Word: shoes
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Snow's distinguished careers began in modest circumstances; he championed ambition and meritocracy because he was the successful product of both. He was born in the industrial city of Leicester, the son of a clerk in a shoe factory. His family, as he often remarked later, was "shabby genteel, not working class but no money to spare." The boy gave signs early on that lower-middle-class neighborhoods would not hold him long. He showed an aptitude for science, a field he took up because his grammar school offered no arts courses. He won a scholarship to Leicester University...
Bronco Billy McCoy, shoe salesman and excon late of New Jersey, drives a panel truck and ambles through Idaho and Montana in search of friendly territory. Billy and his motley crew--a doctor without a doctor's license, an Indian who plays with rattlesnakes and a trick ropester who ran away from the army--make up the "best in the west" wild west show. Followed by two trucks, a horse trailer and a red convertible with pearl-handled revolvers for door handles, Billy leads his cavalry in search of orphanages, mental institutions and anywhere else they can find a crowd...
...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...