Phil knight children

While the athletic apparel industry is filled with fierce competition, there has been a clear king of the hill for the last decades: Nike. The company, with its iconic “Swoosh” logo and impressive ad campaigns, has gone from a small Oregonian outfit selling imported Japanese trainers to one of the most recognizable and famous brands in the world. One of the key reasons for this is the company's co-founder and long-term CEO, Phil Knight. A former track and field athlete with a penchant for marketing and brand-building made Nike into what it is today, and his story is as inspiring as it is fascinating.

• Meeting his Co-founder: His decision to run Track and Field while in university led to him meeting Bill Bowerman, and the two would go on to found Nike together.

• Blue Ribbon Sports: What would later go on to become Nike began as Blue Ribbon Sports, an importer and seller of Japanese athletics shoes.

• A skilled entrepreneur: Knight was the CEO of Nike for four decades, and was one of the key drivers in making the c

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  All About Phil Knight, the Founder and Former CEO of Nike

  As the founder of one of the largest athletic brands in the world, a published author and a notable philanthropist, Phil Knight has an impressive résumé.

  The Nike founder started the company with his former University of Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman in 1964. Knight has since become among the top 30 wealthiest people in the world with a net worth of over $45 billion as of February 2023, according to Forbes.

  In 2016, Knight published his memoir Shoe Dog, which documented not only how Nike grew from its origins as Blue Ribbon Sports to the incredibly successful company it is today, but also personal aspects of Knight's life as it was completely changed following his entrepreneurial success.

  Now, one iconic era of Knight's long career at Nike is entering the spotlight: his groundbreaking deal with basketball player Michael Jordan to create one of the company's most successful products, Air Jordans, as chronicled in the movie Air.

  Directed by Ben Affleck, who also plays Knight, Air tells the story o

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  Philip H. Knight
  Co-founder of Nike Inc.
  Founded: 1972

  "Play by the rules. But be ferocious."-Philip H. Knight

  In 1993, the man whom The Sporting News voted "the most powerful person in sports" wasn't an athlete, a manager or a team owner. He was Philip H. Knight, the dynamic iconoclast who for nearly 30 years has shod the feet of sports legends and "weekend warriors" alike. In less than a decade, his marketing savvy and uncompromising competitiveness had transformed the athletic-shoe industry and made Nike one of the most successful and widely recognized brand names in the world.

  Knight first came up with the blueprint for what would become the world's No. 1 athletic-shoe company while working on his master's degree at Stanford University. Assigned to write a term paper on starting a small business in an area he knew well, the former University of Oregon track star naturally chose running. He outlined a plan for breaking the stranglehold Adidas had on the running-shoe market by using cheap Japanese labor to manufacture a cheaper, better-quality running shoe.

  Shortly after