Phil Knight, a University of Oregon athlete, chose running-shoes as the project for a marketing essay at Stanford University: and pondered whether Japanese methods might be able to do for that industry what they'd done to Germany in watches and cameras.

He and U.S. Olympic coach Bill Bowerman* formed a company by contributing $500 each-on a handshake. Watching his wife make waffles, Bowerman then poured liquid urethane into the waffle iron-and, after gumming up the works, conceived the famous nipple-soled shoe.

Invited by Knight to design a shoe-stripe for the company, art student Carolyn Davidson came up with a curved line that looked like the swoosh of a check-mark. Said Knight: "I don't love it, but I think it will grow on me." Davidson charged only $35 for the design.

Pondering a brand name, Jeff Johnson, another Bowerman runner and Knight's first commission salesman, slept on it-and woke up with Nike: the

winged Greek goddess of victory. Said Knight when he considered the alternatives: "I don't like any of them. I guess we'll go with the Nike thing for now."

Phil Knight is now one of America's ten richest men.

Information extracted from Swoosh: The unauthorized story of Nike and the men who played there, by J.B. Strasser and Laurie Beckland, published by Harper Business, New York.

Author Dryden writes about Bowerman with a wry smile. Dryden arranged the 1960s American track team visit to New Zealand where the U.S. coach discovered jogging from Auckland coach Arthur Lydiard. Non-writer Bowerman was so impressed with Lydiard's stamina he co-authored a book on jogging-and it sold over a million copies in the U.S.