History
Bill Bowerman, the University of Oregon coach well known for bringing jogging to America and Phil Knight an accounting major at the University of Oregon, a track runner and a protégé of Bill Bowerman formed a partnership and begun importing shoes from China in 1964.Bowerman's quest for a more lighter and durable racing shoes for his athletes coupled with Knight's desire for a way of living that will not devoid his love of athletics is what birthed Tiger shoes as Nike was originally called.
In the early 1960's while the German shoe manufactures dominated the shoe industry, Knight fostered the idea about bringing low-priced, high tech athletic shoes from Japan where shoes were made for cheap to dethrone the incumbent ruler of the US athletic industry. Knight visited the China shoe factory Onitsuka Tiger in 1962, presented his idea to the representatives of the shoe factory, the Tiger executives liked the idea, Knight received his first sample of the shoes in 1963 and in 1964, Eight thousand worth of tiger shoes was sold by Knight and Bower man's Blue Ribbon Sports Co. While Bowerman tried to improve the new tiger shoe designs, Knight explored avenues to expand and maintain his brainchild by hiring Jeff Johnson in 1965 to sell the shoes. Jeff Johnson was then the Blue Ribbon Sports Co.'s first employee and he sold the tiger shoes out of the back of his van at high school track and meets. Johnson opened the company's first retail shop in a narrow building at 3107 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, California in 1966.
In 1971, the swoosh design was created by graphic design artist Carolyn Davidson in June and in 1972 with the vision of Jeff Johnson the first Nike shoe was introduced including the " Moon Shoe" that featured the waffle sole which was distribut ...