Word: shoeing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Knight and Bowerman, the former University of Oregon track coach, met in 1958, when Knight was a business student at Oregon and a miler of some accomplishment (best time: 4:13). For years the crusty coach had been trying to design a better running shoe in his kitchen. "American shoes were just awful," says Bowerman, because they were heavy and lacked cushioning...
...Knight and his old track mentor each put up $500 and went into business importing Japanese running shoes. In 1972 they first produced their own make of shoe, naming it after the Greek goddess of victory. Just before the 1972 Olympic trials in Eugene, Ore., Knight and Bowerman persuaded several marathon runners to try them. Runners wearing Adidas finished first, second and third, but the next four runners wore Nikes...
...morning fiddling by Bowerman in 1975. He began tinkering with the waffle iron that had just been used to make breakfast. With some urethane rubber, he fashioned a new type of sole whose tiny rubber studs made it springy. Bowerman ruined the iron, but he created a new running shoe that was soon grabbed by the army of week end jocks suffering from bruised feet...
Along with its successes, however, Blue Ribbon has garnered a few problems. The much ballyhooed "air sole" shoe, which had a tiny gas-filled bag in the sole, flopped at first because of too little gas pressure. Blue Ribbon, moreover, may be beginning an expensive squabble with Runner's World magazine, the Baedeker of the sport. Nike charges that the magazine's annual ranking of shoes has given higher ratings to its competitor, Brooks Shoe Manufacturing Co., because of business links between that company and the magazine. Runner's World has countered with a $6 million suit...
...champion shoe company's biggest challenge now may be to raise larger amounts of capital so that it can introduce new products and keep ahead of the pack. So far, Blue Ribbon has grown on the strength of reinvested profits with some limited outside backing, but in the near future it could be forced to go public or merge with a larger firm. Levi Strauss is rumored to be one possible partner; such a merger would complete Levi's mastery over the youthful wardrod of blue jeans and running shoes...