Phil Knight

His father published a Portland newspaper and would not give him a summer job on it, so Knight went to the rival Oregonian, worked the morning shift tabulating sports scores, and ran the seven miles home. He ran for Bill Bowerman at the University of Oregon, where his best mile was 4:13, and took a business degree in three years. Then an Army commission, a year on active duty, seven in the reserve, and Stanford business school, where he wrote a paper asking whether Japanese sports shoes could do to German ones what Japanese cameras had done to German cameras. In November 1962 he stopped in Kobe on a trip around the world, called the Onitsuka company, and left the meeting holding distribution rights for the western United States.

The samples took more than a year. When they came, Knight mailed two pairs to Bowerman, who ordered shoes and offered to become a partner and design them. They shook hands on January 25, 1964, and called it Blue Ribbon Sports. Knight sold out of a green Plymouth Valiant at Pacific Northwest track meets while working as an accountant, and did not go full time until 1969. The Onitsuka relationship ended in 1972. An employee named Jeff Johnson proposed the name Nike, a design student named Carolyn Davidson drew the swoosh for $35, and Knight said he did not love it but it would grow on him. Nike went public in December 1980 with half the American athletic shoe market. He handed off the chief executive job in 2004 and the chairmanship in 2016.

In 1996 Life ran a photograph of a 12-year-old Pakistani boy stitching a Nike football, and the company spent the next decade answering for factories it did not own. In April 2000 students at the University of Oregon occupied the administration building and got their president to sign with the Worker Rights Consortium, a monitoring group Nike had refused to let inspect its plants. Knight withdrew a $30 million pledge toward the Autzen Stadium expansion and said he was done giving to the school. He called the consortium misguided and praised the industry-backed Fair Labor Association as balanced. Oregon's university system then barred every campus from joining either group. Knight put the money back and raised it above $50 million.

He is 88 and long out of Nike. The money keeps moving. He and Penny Knight have given the University of Oregon more than a billion dollars, and in 2025 pledged $2 billion to the Oregon Health & Science University cancer institute that carries their name, bringing that total to $2.7 billion. He bought the animation studio that became Laika after his son Travis went to work there. His other son, Matthew, died in a scuba accident in El Salvador in 2004, and the Oregon basketball arena carries his name. In March 2026 Knight gave $1 million to a Republican running for governor of Oregon. Nike renamed its Beaverton headquarters the Philip H. Knight Campus in October 2025.

Phil Knight's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

• Blue Ribbon Sports company
  A handshake partnership importing Onitsuka Tiger shoes 1964
• Nike, Inc. company
  Renamed for the Greek goddess of victory at an employee's suggestion 1971
• Athletics West company
  A post-collegiate running team founded with Bowerman and Geoff Hollister 1977
• Laika company
  Will Vinton Studios, bought and rebranded as a stop-motion house 2005
• OHSU Knight Cancer Institute company
  Renamed for the Knights after a $100 million pledge 2008
• Shoe Dog book
  His memoir, published April 26, 2016 2016

• 1959 aged ~21 Takes a business degree from Oregon in three years He ran the mile in 4:13 for Bill Bowerman.
• November 1962 aged 24 Meets the Onitsuka company in Kobe and leaves with distribution rights He had argued the case in a Stanford small-business paper.
• January 25, 1964 aged 25 Shakes hands with Bill Bowerman on Blue Ribbon Sports
• 1971 aged ~33 The company becomes Nike and buys the swoosh for $35 Knight said he did not love it but it would grow on him.
• December 1980 aged 42 Nike goes public with half the US athletic shoe market
• April 2000 aged 62 Pulls a $30 million pledge after Oregon joins the Worker Rights Consortium He restored it, above $50 million, once the state barred the affiliation.
• November 18, 2004 aged 66 Steps down as Nike chief executive, months after his son Matthew's death
• June 2016 aged 78 Leaves the Nike board, two months after publishing Shoe Dog
• October 14, 2025 aged 87 Nike renames its Beaverton headquarters the Philip H. Knight Campus About 400 acres, its global headquarters for more than 35 years.

• Michael Jordan b. 1963
  Widely regarded as the greatest basketball player of all time, who became a global marketing phenomenon. signed
• Tiger Woods b. 1975
  Golf icon who revolutionized the sport and became one of the most famous athletes in the world. signed
• Ralph Lauren b. 1939
  Fashion designer who created a global lifestyle brand synonymous with American style. contemporary in brand building
• Howard Schultz b. 1953
  Former CEO of Starbucks who turned a Seattle coffee shop into a global coffeehouse phenomenon. Pacific Northwest successor
• Sam Walton 1918–1992
  Founder of Walmart and Sam's Club who built the world's largest retail empire. contemporary builder of a retail giant