Phil Knight was born in Portland in 1938. His parents were very different people: a domineering father and a silent mother. Lota Hatfield, who married William Knight, a young lawyer, was very beautiful – she showed dresses in the store. After the wedding, they had a son, Philip, and two daughters.
Phil did well in school, but he was expelled from the baseball team. Then his mother advised him to go jogging.
And when, after high school, he entered the University of Oregon to get a journalism education, he joined the student track and field team. And what an irony of fate – it was on it that the coach tested new shoes for athletes, endlessly modernizing them. It was here that Phil learned his first lesson in success, which was something like this: forget your limits.
After university, the young journalist went to the army for 12 months, and then became a student again – he entered Stanford Business School. Here he learned his second lesson in success: if you want something, then you will succeed.
At one of the seminars, students were asked to come up with a business – small but profitable. Then Phil remembered testing athletic shoes in the track and field team and decided to devote his project to sneakers. During the development of the business plan, he realized that he wanted to do this business.
After graduating from business school, Knight decided to put his project into practice, as he believed in its viability. He had to overcome a lot of difficulties, but the will to win, which he brought up in himself as a runner, won all the fears, doubts, and negative opinions of others.
Yes, everyone said that he had a crazy idea, but he was used to overcoming obstacles and understood that life does not exist without growth. This was his next lesson and not the last.
And then Phil went around the world to see how people live in other countries and what kind of sneakers they have. Along the way, he made a lucrative deal with one of the Japanese firms, practically by deception.
Shoe seller career
Then he and his former coach set up a joint business with Blue Ribbon Sports. They sell sneakers for twice the price they buy in Japan, and the business is booming. It is noteworthy that Phil made his first sales from the trunk of a car.
Then the business got stronger, and the Japanese learned about it and decided to buy out the company. It was a difficult period, but at the same time, it allowed starting its production. This is how Nike was born, named after the goddess Nike. And the logo of the famous sneaker is her stylized wing.
After that, the company had ups and downs, but Nike overcame everything only because those who worked there loved their job.
In 2004, Knight stepped down as chief executive, and in 2016 left the firm for a well-deserved retirement.
Personal life
The businessman’s wife is a like-minded man: as a young man, Penny Parks helped Phil advertise Nike sneakers and T-shirts. They married in 1968 and had three children: Matthew, Travis, and Christina.
In an interview, Knight says that he paid little attention to children, and therefore they completely denied sports. Which he greatly regretted, especially after Matthew’s death, when he was only thirty-four years old.
Now Phil and Penny are engaged in patronage – they donate large sums to education and science.
Phil Knight’s biography is described in The Shoe Salesman: The Founder’s Story of Nike.
