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From the Newsroom

For most of his life, John Rattray didn't spend much time thinking about neuroscience. He was too busy skateboarding.As a professional athlete in Encinitas, California, Rattray built his career inside the restless rhythm of skate culture—for 12 years, he travelled, filmed and chased the next session.But as injuries mounted and his pro career grew more uncertain, he began reflecting on the experiences that shape us.There was something about skateboarding that had provided a kind of foundation—not just for him, but for others around him.He wanted to know why.Now, years later, Rattray's curiosity has culminated&nbsp;in Your Brain on Sport (YBOS), a comic series that explores mental health and brain science through stories that young athletes can relate to.Developed with trauma experts and Nike researchers, the comic translates complex neuroscience into simple narratives that help athletes better understand stress, emotional regulation and well-being."My attempt with the comic is to encapsulate these ideas into cool little stories where you learn one small concept at a time", says Rattray. The goal is to break these concepts down into bite-size pieces, he says, and gently direct your mind. "I hope to deliver some clarity on how your brain and your nervous system work together and how you can use physical movement as one tool in your therapeutic toolkit".

With sketches by skate artist Jon Horner and writing by Rattray, youth counsellor Joel Pippus and neuroscientist Bruce Perry, PhD, MD, <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-unveils-new-grail-skate-shoe-nike-sb-air-force-1" target="_blank">Nike SB</a> now hosts two digital editions of the series so far: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ybos.nikesb.com/ybos-running" target="null">The Regulation of Running</a> and <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DVCRKcSEsUT/?img_index=1" target="null">Healing Through Hoops.</a>In the latter edition, Nike SB skateboarder Nicole Hause reflects on her own experience of navigating depression and therapy. The chapter, which also features Chicago-based youth basketball organisation Girls in the Game, examines how physical movement can help interrupt emotional spirals and bring your nervous system back into balance.&nbsp;While it may seem counterintuitive, Hause says that skateboarding isn't always the activity she turns to when she's feeling down."When you're a pro skater, sometimes skating can come with a lot of pressure", she explains. "There's this expectation you have of yourself, like you have to skate like a pro every day. If I'm already having a rough day, doing something simpler, like shooting hoops, helps me clear my mind. I don't get as upset if I don't make a basket as if I don't do a skate trick. It helps me get in my body more and less in my head".That insight is the starting point for the story, which illustrates how choosing a different activity can sometimes help your body shift gears and reset. The importance of the message—along with the opportunity to collaborate with Rattray—made the decision to participate an easy one for Hause."John is a skate legend", she says. "When I heard about the project, I instantly wanted to get involved".

"Your Brain on Sport"

The path to YBOS, however, began decades earlier.Rattray grew up in Aberdeen, Scotland, an oil town on the northeast coast, in a household shaped by addiction and instability. His father struggled with severe alcoholism, and life at home could be chaotic and unpredictable.Skateboarding became a lifeline. Within the skate scene, Rattray found what he now describes as a "consistent crew of young creatives"—a community that offered stability when little else did."I don't know where I would be if I hadn't found skating", he says.When Rattray was 13, his father died. By then, skating had already begun to anchor his teenage years. At the time, he didn't think about it in neuroscientific terms; he simply knew that being on a skateboard with friends made life feel more manageable.Years later, in 2011, Rattray's sister Katrina died by suicide. In that painful aftermath, he began to think more deeply about why skateboarding was a safe haven. He read about trauma, the nervous system and the long-term effects of childhood adversity. It was during that search that he encountered the work of Dr Perry, who would later help write the comic.

Reading Dr Perry's book What Happened to You?, Rattray was introduced to something the neuroscientist called the "neurosequential model"—a framework that connects early life experiences, stress and the body's regulatory systems.The discovery was a light-bulb moment.For the first time, Rattray had language for patterns he had seen throughout his life: the chaos of his childhood, the emotional weight carried by his family and the reason why skateboarding had provided such a powerful sense of stability."Why did nobody tell me about this?" he remembers thinking. "Because this explains everything I've experienced".

Today, Rattray's comic series is serving not only as a storytelling device, but also as a learning tool connected to Dr Perry's Neurosequential Model in Sport (NM-Sport),&nbsp;which applies his research to athletic environments.Among key concepts is how the brain responds to stress and how, in the right doses, challenge can actually help build resilience."One of the most important things to understand about the brain's stress systems is that moderate, predictable stress can actually strengthen them", explains Dr Perry. "That's what training is in sport. You're exposing the body to manageable challenges so it can adapt".In that sense, he says, sport offers something many traditional mental health interventions cannot: repeated opportunities to experience challenge, regulation and recovery within a supportive community."If a kid is part of a team", says Dr Perry, "they're going to have many more opportunities for healing experiences than if they just see a therapist once a week".Movement itself also plays a critical role. Patterned, rhythmic activities—walking, running, skating or dribbling a basketball—send signals through the nervous system that can help regulate emotional states.Brett Kirby, Nike's senior principal scientist at the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL), was part of an early training group for the NM-Sport programme, connecting Dr Perry's concepts to the way Nike thinks about athletic training and performance environments."Rhythm supports regulation", says Kirby. "That's one of the ideas that resonates most strongly with athletes".In the first edition of the comic, The Regulation of Running, Kirby helped translate those principles, examining how cadence and repetitive movement can help athletes settle their nervous system.Running, explains Kirby, naturally creates the kind of rhythm the brain responds to."When we're training athletes physically, we think in terms of dosing—predictable, moderate exposures that allow the body to adapt", he says. "The same principle applies to stress and emotional experiences. You prepare for those moments in similar ways".The idea that sport can serve as both performance training and emotional regulation sits at the heart of YBOS.

In his work, Dr Perry has found that translating neuroscience into everyday language is notoriously difficult—one of the reasons why he is so enthusiastic about Rattray's comic series. When the former pro skater shared early sketches, the neuroscientist says he was "stunned" by how clearly the ideas came through."He translated these concepts more accurately than most people I've worked with for years", says Dr Perry. "Making complex ideas accessible is incredibly hard, and he managed to do it in a way young athletes can actually connect with".

The YBOS initiative grew out of a broader project of Rattray's called <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.nikesb.com/whysosad#" target="null">Why So Sad?</a> which uses skateboarding as a platform to raise awareness about depression and suicide prevention. The effort has included community events, storytelling and previous comic collaborations designed to open conversations about mental health within skate culture.Both Why So Sad? and YBOS have been supported by the national non-profit&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://chjs.org/" target="null">Center for Healing and Justice Through Sport&nbsp;(CHJS)</a>;&nbsp;the Calgary-based mental health organisations Push to Heal and Hull Services; and Nike Social and Community&nbsp;Impact,&nbsp;which also&nbsp;partners with CHJS to&nbsp;train non-profit partners that are powering the future of youth sport around the world.&nbsp;Limited-edition print copies of Healing Through Hoops have been distributed at fundraising events, and the digital version will soon be available online. The Regulation of Running is currently live via <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://ybos.nikesb.com/ybos-running" target="null">Nike SB</a>.&nbsp;Hause says the projects reflect what she has experienced as a broader part of Nike's approach to supporting athletes—one that encourages them to prioritise well-being and speak openly about mental health."At its core, Nike wants to take care of its athletes", she says. "It's a company that actually cares about our mental health and wants us to be healthy and happy".Participating in the comic, she says, gave her a chance to speak honestly about her own experiences, something that isn't always easy in professional sports."This project gave me an opportunity to be vulnerable", says Hause, "and maybe that'll help somebody else".

<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.crisistextline.org/" target="_blank">Crisis Text Line</a>, a Nike non-profit partner, is a free, confidential, 24/7 text-based mental health service in both English and Spanish, providing non-judgemental support to people in their moments of need. At any time, texters in the US can connect with live volunteer crisis counsellors by texting the word STRONG to 741741.

Developed with trauma experts and Nike researchers and hosted by Nike SB, "Your Brain on Sport" is a comic series that translates complex neuroscience into simple narratives that help athletes better understand stress, emotional regulation and well-being.

Making it

This Science-Backed Sports Comic Is Made to Better Your Mental Health

Essential read

What would the back of your athletic trading card say? That's what Nike's Baseline testing is for: a way for all athletes to understand their physical tools.What It DoesNike's Baseline testing, made up of five assessments, is as foundational as it sounds. The assessments are borrowed from the worlds of biomechanics, physiotherapy and exercise science, and can be completed in a matter of minutes: a 3D body scan, a foot scan, a barefoot pressure test, an ankle range of motion test and countermovement jumps. In many ways, Baseline is the most ubiquitous tool that the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL) offers. Every professional athlete who visits the NSRL has the option of doing the testing, no matter their itinerary. But that doesn't mean it's a resource that's exclusive to a precious few. Baseline is the one test series in the NSRL that's also open to every Nike employee.Considered together, the test results form the baseline of a person's athletic profile—how powerful they are, how mobile they are, how explosive they are and other traits. Knowing these attributes gives Nike researchers, scientists and designers a clearer picture of how to serve an athlete's needs.

What It Helps Us DoJackie Shea, Baseline operator, Innovation, says Nike researchers selected each of the&nbsp;Baseline tests to set an experiential, diagnostic tone for every athlete interaction within the NSRL. Before the opening of the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/inside-the-nike-sports-research-lab-lebron-james-innovation-center" target="null">LeBron James Innovation Center</a> in October 2021, athlete engagement in the lab was largely reserved for testing footwear and apparel prototypes. There's nothing wrong with that, says Shea, a former D1 athlete who studied kinesiology and exercise science. But that process largely treats the athlete as a test pilot secondary to the vehicle—the product—they are steering. "We wanted Baseline to help bring athletes to the centre of the lab, distinct from product", she says.&nbsp;Through their Baseline results, athletes can see nuances in their athletic profile. Are you geared towards slower endurance or more explosive power? Your vertical jump results might point you towards an answer. Does your anatomy from the 3D body scan suggest you have any imbalances in your proportions? These results are valuable to athletes for their own sake. You don't need to test a product to gain a better awareness of your own body.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

After guiding more than 4,000 athletes through Baseline, Shea has learned to spot trends in physical profiles among different sports while offering remedies via other Nike tools. For example, runners tend to have weak posterior strength, so in their back, glutes and hamstrings. They stand the most to gain from consistent weight training, provided in the hundreds of workouts from the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.nike.com/ntc-app" target="_blank">Nike Training Club App</a>. Athletes who play lateral sports, like basketball, tend to have limited mobility, so a Nike yoga class at a nearby store might be just what they need to balance out.Key to Shea's job is a fair amount of myth-busting when discussing test results. An athlete might comment on how running hurts their knees, but when they test their ankle mobility, the athlete grimaces, looking stiff as a board. They test their gait on <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/nike-nsrl-form" target="_blank">NSRL Form</a>—a recent addition to the test line-up—and are clearly overstriding. With each step, most of their force is displaced through their knees and their back instead of transferred evenly through their body. Running doesn't hurt their knees—the way they run hurts their knees. Baseline results help give athletes a course of action for what troubles them the most.&nbsp;

Baseline does play a role in ensuring that Nike researchers test products efficiently and orient them towards real solutions. For example, Baseline results are a common way for NSRL researchers to recruit for new studies. An athlete with strong results in explosive vertical jumping power is an ideal fit for a future basketball jumping study that tests a new hoops silhouette. A distance runner, on the other hand, might find a steady-state treadmill run in the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/nike-sport-research-lab-environmental-chambers" target="_blank">climate chambers</a> a better match, which in turn can help scientists evaluate the latest sweat-wicking material innovations like <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-aero-fit-official-images" target="null">Aero-FIT</a>. As more and more athletes do Baseline, the lab's research specificity gets sharper and sharper. The same is true for product development.&nbsp;That process is ongoing. A Baseline evaluation is never the end of the story. It's the beginning of a conversation.&nbsp;"Baseline creates relationships with athletes that aren't passive, but active", says Shea. "The conversations between athletes and their test results are in a constant cycle with each other. One of my favourite parts in this job is getting to ask follow-up questions. You're showing some imbalance between your left-leg power and your right leg. Did you have some kind of injury to your leg early on? Tell me more. There's always more to every athlete's story".

What would the back of your athletic trading card say? That's what the NSRL's Baseline testing is for: a way for all athletes to understand their physical tools.

Sport science

Next Level

The NSRL Baseline Testing

World Athletics Championship preview

The Willy Wonka factory for innovation. The NASA of sports science. The epicentre of performance product creation. Athletes, industry leaders and visiting partners have described the Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, in myriad ways. Our teams like to call it their dreamland. The place where creating, designing and breaking limits to better serve athletes has no bounds. The secret rooms where the unimaginable—the future of fastest, strongest, greatest—is made real. The images below capture a behind-the-scenes look into those unknown spaces, with audio context from Nike employees who help bring the dreams to life.

LEBRON JAMES INNOVATION CENTER

The <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/inside-the-nike-sports-research-lab-lebron-james-innovation-center" target="_blank">LeBron James Innovation Center</a> is where listening to the voice of the athlete is made tangible.&nbsp;While athletes are observed,&nbsp;others are at play too: researching, testing and, yes, creating the future. The goal is to understand athletes' unique needs and opportunities, contextualise challenges and generate breakthroughs across the spectrum of play and movement in a variety of environments.&nbsp;Much of that action takes place in the building's top floor, the Nike Sport&nbsp;Research Lab (NSRL), which houses the world's largest motion-capture installation (400 cameras), a basketball court, pitch and track with 97&nbsp;force plates, sweat-wicking mannequins and three environmental climate chambers that can mimic nearly any condition on Earth. Some of the innovator's prize tools: more than 80 prototyping machines that allow the Nike team to produce samples to test in under an hour.

DEPARTMENT OF NIKE ARCHIVES (DNA)

Understanding the past can inform and inspire how we innovate for the future, and no space at Nike preserves and stokes a more thorough accounting of our heritage than the Department of Nike Archives. This 50-plus-year Nike archive is the greatest in the world. From the actual broken waffle iron Bill Bowerman made famous to the self-lacing shoes from everyone's favourite futuristic film to Serena's iconic gladiator outfit, DNA houses the tangible history—papers, posters, photographs, memorabilia and of course, shoes—that represent the culture and soul of the Swoosh.

AIR MANUFACTURING INNOVATION (AIR MI)

There's something magical about putting on a fresh pair of Nike Air shoes, and we think it's thanks to our&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-air-blueprint-pack-official-images" target="_blank">unique Air technology</a>. In just three facilities in the US—two located a mile from Nike World Headquarters—experts on our Air Manufacturing Innovation (Air MI) team make that magic happen. Air MI is where we produce the propriety TPU material that forms our Air units and where we hold 500-plus patents. It's also the place where a highly skilled team comes together to build the products that will help break sport barriers. Inside the facility are engineers with 15 specialities across them, who custom-build technology platforms and flexible, scalable production lines to deliver the exact capabilities needed to manufacture the next generation of Air. That's in partnership with skilled production teammates, trained across the line, to ensure the highest fidelity and quality of our Air units.

Advanced Product Creation Center (APCC)

The APCC is a top-secret, state-of-the-art facility focused on innovation in product design. Consider it the home of rapid prototyping for Nike designers, scientists and researchers who need to test, refine and create new ideas for athletes at scale. With advanced methods of make, the APCC explores more flexible and forward-looking approaches that streamline the development and manufacturing process, reducing time and effort, while pushing boundaries in sports innovation.⁠ You'll find chemical, mechatronics, process and robotics engineers, as well as machinists, all dedicated to accelerating ideas through trial and experimentation, faster and more precisely than ever before.

Photography by <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.instagram.com/alastairwiper" target="_blank">Alastair Philip Wiper</a>, shot for the "<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.design-museum.de/en/exhibitions/detailpages/nike.html" target="_blank">Nike: Form Follows Motion</a>" exhibit at the Vitra Design Museum.

Get a behind-the-scenes look of Nike's World Headquarters and the places where we create, design and dream, all to serve athletes.

Photo essay

The spaces where Nike creates the future of sport

When Marquis Mills Converse founded his eponymous company in 1908 in Boston, Mass., his mission was to create an operation that functioned independent of the industry's monopolies, rooted in a community of the best rubber shoemakers. His first products were galoshes and waterproof winter boots, which meant demand for his wares dipped in warmer seasons. To keep his highly skilled craftspeople occupied year-round, Converse needed a summer offering. A canvas tennis shoe with a rubber sole debuted in 1910, but the company's true breakthrough didn't come until it saw an opportunity to apply its signature innovations to a sneaker expressly designed for a then-newfangled local sport: basketball.Invented in 1891 in nearby Springfield, Mass., basketball was growing in popularity and being adopted by regional colleges when Converse introduced its "Non-Skid" shoe in 1917, defining the design as the "All-American basket-ball shoe". It was crafted on the company's original dress shoe last with two-piece quarter for superior ankle fit and paired with a non-skid sole that employed Converse's patented diamond-tread pattern.&nbsp;

The sneaker was first marketed to the area's coaches, who provided Converse with constructive feedback, including noting that they'd prefer a darker canvas upper because the light tan hue revealed too many scuffs and dings. In response, the company created a dark brown version of the Non-Skid, featuring black trim up the eye row. The iteration was officially branded the "All Star" in 1919, kicking off a new round of basketball-specific innovations that came to characterise the silhouette as the leading performance basketball shoe of the next half-century.As for the shoe's namesake, Chuck Taylor (aka Charles Hollis Taylor), he arrived a few years later.

True to its name, the Chuck Taylor All Star was worn by basically every top basketball player pre-1965. These athletes included players competing on the world's biggest stage in 1936, when Converse equipped the US men's basketball team with white Chucks featuring red and blue stripes on their foxing tape. The custom version was such a hit that competing teams adopted it, and the colourway was permanently added to the product line. In 1939, America's first national college basketball championship featured players in Chucks. In 1962, basketball's professional single-game scoring record&nbsp;of 100&nbsp;points was made in Chucks. In 1971, Chucks debuted in team colours, allowing teams to match their kit to their shoes for the first time. Chucks was basketball, and basketball was Chucks.

As it turns out, the performance innovations that made the Chuck a great basketball design also made it a great skateboarding shoe.

Skateboarding debuted in mid-century California as "sidewalk surfing", a pastime for when the waves were flat. The low-top Chuck, which came out in 1957, was already a favourite of these "beach boys" and perfectly adapted to the new street sport, thanks to its underfoot cushioning, grippy rubber and form-fitting canvas upper.

Over 50 years later, the Chuck retains its foundational status in skate and with its top athletes—even as the sport has moved from the street to the world's premier competitions and into its leading museums. In 2023, the Design Museum in London hosted "Skateboard",&nbsp;the exhibition arm of a multimedia project that also included <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.phaidon.com/store/design/skateboard-9781838667498/" target="null">a book</a> created in collaboration with curator Jonathan Olivares, Converse and Phaidon, chronicling the countercultural design history of skateboarding.

The Chuck's simple, no-frills style also reflects skate's democratic, live-on-your-own-terms DNA—which has taken it everywhere.

Tyler, the Creator says it well: "I'm from LA, and I grew up with skateboarders. [The Chuck Taylor] is a very staple shoe in that lifestyle". The Chuck bridged skate and music in the '90s and early noughties, but the shoe's musical roots stretch back to artists topping Billboard charts in the '50s and '60s. These global stars wore the silhouette everywhere: on stages from California to England, crossing Penny Lane, traversing the beaches of Hawthorne and strolling the streets of Haight-Ashbury.

Over the decades, the Chuck has collected a roster of musical artists that rivals a legacy record label's list and spans all genres, from punk, alternative and grunge to hip-hop, indie rock and pop. It has also cemented its place in recording studios, on album covers and at global music festivals, even infiltrating classical music halls. In 2018, when the conductor Jonathon Heyward forgot his formal shoes for an orchestra performance, he wore his red Chucks onstage, nearly upstaging the concert. "Being able to find a sense of relatability within classical music is something that I am really passionate about, and Chuck Taylors are incredible barrier breakers", explains Heyward, who is music & artistic director of the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center, and music director at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. "By simply wearing a pair of Chuck Taylors to my concert, I become more relatable—and people's openness becomes greater when there is that sense of relatability. The walls go down and I can take them on a journey, which is what classical music is and what a live classical music performance is about".

As a cultural bellwether of mid-century America, the Chuck couldn't ignore colour. First introduced for basketball-centric reasons, the rainbow of hues also made a statement by breaking down colour barriers on court and off, celebrating diversity and championing self-expression in all forums.

From primary tones came endless prints and motifs, with the '80s debuting camouflage and animal and glitter treatments along with checkerboard, strike and glow-in-the-dark patterns. New materials, heights and shapes followed, evolving the Chuck from a signifier of specific subcultures to a customisable badge for those independent enough not to follow—and for an ever-evolving roster of collaborators.

It all began in 1934 with Disney, Converse's first brand partnership, which defined Chucks as the first shoes to feature Mickey Mouse. Despite this high-profile launch, it wasn't until the late noughties that collaboration became a central element of the Chuck. The 2008 Converse 1HUND(RED) Artists Collection commissioned 100 global musicians, graphic designers and graffiti artists to use the Chuck as a canvas on which to express their support of the fight against AIDS, empowering the community for a cause and unleashing a dam of creativity. The stream of joint creations has remained steady, including signature contributions from the brand's longest-standing collaborator, Comme des Garçons (CDG) PLAY.

The instant, persistent popularity of the Converse x PLAY Comme des Garçons partnership confirmed what had been apparent for decades: the Chuck effortlessly resides in high-fashion spheres, whose leading visionaries grew up with the shoe, influenced by its anti-conformist ethos and customisable style. As fashion designer Rick Owens put it, "When I think of Converse, I think of the black and white Chuck Taylors and the punk rock generation. These have always been iconic pillars of my aesthetic".As the noughties wore on and digital media democratised access to the fashion world, the Chuck cemented its status in this once-rarefied yet open-minded world. It graced runways in both original and bespoke forms at the same time as it populated the pages of glossies and appeared in street-style snaps from global fashion weeks.

Deeply entwined in the fabric of global culture, the Chuck has likewise witnessed a myriad of historical moments, adorned the feet of diverse history-makers and embedded itself into the greater societal landscape.

As its endless iterations prove, the Chuck could likely claim the title of the most customised sneaker in history. It has been splatter-painted and Sharpied; adorned with badges, pins and spikes; embroidered and cross-stitched; inverted. Like a fingerprint, each expression reflects its creator's unique creativity. As confirmed by Converse All Star Rocco Montagnoli Bruzzone. "Chucks have helped me express myself and my individuality since I was a child, when I used to sketch on them. Now, I wear a clean pair of Chucks to my meetings".

Recognising the powerful relationship a one-of-a-kind Chuck fosters with its wearer, the brand introduced limited-edition offerings&nbsp;as far back as 1988, via mail-order catalogue. Next came hyper-local Chuck collections, such as Lunar New Year and City Packs. Often made in collaboration with local creators, these city-exclusive designs weave the distinct cultural weft of their locale into the Chuck's signature form. In 2015, Converse further evolved its personalisation platform with the introduction of Converse By You, a digital design programme that reached new heights with the record-breaking 2024 Converse By You x Billie Eilish collaboration—all in an effort to bring creators closer to their Chucks.

And that's just the first century.

The shoe's journey from afterthought to global icon defies convention, which begins to explain why the Converse Chuck Taylor All Star has served as a talisman of self-expression for multiple generations, subcultures and genres: It has never tried to fit in.

Feature

Journey of an icon: the history of the Chuck Taylor All Star

Inside our design and innovation

In the late 1950s, veteran athletics coach Bill Bowerman was dissatisfied with available running spikes, which were made from weighty leather and metal. As a result, he became obsessed with shaving weight off the shoes to help runners slash seconds off their times. His quest wound up redefining athletic footwear.&nbsp; Prior to this feat, Bowerman's drive and relentless curiosity had precipitated a string of diverse accomplishments: born in 1911 in Portland, Oregon, he excelled as a student-athlete while attending the University of Oregon and later gained acclaim as a high-school American football and track coach. He fought in World War II and came back a decorated hero. In 1948, Bowerman returned to his university alma mater and, during his 24-year tenure, led the university to four NCAA track titles and coached 16 sub-four-minute milers. He also introduced jogging to the community of Eugene in the 1960s, which helped spark a national phenomenon, and he served as the US Olympic track coach in 1972.

Bowerman was also a mentor, coach and friend to Phil Knight, with whom he co-founded&nbsp;Blue Ribbon Sports, the precursor to Nike, in 1964. His confidence and counsel helped the company's original business model—importing and selling Japanese-made&nbsp;<a href="https://store.nike.com/us/en_us/pw/running-shoes/8yzZoi3" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">running shoes</a>&nbsp;—to succeed and grow.&nbsp;However, Bowerman's own footwear innovations proved even more influential, shaping Nike's ethos of leveraging athlete insights to design transformative products.

Building a better shoe

Bowerman first began tinkering with running shoes in the 1950s, when he wrote to several footwear companies proposing ideas for improving shoes to better serve runners. None accepted his recommendations. Frustrated but not deterred, Bowerman took matters into his own hands and, with the guidance of a local cobbler, learnt how to make shoes. To start, he deconstructed existing racing shoes with his band saw and examined their anatomy. Then, he toyed with metal and plastic spike plates and assembled various uppers over diverse lasts. Later, a Springfield-based boot maker provided technical advice and showed Bowerman how to craft shoe patterns.&nbsp;

Phil Knight became the first student-athlete to try a Bowerman original. In a letter to Knight dated 8 August 1958, Bowerman suggested a weight-training programme and running schedule. He closed the letter with a postscript: "If you have a pair of shoes that you think would make good flats, send them down to me. They will be ready for you when school starts". Bowerman fitted a handmade pair with an upper made from white rubber-coated fabric—"the kind you'd use for a tablecloth you could sponge off", he explained—to Knight's size. Knight says Bowerman chose him to try the shoes because he "wasn't one of the best runners on the team. Bowerman knew he could use me as a guinea pig without much risk".&nbsp; Whatever the reasoning, the young runner tested the shoes at training one evening but didn't get to wear them for long. His teammate Otis Davis spotted the prototype and wanted to give it a try. He liked the shoes so much he didn't give them back. In fact, Davis went on to win a conference championship and a gold medal in the 400 metres at the 1960 Olympic Games in Bowerman-made shoes. Moving forwards, Bowerman custom fit shoes to his runners by drawing an outline of their feet, measuring widths and noting individual features, such as an extended heel or slim ankle. He experimented with dozens of textiles—kangaroo leather, velvet, deer hide, snakeskin and even fish skin—to find the ideal lightweight, stretchy and resilient material, churning out new creations on a weekly basis. As his prototypes grew more refined and reliable, he continued to seek alliances with footwear companies, to no avail. In an August 1960 letter to a Portland company requesting steel for spikes, Bowerman wrote: "Most American shoemakers are not interested in what we track coaches think about track shoes. The best shoes … at this time are made by the Germans. Their sole material is not too good, and I can either replace their sole or I can make my own shoe. I don't think there is any question, certainly in my own mind there is not, that I now have the best shoe in the world—if I could just find some good American shoemaker to make it".

A shoe in the door

This opportunity finally arrived when Knight forged a relationship with Onitsuka in 1964, based on the belief that less expensive Japanese-made running shoes could perform as well as standard-bearer German shoes. Subsequently, he and Bowerman invested 50–50 in the business of importing and selling running shoes, opening a path for Bowerman's own ideas. The coach expressed his optimism in a letter to Onitsuka in May 1964: " I hope that your arrangements with Mr Knight would be such that I would be free to turn over the ideas that I have worked out on track shoes&nbsp;".Bowerman spent the following summer designing and in October travelled with his wife, Barbara, to Tokyo for the 1964 Olympics Games, where three of his Oregon runners were competing. The couple stayed an extra week so that Bowerman could meet with Onitsuka founder and CEO Kihachiro Onitsuka as well as S Morimoto, a company executive. Bowerman explained his ideas and toured factories to study the cutting and stitching machines. He gained confidence in the Japanese shoemaking process and established relationships with the two leaders, ensuring a receptive audience for his future prototypes and suggestions.

The dawn of Cortez

Bowerman's first breakthrough with Tiger shoes surfaced the following spring, in 1965, as the indirect result of an athletics competition. At the competition, University of Oregon distance runner and future Olympic marathoner Kenny Moore moved wide in an 880-metre race, into the path of a passing teammate. The misstep resulted in a spike-inflicted gash on the outside of his foot. That injury led to a stress fracture and one of Bowerman's most enduring inventions. Early in Moore's recovery, the runner trained in the Onitsuka Tiger TG-22, a high-jump shoe that Blue Ribbon Sports mistakenly sold as a running shoe. When Moore's X-ray showed a break across the third metatarsal, Bowerman asked to see his shoes and promptly ripped them apart. They had spongy cushioning in the heel and forefoot but zero arch support. "If you set out to engineer a shoe to bend metatarsals until they snap, you couldn't do much better than this", Bowerman growled. "Not only that, the outer sole rubber wears away like cornbread".&nbsp; To correct the TG-22, Bowerman fashioned a running shoe with a cushiony innersole, soft sponge rubber in the forefoot and on the top of the heel, hard sponge rubber in the middle of the heel and a firm rubber outsole. In June 1965, he sent Onitsuka instructions and samples for the shoe.

A month later, Morimoto responded, confirming that he was producing a training shoe to the specifications. But, Onitsuka had "some opinion as to the inserted sponge rubber in the heel". Despite the objections, Bowerman pushed for the placement of sponge rubber in the heel, stating that it would help alleviate Achilles tendon issues. That summer, Moore rebounded from his stress fracture and logged more than 1,000 miles in Bowerman's latest creations. Early Onitsuka prototypes featured two distinct pads in the heel and the ball of the foot, and a narrow heel. This eventually morphed into the full-length midsole Bowerman had originally conceived, a feature that ultimately became a major selling point for the shoe.Consequently, Onitsuka introduced the Bowerman-engineered Tiger Cortez, which an early 1967 catalogue explained as: "Designed to be the finest long-distance shoe in the world. Soft sponge midsole through ball and heel absorbs road shock; high-density outer sole for extra miles of wear".

Consumers loved it. The Cortez was the first stable, comfortable shoe for the roads. It looked cool and debuted as running emerged as an American pastime, popularised by Bowerman and his 1967 book "Jogging". And when Knight and Bowerman stopped importing and distributing running shoes through Blue Ribbon Sports and launched Nike as a designer and maker of athletic shoes, the Cortez silhouette carried over to the new brand. It also earned Bowerman a patent for its innovative continuously cushioned midsole. In July 1973, Runner's World called the Nike Cortez "the most popular long-distance training shoe in the US".

Waffle windfall

The Cortez, however, was just the first of Bowerman's celebrated inventions, which came to comprise eight registered patents, including shoes with an external heel counter, improved spike placement and a cushioned spike plate. It was also just the first success in his enduring quest to create the lightest running shoe possible.&nbsp;"He thought running shoes could be better", Nike's first full-time employee Jeff Johnson says about Bowerman's early&nbsp;innovations. "He challenged accepted notions of traction, cushioning, biomechanics&nbsp;and even of anatomy itself".Bowerman next sought to manifest a shoe with excellent traction on multiple surfaces, without metal spikes. The solution came over breakfast in 1970, as he&nbsp;contemplated the syrup-cradling depressions of the waffle on his plate. "What if you reversed the pattern and formed a material with raised waffle-grid nubs?", he wondered. He subsequently commandeered the family waffle maker and substituted batter for melted urethane. Unfortunately, Bowerman initially forgot to grease the waffle maker with an anti-stick agent, and it glued shut. Despite this setback, he persevered&nbsp;and fashioned a flexible, springy and lightweight rubber material with a raised, gridded pattern and grip traction.&nbsp;The Blue Ribbon Sports crew raced to debut the Waffle sole at the upcoming 1972 US Olympic athletics trials in Eugene. They had nylon uppers flown in from Japan to pair with Waffle soles hand-cut from sheets of rubber made in Eugene. Early Blue Ribbon Sports employee Geoff Hollister glued the components together, creating shoes for a handful of trial competitors to wear during training or on the infield at the Hayward Field athletics stadium.The hand-built shoes were dubbed the Moon Shoe due to the distinctive imprint they made in the dirt, which resembled the lunar footprints left behind by American astronauts during the era's historic Apollo missions. The first iterations were crude, but runners liked the feel and traction of the Waffle sole and word of the invention quickly spread. Bowerman further refined the concept and developed the iconic Waffle Trainer in 1974.&nbsp;

The rubber studs of the Waffle sole offered give and cushioning that appealed to both elite athletes and everyday runners. The shoes, as TIME magazine wrote, were "grabbed by the army of weekend jocks suffering from bruised feet". The Waffle Trainer placed Nike on the global athletic footwear map, setting the stage for unparalleled growth. Bowerman's legacy as an original thinker and innovator will forever be linked with the Waffle sole, which like many brilliant inventions is so simple and intuitive it resonates immediately and broadly. Versions of it are still employed today in Nike footwear, as are Bowerman's many other contributions to running shoe innovation, including the raised heel, the nylon upper and the continuous midsole.&nbsp;Nike's footwear ideal has evolved, but Bowerman's preoccupation with creating products that enable athletes to perform at their highest potential continues to fuel Nike's culture of innovation. Contemporary examples can be found in footwear technologies such as the Nike Free articulated outsole and the compressive woven-in support of Nike Flyknit uppers.&nbsp;

Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman's quest to create footwear to improve athlete performance is a driving force for Nike's ever-evolving approach to product innovation.

Innovation

Bill Bowerman: Nike's original innovator

In 1973, two years after the Nike brand was born and the first Swoosh adorned shoes, the nascent footwear company signed its first star runner. The phenomenal Oregon native held multiple American distance records, competed on athletics' greatest stage in Munich in 1972 and appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated as "America's Distance Prodigy". The prodigy was Steve Prefontaine, America's best-known athlete at age 22. He possessed warrior determination and ran each race as if his life depended on it. His competitive fire, gutsy race tactics and inherent charisma charmed crowds and inspired up-and-coming runners to stick with the sport and give it their all.&nbsp;

On track for greatness

At 15, competing for Marshfield High School in Coos Bay, Oregon, Prefontaine set his first national record, running the 2-mile event in 8:41.5. He won back-to-back state cross-country championships in 1968–1969, and went undefeated in cross-country and athletics in his junior and senior years. Heavily recruited by top running schools during his senior year, Prefontaine was swayed by a handwritten note from University of Oregon head coach Bill Bowerman. "It said if I came to Oregon, he'd make me into the best distance runner ever", Prefontaine recalled. "That was all I needed to hear".

While training under Bowerman and assistant coach Bill Dellinger at Oregon beginning in 1969, Prefontaine won seven NCAA titles (three in cross-country, 1970–71, '73; and four in the three-mile distance in athletics, 1970–73). In Pac-8 Conference athletics competition, he won three-mile titles during each of his four years at Oregon, plus the mile in 1971. At home at Hayward Field during his collegiate career and beyond, he notched a remarkable 35 out of 38 victories between 1970 and 1975.&nbsp;

Prefontaine's ascendancy came at a time when running was far from mainstream. Drivers unwilling to share the road routinely yelled and threw rubbish at runners as they sped past. Prefontaine helped changed that attitude from annoyance to admiration. On the strength of his indisputable achievement and winning personality, he was the first person to make running cool. His association with Nike helped establish the Swoosh as a trusted running brand and transform the company from national shoe distributor to worldwide brand.

As a competitor at the University of Oregon, Prefontaine had considerable exposure to Blue Ribbon Sports and Nike footwear (at the time, products were branded Nike but the company name was still the original Blue Ribbon Sports, or BRS). In the summer of 1973, Nike co-founders Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman extended a $5,000 yearly stipend to help offset Prefontaine's training expenses and to relieve him of occasional bartending shifts at the popular Paddock tavern. In between athletics workouts and long runs along the McKenzie River, Prefontaine put in time at the BRS shop in Eugene. Prefontaine became well versed in BRS and its products and he was an ace pitchman. He printed up business cards with the title National Director of Public Affairs, and began travelling around the Pacific Northwest sharing training tips and encouragement to athletes while introducing them to new Nike running shoes.&nbsp;

The start of Swoosh sports marketing

"The amazing thing about Pre was he was a hell of a student of the sport and he just loved digging and learning about things", said Geoff Hollister, a runner who also competed at the University of Oregon under Bowerman and became Nike's third employee. Hollister managed the BRS shop in Eugene, and he and Prefontaine became close friends who shared interests in architecture, sports cars and, of course, running.&nbsp; The pair visited secondary schools, universities, sports shops and running clubs. "Every place we went, Pre would take time to go for a jog with the kids. He would analyse their form and talk to them", Hollister said. Prefontaine easily related to teens and was a natural spokesman for the sport. In his book "Out of Nowhere", Hollister remembered a talk Prefontaine had with students at West Albany:&nbsp;

Prefontaine took that same personal approach when connecting with athletes from afar, helping to create an early blueprint for Nike's sports marketing. He introduced the sport's elite to Nike products, sending shoes, along with personalised notes and his business card, to running friends around the world. "It was totally his own idea", said Hollister. Prefontaine dispatched boxes to Mary Decker in San Diego; New Zealand's John Walker and Dick Quax; to Brendan Foster in England; and Kenya's Kip Keino. "All those people ended up wearing Nike shoes", said Hollister. In April of 1975, Prefontaine sent a note and a pair of '73 Nike Bostons to the relatively unknown runner Bill Rodgers. The shoes' arrival created a stir among his teammates at the Greater Boston Track Club. "You'd hear about Nike shoes or see pictures, but it was the first pair that I'd seen in person", recalled Alberto Salazar, who was a secondary school student in Boston and a teammate of Rodgers at the time. "He brought them to the track, and we were all holding them and passing them around. Everyone was real excited not only because it was a Nike shoe—which was kind of neat because it was different—but because Steve Prefontaine had sent the shoes with a note". A few weeks later, Rodgers wore them in the local city marathon. He finished first.

Legacy

Prefontaine is also remembered for furthering the cause of American amateur athletes, who were boxed in by the lopsided rules of the American Athletics Union (AAU). In the 1970s, athletes who wanted to participate in the Olympic Games were required to remain amateurs, making it difficult but necessary to train at their sport and earn a living doing something else. The AAU controlled runners' competition schedules and took the lion's share of appearance fees due to athletes. Prefontaine gave up offers upwards of $200,000 to go pro to preserve his eligibility for Montreal 1976, and instead collected a $3 per diem—the maximum amount allowed by the AAU.&nbsp;

He continually challenged the AAU and spoke out about the inequity, even when it put his eligibility to compete in jeopardy. Prefontaine preserved his amateur status but he never made it to Montreal. His last competition was 29 May 1975, in a race he helped organise against members of the Finnish national team and distance heavy hitters such as Frank Shorter. Competing in the 5000m, Prefontaine trailed Shorter the first two miles, then, with three laps to go, accelerated to a 63-second pace. In front of a Hayward Field crowd of 7,000, he finished with a 60.3 last lap and a winning time of 13:23.8, just off his own American record. He ran a victory lap, attended the University of Oregon athletics awards banquet and spent the rest of the evening hanging out and celebrating with friends. The biggest athletics star in the country came to a tragic end later, just after midnight, while driving home—his life cut short by a car accident at age 24.&nbsp; His legacy is multifaceted. To generations of athletes at all levels, he embodies the philosophy of training incredibly hard and going all out in competition. For Nike, he was both a muse as an athlete and a trailblazer who pioneered a highly original and personal way of inspiring athletes with the brand. For fellow runners hamstrung by the AAU, Prefontaine was a leader who helped turn the tide towards professionalism. After Prefontaine's death, others joined Nike in taking up his cause, ultimately leading to the abolishment of the AAU by the US Congress in 1978. It was perhaps his most important legacy off the track.

Prefontaine's competitive fire, gutsy race tactics and inherent charisma charmed crowds and inspired up-and-coming runners to stick with the sport and give it their all.

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How Steve Prefontaine set the pace for Nike

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