Phil Knight was not going to be remembered as a great runner.

But his legendary University of Oregon track coach, Bill Bowerman, didn't accept half-efforts.

Knight grabbed that baton of inspiration and lapped the field beyond the track.

Yes, he would make his mark on the track world, but not as a middle-distance runner. He turned an idea, a few hundred dollars and sheer chutzpah into one of the globe's top sneaker and athletic clothing brands, Nike. (NKE)

"If you ask where Nike came from, I would say it came from a kid who had that world-class shock administered at age 17 by Bill Bowerman," Knight recalled years later, according to the Kenny Moore book "Bowerman and the Men of Oregon."

"He attached such honor to not giving up, to doing my utmost. Most kids don't have that adjustment of standards, that introduction to true reality," Knight said in the book.

Bowerman, who could spot Olympic talent, also had a keen business eye. He and Knight each put up $500 in 1964 to import cheap Japanese sneakers to compete with pricey German Adidas (ADDDY) shoes that Knight and other runners wore.

Blue Ribbon Sports was born. The Beaverton, Ore., company would later be renamed Nike, after the winged Greek goddess of victory.

On The Road

Knight — who went on from Oregon to earn a master's degree in business administration from Stanford University — at first kept his day job as an accountant, selling the sneakers at high school and college track meets out of the back of his Plymouth Valiant.

Bowerman kept coaching, all the while tinkering with new sneaker designs — famously ruining his wife's waffle iron by pouring in molten rubber to create a lightweight sole with traction.

Knight proved to be a better businessman than athlete, turning that last-place company into a front-running sports apparel business that today has 28,000 employees and $15 billion in worldwide sales.

Knight stepped down as Nike chief executive in 2004, but remains chairman. A company spokesman said he was unavailable for comment.

Knight, 68, frequently roams the sidelines at Oregon Ducks sporting events and addresses students and athletes at his alma mater.

"His comments always focus on big and exciting goals," said Oregon's current track coach, Vin Lananna. "He's emphasized to me the value of making realistic decisions, but not being afraid to dream big."

Knight's dreams were so big, they bordered on hallucinations.

He made up his Blue Ribbon Sports company on the spot when touring a manufacturer in Japan that insisted it would do business only with an established distributor.

After selling every pair of Tiger sneakers the Onitsuka Co. could ship him, he soon realized he could do better making his own shoes.

As for advertising, Knight hated it. The way he saw it, people cheered for athletes and personalities, not products.

So he had his company run with athletes. He signed track legend Steve Prefontaine in 1973, gaining instant traction with serious runners.

In 1985, Nike signed rookie basketball phenom Michael Jordan, launching the Air Jordan brand. Tennis great John McEnroe, hockey's incomparable Wayne Gretzky and other stars would follow.

"Phil certainly from the product side brought the world of sport marketing to a whole new level, and did so by basically bringing his passion and enthusiasm for sport and infusing it into a brand," said Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon, where he ran middle distance in the late 1980s.

Knight wasn't always sure-footed.

He and the company that helped fuel the running craze in the 1970s were slow to recognize the aerobics wave in the 1980s. Also in the '80s it largely ignored the different tastes — and foot shapes — of women. Upstart Reebok sprinted past Nike.

In Donald Katz's book "Just Do It," Knight recalled that while Nike was posting its first back-to-back quarterly losses, "we were in complete disarray. We were . . . just so naive. We had simply lost our way."

Lost, maybe. Lose? No way. Nike, with Knight at the helm, won again with new sneakers and designs.

It hit the ground running with the iconic "Bo knows" campaign, which featured two-sport star Bo Jackson and Nike's cross-trainers, pumped up by air bag cushions.

Two decades later Knight's Nike is still rolling out new ideas.

Last year the company teamed with Apple (AAPL) for a sneaker that tells the runner how far she's come and how much farther to go — all through her iPod music player.

Knight faced other hurdles. In the 1990s Nike came under fire for the low wages some of its Asian plants paid workers.

In 2000 he had an acrimonious breakup with his alma mater after it joined the Workers Rights Consortium, a group critical of Nike's overseas labor practices.

Knight leapt fast. He ordered Nike's factories to lift wages and working-conditions standards. In 2001, he and the university repaired their relationship when Oregon withdrew from the consortium.

Knight is the university's largest single donor, giving over $100 million by his estimate. And last year he pledged $105 million for Stanford University's business school.

While running sneakers and other sports shoes continue to evolve, Knight has moved on to another passion. He owns Laika, an animation firm. It's building a state-of-the-art animation campus on 30 acres in Tualatin, 12 miles south of Portland. It's scheduled to open next year.

Name Of The Game

The Nike name and swoosh logo are stuck on the sneakers, sweaters and golf balls of many of the world's top athletes. But Knight wasn't sold on the name at first.

After his company parted with its Japanese shoemaker, he had until 9 a.m. to tell the factory what name to print on the boxes of the next shipment. He leaned toward Dimension Six, but wasn't thrilled with it.

Knight made the call five minutes before the printing deadline. "I guess we'll go with the Nike thing for a while," he said in Moore's book. "I don't like any of them, but I guess that's the best of the bunch."
BY KEVIN HARLIN