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10. 1970
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Shoe Dog, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Entrepreneurship, Experience, and Perseverance
Leadership
Global Economies
Balancing Family and Work
Summary
Analysis
Kitami accepts Knight’s invitation to the U.S. and plans a visit in March 1971. Knight does everything he can to make sure Kitami loves his stay, including taking him to the Oregon coast. He also shows Kitami the new office in Tigard and introduces him to a number of Blue Ribbon employees. Everything seems to be going relatively well until Knight sits down for a private meeting with Kitami. Kitami is unsatisfied with Blue Ribbon’s numbers, even though their sales have doubled yearly. He says he has talked to other people who think they should be tripling. However, he refuses to say who these other people are.
The Oregon coast is the same place Knight went for his honeymoon, which nicely demonstrates how important Kitami’s trip is for the future success of Blue Ribbon. However, Kitami’s behavior implies that his trip was not satisfactory. Whether his sales projections are reasonable is another question; it is possible Knight could triple his sales in a year, but not without the proper funding. He worries Kitami will go to a bigger company that already has the necessary funds to meet his lofty expectations.
Themes
During their meeting, Kitami leaves Knight’s office for a moment to use the restroom. While Kitami is away, Knight snoops around and looks at the folder Kitami brought with him. In the folder, he finds proof that Kitami is planning to leave Blue Ribbon for a different distributor. For the moment, Knight decides it is best to act as though he does not know what is going on. However, inside, he is enraged.
Here, Knight debatably crosses an ethical line that will come back to bite him in the future. Knight feels justified to do so in the moment because he feels Kitami has crossed lines as well, considering he plans to break Blue Ribbon’s contract. Still, Knight must hold his emotions inside because, if he doesn’t, he will lose what little chance he has of keeping Onitsuka onboard.
Themes
On the last day of Kitami’s trip, Knight and Penny take him to a dinner at Bowerman’s house. Although there are a few moments when Knight worries the party might spin out of control from too much drinking, Kitami ultimately has a good time. Everyone involved does what they can to suck up to Kitami and make him feel welcome. However, Knight worries it still is not enough.
Although Kitami enjoys his time at Bowerman’s house, Knight has no guarantee that he wants to stay on with Blue Ribbon. Everywhere Kitami goes, he is likely receiving similar treatment, probably from bigger and wealthier companies. As such, Knight needs to figure out what his future looks like without Onitsuka.
Themes
After Kitami leaves, Knight contacts Delbert Hayes, his former boss and drinking buddy from Price Waterhouse. Knight knows Blue Ribbon’s partnership with Onitsuka will not last much longer, so he needs an exit strategy. Hayes advises Knight to keep everything under wraps for as long as possible. However, Knight does not have to hide his intentions for long because a few days later, Kitami returns to Oregon and asks Knight to sell him Blue Ribbon. Knight immediately declines the offer, so Kitami tells him he plans to find a better distributor.
Knight's snooping was barely worthwhile because Kitami comes clean with his plan almost immediately. In fact, Kitami's behavior is not quite as underhanded as Knight initially thought; Kitami at least offers to buy Blue Ribbon instead of simply discarding it. However, Blue Ribbon is Knight's baby, and there is no way he is giving it up; as such, a legal battle looks like it is on the horizon.
Themes
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Three weeks later, Knight does not know what to do. His bank will no longer loan him money, and despite posting $1.3 million in sales in 1971, Blue Ribbon is barely surviving. Home life is also hard for Knight. He tries to make time for Penny and Matthew, but there is very little of it. Still, he always ensures he has time to tell Matthew a bedtime story and talk with Penny about his day.
Knight finds himself in a bizarre situation; he runs an extremely profitable company but never has any money. On top of that, his constant work means he barely has time to raise his son. Blue Ribbon is still alive, but at what cost?
Themes
Knight decides the only way to prevent Blue Ribbon’s destruction is to go behind Onitsuka’s back. He signs a deal with a factory in central Mexico, which technically does not violate his deal with Onitsuka, though he knows Onitsuka will not see it that way. In part, Knight feels bad about betraying Onitsuka, but he feels justified because Onitsuka betrayed him first.
The factory in Mexico is Knight's first attempt at an exit strategy. Blue Ribbon has the infrastructure it needs to survive except for a production line. In other words, this is a step in the right direction for Blue Ribbon if it hopes to survive once Onitsuka is gone.
Themes
Because Knight needs to create his own brand, so he calls up a young artist named Carolyn Davidson, whom he met at Portland State. He asks Carolyn to create a logo for his new company. In particular, he wants “Something that evokes a sense of motion.” Carolyn creates several different logos and presents them to Knight, including the now-iconic Nike logo. Johnson and Woodell like the Nike logo, but Knight is unsure about it. Ultimately, though, he does not have enough time or money to keep commissioning new logos, so he decides to go with it for the time being.
Notably, the now-iconic Nike logo came about in a moment of crisis. Essentially, it is a happy accident that almost did not survive given the state of Blue Ribbon and Knight's initial disapproval of the logo. It is one of many examples in the book where something starts off looking one way—in this case, like a poor man's attempt at branding—and turns into something else that is wholly unexpected.
Themes
Next, Knight and his companions need a new name for their offshoot company. They throw a number of options around, but none really stick until Johnson suggests “Nike.” Knight likes the name and thinks about his time in Greece. With a new company name and logo, things start looking up for Knight. Nissho Iwai, a Japanese trading company, helps Knight fix his cashflow problem, and business starts looking up.
Given Johnson’s reading habits, he likely knows about “Nike” and its associations, which Knight listed earlier in the book. Unlike the logo, Knight immediately takes a liking to the name because of its serendipitous connection to his past.
Themes
However, more problems arise when Knight receives his first batch of shoes from the factory in central Mexico. They are not as durable as Knight hoped they’d be, and they don’t live up to the standard Blue Ribbon set in the past. Still, they were serviceable and soon became popular enough for the starting quarterback at Notre Dame to wear them.
Nothing ever goes well for long in this memoir, as new problems arise just as Knight fixes others. Still, despite the issues with the shoes, Knight proves he and the Blue Ribbon team can be successful without Onitsuka’s involvement.
Themes
Knight uses his contact as Nissho to help him find better factories to produce his shoes. Eventually, he finds another factory in Japan that is willing to do business with him. However, he worries that Kitami will soon figure out what is happening, as there are only so many shoe factories in Japan.
Knight is playing with fire if he chooses to import shoes from Japan. A legal battle is already on the horizon with Onitsuka, and hiring another company in Japan to produce shoes for Blue Ribbon's offshoot project could worsen matters.
Themes
Knight has to go to Japan for several weeks to look at factories, so he invites Penny to visit him there. They meet at a hotel, and Knight is overjoyed to see her. Unfortunately, shortly after their reunion, Penny goes to use the bathroom and suffers a panic attack. Knight realizes that Blue Ribbon and Matthew have been putting a lot of stress on her, and he worries about her health. While in Japan, Knight meets Fujimoto to ask about Onitsuka’s plan to leave Blue Ribbon. Unfortunately, Fujimoto does not know much more than what Knight already learned from stealing Kitami’s files.
Because Knight is so focused on Blue Ribbon, he is blind to how his behavior affects those around him, even those he loves the most. Until Knight witnesses Penny's panic attack, he had no idea how much stress Blue Ribbon was putting on her. Although this moment causes Knight to reflect on his behavior, it does not change him. His dedication to Blue Ribbon never wanes as he continues working to shift away from Onitsuka.
Themes
When Knight returns to the U.S., he meets with Woodell and Bowerman to strategize for the coming months. Their meeting sparks a creative streak for Bowerman, who begins working on new shoe designs. In particular, he experiments with pouring different types of plaster and rubber into waffle irons because he thinks the waffle texture will create an excellent running shoe. Quickly, Bowerman’s experiments prove effective, so he asks Knight to send the design to his manufacturers. Knight does as Bowerman says, not realizing that Bowerman has just created one of the most significant shoe designs in history.
The waffle design Knight describes here is one of the two widely-recognized major improvements Nike has made to athletic shoes throughout its 50+ year run. Although Knight was excited about the new design at the time, he had no way of knowing just how popular and innovative it would become. This is a moment of dramatic irony in the memoir, as readers already know what Nike will turn into, while Knight is still struggling to survive.
Themes
