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Since its start in 1972, Nike has employed nearly a half a million people. Only four have outlasted our next storyteller, Steve Bence. Bence is Nike's Program Director in Global Sourcing and Manufacturing. and was an All American runner under legendary track coach at Oregon Bill Bowerman, who became the co-founder of Nike. Steve Bence is also the author of 1972, pre- UO Trek.
Nike shoes, and my life with them all. Let's take a listen. Yeah. Hi, my name is Steve Bance. I was born in Tennessee.
I started kindergarten in Japan. and I graduated from high school in Spain. I went to the University of Oregon to run track and later started with Nike. The way I discovered running was during my junior year in high school. I went out for football in seventh grade because all my friends were going out for football.
But at home, we never watched sports, so even though I was on the football team, I really didn't know the rules or the strategy, so I sat on the bench the whole time. In the winter I went out for basketball and sat the bench again. And when one of the games was out of hand, the coach put me in. And Four times I'd brought the basketball up court. Four times I was called for traveling.
I looked over at my coach and he was just shaking his head. As luck would have it, Coach was also the track coach.
So we both knew from experience that I wasn't an athlete. And he treated me that way. I still came out every day and worked out with the track guys. But when we had a track meet, on the bulletin board was a posting. of all the entries, and every time I looked my name was never on it.
So I missed all the track meets until the last one. It was a district championships. I went, and my name was on the 400 meters, a quarter mile, one lap around the track. And I didn't know if somebody was hurt or injured. Or what, but I was going to take advantage of this opportunity.
So the last. Track meet that year, the district championships. I took second in the four hundred meters. and the coach came sprinting across the field and gave me the biggest bear hug and looked me in the eyes of Bence. You're a runner.
In the spring of 1979, I was a sophomore. and I had learned that my best race was a half mile.
So I won our district championships, which qualified me to go to Los Angeles to run in the CIF Southern Section quarterfinals, which were some of the best athletes, not only in our section. But in the United States.
So I went to the quarterfinals not expecting much, nobody was expecting much out of me, and I qualified to move on to the next round.
So next week was the semifinals. I advanced again. I ran fast enough to get myself into the finals. and I went and I took third place. And I was on cloud nine, right?
And then I found out my dad was going to transfer to Torjón Air Force Base near Madrid, Spain. I went to school on base. It was called Madrid American High School. And so I got to go to Germany, where we ran against all the schools in the European area. and the big schools were in uh England and Jeremy.
In the first heat, it was actually the semifinals, I uh won. and 159. Which was uh School record. and the first time I ever broke two minutes. And one of the coaches from a German school came over and talked to my coach because he didn't know who I was.
He said, where did this guy come from, right? And we talked a little bit and he asked to see my shoes. And they were these clunky, boardy leather spikes that my mom bought for me when I was a freshman. and they were size 11. At the time I w were about size 8.
And the coach was saying, You broke two minutes in these shoes. And so he disappeared for a while and came back with a pair of shoes that fit me, probably one of the other runners. and I tried them on and just putting those shoes on made me feel faster.
So In the finals the next day, I ran three seconds faster, so I was 156. which uh broke the European record. and I learned the importance of a good pair of shoes in in running. And so I had my final senior year living in the barracks. But the most important thing my senior year was trying to find a college in the United States where I could go.
And I'd written to Ohio State. Kansas State. USC and Oregon State. I was accepted academically at all schools. but there was very little interest in me running there.
And perhaps the most blunt letter I got was from the USC coach, who said, Your time might be pretty good in Europe, but it's a dime a dozen here in Southern California. But I found out one of our dorm counselors threw the javelin at Oregon and he said, Have you considered Oregon? I pulled out the letters and everything. I showed him everything I had done to that point. And he goes, Why did you pick Kansas State?
And I said, That's where Jim Ryan went to school. Jim Ryan was my hero. He was a world record holder in the mile. And he goes, he didn't go to Kansas State, he went to Kansas. You got the wrong school, right?
Then he asked me, Why did you write to Oregon State? I said, because they're a good running school. He says, no, no, no, Oregon's a good running school, not Oregon State.
So I had picked the wrong school. And he saw the letter I got from USC. But he contacted Coach Dellinger back in Eugene. and told him I was interested in going there. And the answer I got was that That would be fine because Bill Barruman allowed walk-ons.
Anybody that wanted to walk on and train with the team was fine. You know, you never knew who was going to be good enough to run. And they said, if you do really well, maybe you'll get into a race or two. but there would be no scholarship. That was fine with me.
because Bill Barrman, he coached at Oregon from 1948 to 1972. Bill wrote the book on jogging. He brought jogging first to Eugene, and it's spread across Oregon, across the United States, and then across the world. He's in the Hall of Fame. Four times.
Pro track coach. and one time as an inventor. He invented the modern day athletic shoot.
So I flew space available on military flight to Dover, Delaware, and then I worked my way across the United States and got to Eugene. I had two suitcases in my hand. found a Motel 6 close to the university. And Dellinger had told me, When you get to Eugene, come see me in my office. And so there were people there already.
So I didn't know if I should go in or not. And Bill. Signaled me in. And in his office was Jim Ryan looking in a phone book for something. My high school hero, who I wrote my term paper for.
Was there sitting in a chair with Steve Prepontaine, you know, the greatest. American distance runner in the United States. When he died in 1975, he held every American record from the 2,000 meters to the 10,000 meters. There's been a book written about him, a documentary, and two different movies. and in the doorway Was Phil Knight.
Phil Knight. Who with Bill Barrman? co-founded Nike in 1964. I had my camera with me, so I took a picture in the office, which I have in my book. And um So I was just like In awe of the people I had met, and I shook hands with them and said, Should I even wash my hands after this?
Uh but The guy in the doorway, that Phil Knight, I'll tell you in a minute, he was probably the most important person in that room because he's the one that co-founded Nike. and would later change my life. I walked out of that office thinking, wow, what I just seen. But at the same time, it was, am I in over my head? Can I rise up to this level?
It was a walk-on. who was rejected by all the other universities that I had written to. About two weeks later, Baumann had the freshman in the stands. It was a freshman meeting, and I looked around when I got there, and there were about 50 people in the stands. all wanting to run track.
And I asked uh Someone if who's on scholarship and he said there's only three people on scholarship. And it turned out to be Mark Feig. There was Russ Francis who threw the javelin. And the third person was Tinker Hatfield, who some people might recognize that name. He's the world-famous designer that designs Nike shoes for us now.
But Bill Byron came out. And he said, statistically, based on all the years that he coached, Only three of us of the 50 would actually make it to our senior year. Everybody else would drop out of school, quit. And he would be proven right. It was two of those guys, turned out to be me as well.
It was the only three that made it to our senior years. He also told us You can only do two things well. And he says, one of them has to be a student. You have to be a good student because if you flunk out, everything else doesn't matter. But he said the second thing, based on what he observed, was you could either be a good athlete Or you could be, he said, a good lover.
You can't do both. And he said, you're just going to have to pick. And I remember looking around, and a few heads were looking down, like, is that true? And he said something Profound. He said, if you can find meaning in what it takes to stay on this track team.
You'll probably find meaning in another absurd pastime, life, you know, and that was in the movie Without Limits, if you've seen that. And you're listening to Steve Bence tell one heck of a story. Imagine being a young kid, a college freshman. in the same room with Phil Knight. and Pree and Jim Ryan and Bowerman.
Well, I think most of us would just cry or leave. When we come back, more of this remarkable story, Me, Pre, and the Birth of Nike. Here on Our American Stories. Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans. It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years.
And now it takes form in a new way. The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint. It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage. Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues. Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q.
That's usmint.gov/slash S-E-M-I-Q. Ice Cube's big three season is heating up. The most competitive basketball league on earth is on CBS this Sunday. The defending champion Miami 305, led by two-time MVP Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson, take on the Houston Righands looking for their first win. Then Coach Steven Jackson and the DMV Trilogy look to take down the undefeated Dallas Power, led by Coach Nancy Lieberman and Captain Greg Monroe.
The game played the way you looked at the game. Watch live Sunday on CBS at 4 p.m. Eastern, 1 p.m. Pacific, and catch replays Mondays on BET. Presented by iHeart.
1021 podcast is brought to you by the Home Depot official FIFA World Cup 2026 supporter. Yo, it's Castro. Watching the FIFA World Cup 2026 is one thing, but if you really think you got game, it's time to prove it. Si se puede. This year, build a skills challenge corner into Patio.
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Un poquito de trash talk, but all love because it's not just about watching the game, it's about showing up when it's your turn. This FIFA World Cup 2026 season: build your own skills challenge corner with the Home Depot in Tucasa. Learn more at home depot.com. The United States is about to mark its 250th anniversary. And so, on the Global Story Podcast from the BBC, we're telling surprising tales of American influence on the world stage and in ordinary people's lives all across the globe.
We have this ability to export our story, and a lot of people have bought it. I feel like the American Dream is alive, but not well. From the BBC, it's the United States at 250. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or find us on YouTube. And we continue here on Our American Stories, and we've been listening to Steve Bence.
And the book he's written 1972 pre-UO Trek Nike Shoes. and my life with them all. Let's continue. with Bence and his story. Yeah.
Nike was born on May 1st, 1972. I didn't know it when I was at the University of Oregon running. I was on the track team, and I was kind of oblivious to everything going on around me. But I gradually started to learn that the tiger shoes that I was wearing was actually Blue ribbon sports shoes and blue ribbon sports. was a handshake deal between Bill Bowerman, the coach, and Phil Knight the athlete.
in 1964. Bowerman was a coach, but he was also. He experimented. He always loved problem solving. And so he's always trying to come up with stuff to make athletes better.
And it could be anything. Like he worked on track surfaces. And of course, shoes, and even apparel. And so people would be wearing handmade shoes that he did. But he didn't have a really a good bus business sense.
Phil had that business sense. He was an athlete, he was a runner, he was coached by Bauman, and so the two got together. to create a new company. At first it was Blue Ribbon Sports. And Phil had written a paper in college at Stanford University.
that just like cameras we're very good cameras were coming out of Germany and they were expensive. But they were able to get good cameras out of Japan at a much cheaper price, and at the time. All the shoes were the good shoes. The competitive shoes were made in Germany, Adidas and Puma. and Phil speculated that you could make Just as good shoes in Japan at a much cheaper price.
And so they paired up. and they went to Japan to find somebody to make the shoes. Bottom were designed by Bill Bowermann. And so they were able to mass produce good shoes for kids in high school. at an affordable price, and and that was the Tiger Shoe.
But uh Phil picked May 1st, 1972 as the birthday of Nike. The Nike brand was starting to evolve. But that was the day the letter He received from Japan, Onitsuka Tiger, that they would no longer allow him to sell tiger shoes in the United States. And so when most of the company at the time heard that news, they thought, this is the worst day of our life. We're all out of jobs.
But Phil said, no, this is the best day of our life. You know, we can create our own brand and control our own destiny.
So that's when the Nike brand was born. Again, I was a little bit oblivious to the business part of it. I was just running. But Barrowman twice had me wear test shoes. And the first time I wore a pair of his test shoes, You know, he came into the locker room and said, Hey, Bence.
You wear a size nine, don't you? I go, yeah. And he goes, try these out.
So I was going out for a six mile run. And uh About two miles into it, my Achilles was really sore and my calf. I said, just my luck. When I'm supposed to be testing these shoes, I get hurt, right?
So I went back to the trainer and explained what was going on. He said, let me see those shoes. And he looked at them and Armin flipped the bottoms instead of the padding under the heel, he put it under the forefoot.
So every time I took a step, it was putting a strain on my Achilles. And the trainer was saying, You can't be a guinea pig for him. Your career and track is just a little too important.
So, why don't you take these shoes back to Bill? And tell them you can't test anymore. And I didn't want to do that at first. But I waited for a week and I felt confident, and I went into the office, and I said, Here's the shoes. And he said, what did you think?
And I said, well, I got hurt wearing them. And he goes, Well, what happened? And I said, Well, it's in my killies in Cafera. He goes, Ah, that's great, that's what I thought would happen. And that was it.
And I was thinking, like, what? He's either a mad scientist, you know. Or he's testing me out, or maybe he's just hazing a freshman. I didn't know what it was, but anyway, I didn't want to. Deal with any of that anymore, so I didn't do that.
But that was my lesson in He was motivated to try to find The best things to to make athletes better, and he wasn't afraid to fail. You know, a lot of company cultures, you know, failure is not good. You know, there's backstabbing and politics that goes into it. But um Tom Clark at Nike at one point had a poster in his office that said, The company that makes the most mistakes wins. You know, problems are good.
The story about the Waffle Iron and Bill Barriman making souls In his kitchen is partially true. But there's a lot of truth to the fact that. You know, he was constantly looking for ways to improve performance for athletes and weight, take weight out. Um So he did that. The first I understood the first time he used the waffle iron, you put some rubber or whatever in there and you close it, and when you it stuck, you know, just kept it up.
He had to throw that thing out.
So he had a couple steps before he actually figured out how to do it. The waffle iron was intriguing to him, and he was trying to get that. But if you think about what a waffle looks like, They're indentations, and if you look at the outsole, it's the mirror of that, it goes the other direction. But it was the concept that he had. And then he worked locally with rubber makers, and he was able to experiment with that until he got it right.
But then they just got sheets of rubber. with the waffle outsole that they made and they would just die cut it to go into the bottom of the shoes. Ah.
Well, there's four of us that we went to talk to Tom Byrman, Bill's son, who lives in Eugene in the house where Byrman used to live. And We told Tom, first question, we said, when he got up in the morning, what was it like for him to interview? And Tom said, Bill wouldn't even know what the word innovation means. He was a problem solver. He said, if he didn't have a problem to solve, he wouldn't know what to do with himself.
In innovation, the word innovation is overused these days. and even our innovation group. Product Innovation at Nike. they took the word innovation out of their title because It doesn't mean anything anymore. Track season started and There were Nine people listed in the newspaper that could run 800 meters or the half mile back then.
and out of the nine half milers with their personal best times in there, Out of the nine, I was number nine.
So I was the ninth person on the team going into the track season. And um Where I had been promised maybe I could run a few races if I was good enough. I ended up winning my first seven races there, and the seniors, and juniors, and sophomores weren't all that excited about it. And I went to the Pac-8 championships. It was the Pac-8, not the Pac-12 back then.
Yeah, I ended up taking second place at the Pac 8 Championships. And they made note of where the USC guy was, the first USC guy. I looked behind me, and he was in fourth place. In 1974, I was a junior. And Préfontaine by then was a good friend and teammate of mine.
But he was competing on his own now. The previous year He was still a University of Oregon student having a scholarship. And he was on the USA national team, which paid for all of his transportation, room and board, and so forth, as he competed around Europe for the United States. and he said they also gave him $4 a day for spending money. But what he found out when he was running over there after one of the races That he won, one of the competitors suggested that they pick up their prize money and go out and have a few beers.
And Priest was like, what prize money, right? All the money that came in for U.S. athletes went to the AAU, the Federation. The athletes that he had to compete against. In Europe, we were getting prize money from the meets, and their governing bodies were supporting them financially.
And so he was pissed, and he said. Why should I care about the AAU? They don't care about me.
So in 1974, he decided he was going to go to Europe, not compete in any AAU meets. and get his prize money. but he talked uh some of us to join him, including me. And I was kind of excited, you know. Like, I didn't know if I can continue my track season after my junior season, but I wanted to go to Europe.
and compete and see how I do.
So I accepted that. And you're listening to Steve Bence tell the story of, in essence, the founding of Nike. And it's a heck of a story about running and sports and commerce. And in the end, this thing that, well, let's face it, Bowerman, as we already learned, didn't like the word innovation. And most innovators don't, because they're just trying to solve a problem.
And indeed, it was a problem right in front of him. that had to do with his coaching and with winning. And in the end, that's what he really wanted to do, have an advantage. Over everyone, and the net benefit was. He created this remarkable sneaker company.
When we come back, more of the story of me, pre and the birth of Nike. And we're listening to author Steve Bence here. on our American stories. Yeah. Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans.
It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years. And now it takes form in a new way. The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint. It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage. Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues.
Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q. That's usmint.gov/slash S-E-M-I-Q. IceCube's big three season is heating up. The most competitive basketball league on earth is on CBS this Sunday. The defending champion Miami 305, led by two-time MVP Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson, take on the Houston Righands.
Looking for their first win. Then Coach Steven Jackson and the DMV Trilogy look to take down the undefeated Dallas Power, led by Coach Nancy Lieberman and Captain Greg Monroe. The game played the way you love. Watch live Sunday on CBS at 4 p.m. Eastern, 1 p.m.
Pacific, and catch replays Mondays on BET. Presented by iHeart. 1021 podcast is brought to you by the Home Depot official FIFA World Cup 2026 supporter. Yo, what's up, familia? It's Castro.
FIFA World Cup 2026 is around the corner. Y tu toda ay aviendo los juegos en tutivi bien chiquita. Nah, we're not doing that. This year, we're going big fan fest entu casa. With a little help from the Home Depot, turn your backyard into the ultimate watch party.
I'm talking an outdoor projector, a portable screen, or even a white drop cloth. Easy, instant stadium vibes. Order everything you need on the Home Depot app and get fast, free delivery. Add some string lights, white ode colores to set the mood right. Folding chairs, patio seats.
Eating, folding tables, pato a la comida, because you already know game day means snacks on snacks. Invite your people, turn up the volume, and just like that, it's not just a game. You feel like you're there. No couch, no distractions, just puro foodbolt and your crew.
So, why watch it small when you can live it big? Este año, build your own FIFA Fan Fest in Tucasa, the Home Depot. Learn more at home depot.com. The United States is about to mark its 250th anniversary. And so, on the Global Story podcast from the BBC, we're telling surprising tales of American influence on the world stage and in ordinary people's lives all across the globe.
We have this ability to export our story, and a lot of people have bought it. I feel like the American Dream is alive, but not well. From the BBC, it's the United States at 250. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or find us on YouTube. And we continue with our American stories and the story of Nike and how it came to be, and so much more about the running world in the 1970s in its infancy that would spawn what we now know as the modern world of track and field, and so much more, including marathons, which before the 70s.
were barely anything anyone knew about. In 1974, running Phenom Steve Prefontaine decided to take a stand against the amateur athletic union, the AAU, which demanded that athletes who wished to remain amateur for the Olympics not be paid for appearances in track meets, even though they drew large crowds that generated millions of dollars. At this time, the AAU is taking away the amateur status of athletes who were endorsed in any way. Because Priy was accepting free gear from Nike, he was subjected to the AAU's rulings and he found himself living on food stamps. He spoke very publicly against the AAU and asked his friend and Oregon Track teammate Steve Bence to join him in Europe to race in defiance.
Against the AAU. Here again. is Steve Bence. We started in Finland. Pre-Fontaine had to help us get into a meet.
In the first three track meets, I won. I got my prize money, which was $27. At each meet.
So I, you know, I had three. Three times $27 was for my first three races. It wasn't much. But it was illegal for it was against the rules of the NCAA and the AAU.
Now, the European competitors picked up their prize money, but we weren't supposed to do that.
So I was being rebellious. Because of Pre. He was talking us into do that, and we were supporting him. Probably 'cause he thought there's safety in numbers. And in 1978, this is after Prefontaine died.
Congress passed. A law that changed the whole thing. It abolished the AAU and allowed athletes to start being able to win money. which changed the whole sport and in a way vindicated us in my opinion. The next story I'll tell is on May 29th.
1975. And anybody that knows Prefontaine history knows that he died on May 30th, 1975.
So this this is the Thursday. There was a track meet that evening. And uh Pri had invited the Finnish national team to come to Oregon to compete. But the last race of the Uh of this tour. was going to be at Hayward Field, and it was going to be that evening.
May twenty ninth. But Pri came into our apartment with Mark and I. We left the door unlocked, and he just felt at home.
So he always would come in and out, and he insisted that we go over to his house. and play spades, play cards. Because he was so hyper, you know, because he had to have a good meet that evening to be able to recover some of the money. And he had promised that he was going to try to break the American record in the 5,000 meters to get as many people in the stands as possible. And Pri ran his race, and then afterwards, we went back to our dorms to shower.
And Pri had graduated, so he went to be with the Finns at a party. Uh went to bed that night. I had a Final exam the next day.
So I knew I had to get up and study. At six o'clock in the morning the phone rang. And it was a friend who had graduated the previous year and said, I just heard on the radio that Prefontaine died. And I was like, no, he couldn't have, you know. We were just with him all day yesterday.
He was just here last night, you know, that kind of thing.
So I called the. Radio station. And they said it was true that he was in a single car accident. And that it He was dead. And uh I just remember um taking my books and going over to the student union.
'Cause I had to study. And I remember, oh boy. There was music in the background playing, and I remember it was Wishing You Were Here. Yeah. That hit me.
See me again. Um And um I thought about what inspired me most about him. And It was Reflecting back to the Europe. And defying the AAU. And even in that track meet the night before, he was defying the AAU by putting that on.
He wasn't allowed to. put on a meet, but they backed off at the last minute. But Just his rebellious spirit, you know. in his fight for justice. Um I wanted to be that.
I wanted to live that. And so. that became a part of who who I was or who I am. And uh Phil Knight later said. If Nike could have the personality of any human being, The personality he'd want is that of Steve Prefontaine.
Yeah, it doesn't Place called Prees Rock in Eugene, which is where Pré-Fontaine died, where his car flipped and it killed him. And people will go to prize rock. To honor them. And they leave stuff, they leave shoes, they leave clothing, and all those kinds of things. He was 24 years old when he died.
It was 1975. And people still go to The Rock, and kids are still inspired by him. And uh When I've been up there, sometimes I've talked to people. For example, one time I talked to husband and wife who were coaching in the Midwest somewhere. And I said, what is it about pre?
Yeah. your athletes love, which inspires them the most. And she said, it's because he's so blue-collar, he worked so hard, he was so competitive. The kids just believe if they do the same thing, you know, if they work hard and do what they have to do, they can excel as well. And you know, it's not his accomplishments that people admire him for.
Although he had every American record from 2,000 meters up to 10,000 meters, it's not the accomplishments that. that people talk about. It's how he lived his life and how he competed. And many times runners, lead runners, will just sit in the back until the last half lap and then kick in and win the race. Prem wanted to go out and be in front.
Every every crazy he ran he called a performance. And he was doing it for the people in the stands. And he would say: if you run in the back and just kick at the last 200 meters, That's chicken. He just did not believe that that was the right way to run a race. The only way to really run a race is in the front, flat out as hard as you can go, and run as fast as you can every time.
But also, One of the things that Coach Dellinger, Bill Dellinger, who was the assistant coach for the Runners at the University of Oregon, he said the one thing he noticed about Pree is he never missed a workout, he never missed a race. He was there all the time. And pre-confided, you know, there were times that he wasn't feeling good, but he wouldn't tell anybody. He would go out there and run anyway.
So it's it's just that honorable competitive hardworking ethic, I think, is what young people today look up to. When I started with Nike, uh To me, it was just a bunch of runners getting together. And moving into the next part of our life. And I was trying to figure out what I was going to do. I was teaching and coaching.
And maybe I could have done that for my whole life, but... I was looking for that job that inspired me, that kind of was. meaningful to me, purposeful to me. And uh I didn't know Nike was going to be it, but uh When the company started, when BRS started importing Tiger shoes from Japan. Phil placed his first order to Japan for 300 pairs of shoes.
So that was 1964, Tiger shoes. And then, you know, maybe I don't know where we got up to about a million pairs. I'm really only talking about footwear because that's what I have in my experience. And we usually talk in Parage. And when I told my, to back up, when I told my mother, I was working for Nike and she asked me, what's Nike?
And I told her about Bill Barman and Phil Knight, and we're making shoes for runners and stuff. She says, You went to college, I'm going to tell my friends that you're a shoe salesman or whatever, you know. And she says, why don't you work for a company that makes something that a lot of people will buy, right? That's the way she was thinking back then. That's the way we were all thinking.
You know, it was a small market. but because of jogging in particular. Runners and average everyday people started getting running shoes to run in because now we were starting to jogging. It just wasn't for elite runners. And people were wearing them to knock around and walk around in because they were comfortable and lightweight.
We didn't start wanting to change the world. We were just trying to improve performance for runners. But the thing was taking off, so When people find out that it was a group of runners that started this company, and that's the culture that we have, it makes sense. No one can imagine a bunch of football players getting together and doing this, or basketball players, or whatever, but a bunch of runners, we pulled it off. And so the culture that we have as a company comes from that.
I'm now settled down in Beaverton, Oregon. I've lived in my house for over 30 years. I adopted a girl in Taiwan when we were there. We adopted a girl in Korea when we were there. We had a son in the United States.
We moved back to Korea. My youngest was born in Korea. And they've all grown up here in this house.
Now I have four grandchildren, you know, ages zero. two, four, and six. They're over here all the time, you know, talking.
So there's a big group, my four kids, and those four grandchildren. And looking back on a career that has been incredibly rewarding, and being a part, you know, I never claimed to be. A Phil Knight, or anything major. I mean, I was just a guy getting the job done in Math Nerd. that was excited about uh being a part of running still, about a part of the running culture.
And uh When you have an opportunity to do something bigger than yourself and genuinely enjoy working with people. It's a pretty rewarding experience. And that's where I am right now in my life. Um And a terrific job on the storytelling and production by Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to Steve Bence, author of 1972 Pre-U O Trek, Nike Shoes, and My Life with Them All.
Go to a bookstore and buy this book or wherever you get your books online. Phil Knight, the founder, all the way through. We love founders here on this show. The story of Nike here. on our American stories.
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