in Knight’s life. In addition to the challenges related to building a company, Knight also reflects on the challenges and triumphs he faced as a son, as a young man searching for his identity, as a husband and a father. The memoir explores themes of Telling the Truth as a Successful Business Strategy, Breaking Rules in Order to Succeed, and The Desire for Victory as Nike’s Binding Spirit.

Plot Summary

It is 1962. After completing undergraduate studies at the University of Oregon and business school at Stanford, Knight returns to his parents’ home in Portland, Oregon. While out running one day, he decides he wants to partner with a Japanese shoe company to sell shoes in the United States.

Knight receives a loan from his father to travel the world. While in Japan, he meets with executives at Onitsuka Tiger, a Japanese shoe company, which agrees to send Knight shoe samples to sell back in the United States. After a brief stint as an accountant, Knight begins selling Onitsuka shoes in 1964; his company is called “Blue Ribbon.” That year, he also partners with Bob Bowerman, his college track-and-field coach; Knight oversees the managerial and financial end of things while Bowerman experiments with shoe design. Knight must initially confine his sales to the West Coast, as another salesman is selling Onitsuka shoes in the eastern US. However, Onitsuka promises to revisit this arrangement later.

By 1965, business is booming, leading Knight to place larger orders for shoes than his banker deems advisable. In 1966, Knight persuades Onitsuka that Blue Ribbon should be the company’s sole distributor in the US. Blue Ribbon now has more employees, and in 1967, it begins preparing to debut one of Bowerman’s prototypes at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Meanwhile, Knight takes on work as an accounting professor. In one of his classes, he meets the woman he will eventually marry: Penny Parks.

Although the Olympics are not the success Blue Ribbon hoped for, the company is doing well enough that in 1969, Knight can begin paying himself a salary and working full-time as CEO. Onitsuka signs another three-year contract with Blue Ribbon in 1970, but by this point, relations between the two companies are cooling, and Knight even has a spy reporting on Onitsuka’s inner workings. Later that year, Knight learns that Onitsuka is considering replacing Blue Ribbon with another distributor. Although Knight does all he can to preserve the relationship with Onitsuka for the time being, he also begins making contingency plans, touring factories in Mexico and Japan and eventually having the first Nike shoes manufactured.

The new shoes gain major support at the National Sporting Goods Association Show in 1972. Soon after, Onitsuka learns of Knight’s new line of shoes; its export manager, Kitami, is furious, and Onitsuka and Blue Ribbon formally part ways. The following year, Onitsuka files a lawsuit against Blue Ribbon, and Knight responds with a lawsuit of his own; in 1974, a judge rules in Blue Ribbon’s favor. Meanwhile, Nike’s shoes are receiving more and more recognition from athletes, including the track star Steve Prefontaine.

In 1975, the company faces new challenges: It owes $1 million in payments to creditors and is facing an FBI investigation. Fortunately, Knight has cultivated a good relationship with the Japanese trading company Nissho, which agrees to pay off the company’s debt.

Despite additional setbacks, including the death of Prefontaine in a car crash, Nike continues to expand its share of the market, particularly through its popular waffle trainers. In 1976, Knight begins to consider going public with the company, although both he and his associates worry that doing so will change the company culture. Around the same time, the company becomes mired in a dispute with US Customs over import duties that is only resolved when Knight agrees to pay $9 million. In 1980, Knight finally decides to go public.

In an epilogue, Knight briefly recounts some of the events that occurred in the years after this decision, including the continued growth of Nike and the premature death of one of Knight’s sons. Asked by someone about his bucket list, he decides to write a memoir about Nike.