To wear dreams on one’s feet is to begin to give a reality to one’s dreams. – Roger Vivier
One thing for folks to be upset about doping or athlete abuse. Completely understand. Almost completely agree. We can talk about one company bigfooting the sport. For good or evil. We can do that later.
Now, what I want to talk about is smearing an entire culture, and its people, men and women, brushing over a lot of the good and much of the truth.
Which is why I think of Nike as two different companies, in two different eras. 1972-1985 and 1985 to today. The Pioneer Days and The Modern Era.
Can’t speak to much that happened after ’85, ’cause that’s when I sold the last tiny bit of stock I had.
No input in the Modern Era. Not responsible. Not saying anything negative.
What I am saying, I was witness to the proto-public days and some of the goings on.
I wrote the first annual report. I was sent to the home – he had a broken foot – of ESPN’s Programming Director to beg that channel to cover the Prefontaine Classic. Nike couldn’t afford what he was asking.
I share this because people seem to forget history. Assuming they knew the sport’s history to begin with.
Let’s take Nike’s history of domestic shoe production, for instance.
What does everybody think Nike did for ten years in Exeter, New Hampshire? NH is definitely part of the United States. I’ve been there. No valid passport needed for American citizens.
Nike employed about 200 people – that’s a lot of witnesses. And all of those shoes had “Made in USA” labels on the tongue which would have sent us all to jail, if the shoes had been made somewhere else. I was definitely too cute for prison forty years ago.
Minimal research would indicate shoes like the Elite, Terra T/C, Zoom spikes series, the Lady Waffle Trainer and the Leather Cortez were MADE IN THE USA.
The Cortez had been made in Japan, beginning in 1972. In 1974, when Exeter got up and running, the Cortez was the first model Nike MADE IN THE USA, “knocking off” itself as a test project to see if they could match Japan’s quality in the U.S.
The “look” missed by a bit, but the performance was definitely there, and the American-made Cortez sold just fine, ensuring the gamble of establishing the factory in the first place.
I know for a fact, for maybe five years, the local Exeter high school track and cross-country athletes competed in NIKE shoes eight to twelve months before those models went to market. The kids are grown-ups now who likely remember how special they felt.
You can imagine kids on other teams asked, “Where did you get those shoes?”
The Nike-shod kids could say, “Our coach made them for us.”
Probably never thought to add “Made In The USA.”
I think there is even an “Exeter” book, recalling the history of Exeter, NH, in which the NIKE shoe factory is mentioned, possibly even with interior photos. And photographs of Mary Decker in the Exeter factory working with pattern specialist, John McGrath, on the shoe that became, first, the last for the AW shoes in 1978, then Coe and Ovett’s Zoom spikes in 1980 Moscow, then the entire Zoom spike line.
NIKE began making shoes domestically in the U.S. in September, 1974, in Exeter, NH, and continued to do so until the factory was closed in 1984.
After a decade, South Korea and other countries had become a better (lower cost, faster development of new products) source for manufacturing than the U.S. The fundamental problem with shoe manufacturing in the U.S. is industry fragmentation, a shoe factory has to rely on outside sources for leather, various synthetic upper materials, lasts, rubber, sole products, vinyls, various foams, laminated items such as combinations of taffetas, tricots and foam (as in the tongue of a shoe). Yada, yada.
In the beginning, the severely under-funded Nike factory in Exeter had no choice but to adapt itself to the American shoe-making model. No way could they establish their own leather tanneries, EVA and urethane plants, rubber mills, sole molding shops, etc.
In the Orient, it is common for all of that to be under one roof in a single shoe factory.
Shoe Dog – no relation; don’t I wish – Phil Knight tells the story of searching through a town in Japan in the early ’70s looking for the shoe factory, and finally realizing the entire town was the factory. U.S. shoe manufacturing is not centralized like that, hence an American shoe factory is always waiting for someone else to deliver essential materials to the factory, with predictable and agonizing bottlenecks.
“Agonizing Bottleneck” is, coincidentally, my new nickname, awarded to me recently by a cadre of TSA agents. And I never have to take my shoes off again. But I digress.
In Nike’s decade of domestic shoe production in Exeter, they made the Leather Cortez, Waffle Trainer, Lady Waffle Trainer, Elite and Terra/TC. Also Made In USA, were all of the top of the line spiked shoes for two Olympiads (Vainqueur, Verdun, the Zoom series—sprint, distance, XC, indoor), racing flats (Skylon, Eagle), and others.
Nike’s “Shark” molded cleat football shoes were Made In USA, as well.
Nike made hundreds of thousands of shoes in Exeter in its eleven years there.
In Exeter, Nike also opened the industry’s first sports research lab, headed up by Drs. E.C. “Ned” Frederick and Jack Daniels, where they also performed materials testing and wear-testing, with both machines and runners. Before 1980, Nike was also using CAD/CAM to make their own shoe sole molds.
In Exeter, Nike employees were trained in shoe-making, so they could ensure the highest quality Nike shoes in factories in Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, and China.
Nike developed and manufactured the first Air Sole shoe (Tailwind) in Exeter. They developed and produced the airsole unit itself in Saco, Maine, beginning about 1980. Nike still makes most, if not all, of their air sole units (of which there are now more than a dozen varieties in the U.S. (in St. Louis and Beaverton).
I remember a meeting where we discussed if we could market a shoe for fifty dollars. Would people pay $50 for a running shoe, even with an air sole?
That’s $183.15 in 2023.
Yeah, Nike made a lot of mistakes back in the day – they fired me twice and ruined my life once – but we sure as hell produced shoes MADE IN USA for as long as we could.
Here’s some history.
From Saco, Maine, to Beaverton, Oregon, we all failed to note the irony of producing the “Yankee” in Korea. So, there’s that.
Both sad and true.