Phil Knight

* He was a middle-distance runner at the school under track coach Bill Bowerman and ran a personal best 4:10 mile, winning varsity letters for track in 1957, 1958, and 1959.
* His paper, "Can Japanese Sports Shoes Do to German Sports Shoes What Japanese Cameras Did to German Cameras?", essentially was the premise to his foray into selling running shoes. He graduated with a Masters of Business Administration from the school in 1962.
* Knight set out on a trip around the world after graduation, during which he made a stop in Kobe, Japan in November 1962. It was there he discovered Tiger brand running shoes, manufactured in Kobe by the Onitsuka Co. So impressed with the quality and low cost, Knight made a cold call on Mr. Onitsuka, who agreed to meet with him. By the end of the meeting, Knight had secured distribution rights for the western United States for Tiger running shoes. The first Tiger samples would take more than a year to be shipped to Knight, during which time he found a job as an accountant in Portland, Oregon. When Knight finally received the shoe samples, he mailed two pairs to Bill Bowerman in Eugene in the hope of gaining a sale and an influential endorsement. To Knight's surprise, Bowerman not only ordered the Tiger shoes, he offered to become a partner with Knight and would provide some design ideas for better running shoes. The two men shook hands on a partnership on January 25, 1964, the birthdate of Blue Ribbon Sports, forerunner to Nike
* Like Fred Smith and the origins of FedEx, Philip Knight's first ideas of what would become Nike Inc. came to him while he was at school. While working on his master's at Stanford, Knight - an accomplished runner during his undergraduate days at the University of Oregon - wrote an essay that outlined a plan to overcome the monopoly Adidas had on the running shoe market. He thought the way to realize this was to employ cheap Japanese labour to make a shoe both better and cheaper.
* Blue Ribbon's success (renamed Nike in 1978) throughout the 1970s and into the '80s can largely be attributed to Knight's marketing strategy. He thought it best not to push his Nike shoes though advertising, but rather to let expert athletes endorse his product.
* Fortune smiled on Knight as his partner Bill Bowerman became the coach of the American Olympic team and many of the best performers on the team decided to shod their feet with Nikes. Of course, when the runners performed well, the shoes they wore were highlighted. Steve Prefontaine, a brash and unconventional American record-holder, became the first spokesperson for Nike shoes. After the tennis player John McEnroe hurt his ankle, he began wearing a Nike three-quarter-top shoe, and sales of that particular brand jumped from 10,000 pairs to over 1 million.

Sources: Link

Highlights

* He was a middle-distance runner at the school.
* Knight set out on a trip around the world after graduation, during which he made a stop in Kobe, Japan in November 1962. It was there he discovered Tiger brand running shoes.
* Nike's success throughout the 1970s and into the '80s can largely be attributed to Knight's marketing strategy. He thought it best not to push his Nike shoes though advertising, but rather to let expert athletes endorse his product.
* Fortune smiled on Knight as his partner Bill Bowerman became the coach of the American Olympic team and many of the best performers on the team decided to shod their feet with Nikes.

==PASSION ABOUT THE CORE ACTIVITY THAT HIS BUSINESS FOCUSSES ON==
==GOING AROUND THE WORLD AND OBSERVING WHAT OTHERS ARE DOING IN THE FIELD==
==GETTING A NEW ADVERTISING / MARKETING STRATEGY THAT GELS BRILLIANTLY WITH THE PRODUCT / SERVICE ==
==CHOOSING A BUSINESS PARTNER WHO COULD HIMSELF BECOME A CELEBRITY OR AN INDUSTRY/PRODUCT INFLUENCER==