Not every breakthrough in sports science begins in a lab. For Nike’s iconic waffle sole — one of running’s most game-changing innovations — it began in the kitchen.It was 1971 and <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/stories/bill-bowerman-nike-s-original-innovator" target="_blank">Bill Bowerman</a> was wrestling with a problem he’d been turning over in his mind ever since a hard, slick new urethane track had been installed at the University of Oregon two years prior, which was injuring runners. Bowerman had to face a reality: He had chosen a track surface that wasn’t holding up, and he needed to find a fix. How could his runners get better grip? Spikes dug in too deep; flats didn’t bite enough.One morning, while glancing at his wife, Barbara’s, waffle iron — a Model 251 by Bersted Manufacturing Company, which the Bowermans had received as a wedding gift in 1936 — he was struck by the grid pattern. The raised squares seemed like the exact geometry that could deliver the lightweight traction he’d been chasing.He poured liquid urethane straight into the family waffle iron, only it instantly glued shut permanently, ruining their 35-year-old wedding present. Undeterred, he drove into town, bought several more secondhand waffle irons, and kept experimenting. Those first imprints came out inverted with concave bumps, but they sparked the idea that would lead him to refine molds and materials until a workable prototype finally emerged.

What resulted was the first version of the Nike Moon Shoe — a design that would shape the future of running for decades.“The waffle sole changed everything,” says Nike Running Historian Rick Lower. “Not only did it transform how runners thought about traction and cushioning but it showed people what Nike was about: solving problems in new ways.”

A Catalyst for the Future

In 1971, Nike, then still known as Blue Ribbon Sports, an American importer of Japanese running shoes, hadn’t yet become the global force in sports innovation that it is today. The fledgling company was still finding its footing, and Bowerman — co-founder, coach and relentless tinkerer — was at the center of that push. To him, every surface was a problem waiting for a solution.&nbsp;That included the new Astroturf laid down at Autzen Stadium, where the Oregon Ducks football team struggled for traction. In wet conditions, players often ditched their cleats for basketball shoes with a herringbone outsole that gripped better. Bowerman and teammate Jeff Johnson began exploring traction ideas for football as well as track, a line of thinking that would lead to the Astrograbber — a shoe prototyped in 1972 and <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-bode-rec-astrograbber-official-images" target="_blank">reissued decades later</a>.“There had been no real innovation in outsoles for decades,” says Nike Running Historian Rick Lower. “Running shoes were basically just a sheet of rubber to protect your feet from the road, and traction and cushioning were secondary. Bowerman wasn’t willing to accept that.”Inspired by the moment in his kitchen, he began pulling in a network of local resources to help refine the molds and materials — tire shops, machinists, cobblers. Early prototypes disintegrated after only minutes of running. Others left athletes with cut ankles from exposed wire that was embedded in the rubber mixture for traction. Yet each failed attempt nudged the idea closer to the finish line.

By November 1971, the waffle sole had its first taste of competition when members of Oregon’s cross-country team wore early versions to win the NCAA title. Through the winter and spring of 1972, more college&nbsp;and local South Eugene high school&nbsp;athletes quietly tested pairs. By the following summer, Bowerman and Geoff Hollister were hand-cobbling a small batch of prototypes for a bigger stage: the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene.They weren’t perfect, especially not for the marathon level. “It was basically just an upper stitched to a thin sheet of waffle,” Lower says. “So minimal it was like running barefoot.” Still, a handful of brave runners laced them up. Some thought the waffle sole footprints looked like astronauts’ footprints on the moon, becoming part of the lore that gave the prototypes their now-iconic nickname: the Moon Shoe.For the fast-growing company, it was a pivotal moment. Even if the shoe wasn’t ready for mass release, it was proof the idea worked and evidence that this small Oregon company could push running footwear in an entirely new direction.

The Bridge to a Running Movement

The Moon Shoe itself never went to market, though a few pairs are believed to have been sold out of Nike’s Eugene retail store, making it possible to have snagged one if you were in the right place at the right time. But the shoe’s DNA spread quickly. By 1973, Nike released the Oregon Waffle. Two years later came the Waffle Trainer, Nike’s first blockbuster success.Designed by Bill Bowerman and Geoff Hollister, as well as famed Bowerman collaborators orthopedic surgeon Stan James and podiatrist Dennis Vixie, the Waffle Trainer became Nike’s most popular running model. It was created at the request of runner Jon Anderson, who wanted a more substantial training shoe, but went well beyond satisfying Anderson’s needs — it became the best-selling training shoe in the country. By 1975, orders had topped 100,000 units, and its blue upper with a yellow Swoosh became one of the defining looks of Nike’s early years. To this day, it remains emblematic of Nike in the 1970s.

The milestone sneaker didn’t just give everyday runners better grip. With a flared sole and a new cushioning sensation unlike anything they’d felt before, it changed expectations of what a running shoe could be.“That shoe was the bridge,” Lower explains. “It took the Moon Shoe’s experiment and turned it into a global product. From there Nike’s reputation as an innovator was cemented.”But it wasn’t the end for the Moon Shoe. After making its revival on Nike collaborator and French designer Jacquemus's runway last January, the iconic silhouette was reimagined for a new generation. Sleek and fashion-forward, the new sneaker, coming soon, bridges performance heritage and style with speed, capturing the same restless drive that defined its earliest incarnation. What was once vaulted as Nike's racing DNA is now primed for the future.

Long Live Experimentation and Innovation

The waffle iron tale might have stayed legend if not for a discovery decades later. When Bowerman’s son Tom renovated the family property in Coburg, Oregon, he unearthed a long-forgotten rubbish pit near the carport. Inside were discarded prototypes, molds and the rusted shell of the waffle iron Barbara Bowerman had tossed after Bill glued it shut.&nbsp;Today, that iron rests in the Department of Nike Archives at Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., acting as a reminder of the kitchen tinkering that became the blueprint for Nike’s approach and long-term success: experiment boldly, keep refining and never stop pushing forward.

Born of need and elevated by expertise and diligence, today the Department of Nike Archives (DNA) cares for hundreds of thousands of artifacts and a limitless vault of connected stories.&nbsp;The brand archive began organically in the 1970s and officially became DNA in 2006. The department’s purpose is to both preserve and accelerate the ever-evolving and interconnected story of Nike. “Knowing who you are and the fights you’ve come through can do huge things for morale, inspiration, and creativity. That’s what DNA provides.” - Phil Knight

Department of Nike Archives

Created from the experimentation and ingenuity of Nike's co-founder Bill Bowerman, the Nike Moon Shoe's unique design would shape the future of running for decades.

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“The proving grounds are right here,” Kevin Durant told his team of young players. He was addressing Team Durant, his Nike Elite Youth Basketball (EYBL) squad, ahead of its opening weekend of the EYBL season in Mesa, AZ.&nbsp;The gymnasium would be filled with family, friends, as well as coaches and scouts in quarter-zips, scribbling notes about breakout performances, gutsy plays and potential futures in their programs. If any of the 16-year-olds had opening day jitters, Durant understood. “I know how important this time is,” he told them.&nbsp;Durant speaks from firsthand experience. Twenty years ago, he was that same competitive hopeful out of Prince George’s County, MD, battling against other amateur teams across the DMV and beyond. And according to Durant, the future of grassroots basketball is in good hands through leagues like Nike EYBL, because of the tools they provide for young players. In the quotes below, Durant shares about his earliest memories as an amateur player, the edge that EYBL has over other amateur programs, and his big ambitions for grassroots leagues moving forward.&nbsp;I grew up in a basketball culture whose history set the tone for us to follow.&nbsp;The talent coming of the DMV circuit was real. Dating back to the ‘60s and ‘70s, you got talented players from PG County, DC area, Baltimore, Northern Virginia. They built a culture around being an amateur player who could move into the college ranks and into the pros. By the time my generation came around in the early 2000s, we knew we had to reach that standard.&nbsp;You never forget your breakout game at that level.&nbsp;Mine was a Memorial Day tournament in New Orleans. I was playing for the DC Devils. It was 2005. I think I had 36 points in my first game down there, playing a team out of Detroit. It was one of the first times I had full confidence in all of my abilities. I was in full command of what I was doing. A lot of people who were in attendance for that game, whether it was my friends or the media, knew how I was coming into my own.&nbsp;For the player who wants it, amateur ball teaches you how to play within a lifestyle of the game.&nbsp;With so many practices, so many games, so many tournaments, we were around organized basketball for hours a day. The biggest lesson youth ball taught me at that level was knowing how to live a complete lifestyle of basketball, from the moment your day starts.&nbsp;

Above all else, the quality I look for in my players [on Team Durant] is in their love for the game.&nbsp;They also got to have toughness, they have to be versatile, they have to guard multiple positions. But that love of the game is what helps them transition from EYBL to college to the NBA. We’ve had guys like Jordan Hawkins and Dariq Whitehead who’ve gone through our program and made it to the NBA. I’m grateful for every player who’s given us the opportunity to coach them up and help them on their journey.&nbsp;The structure behind EYBL is one of its biggest strengths.&nbsp;It’s not as wide open for teams to do what they want as it was back when I was playing. Now, EYBL has created a clear structure from the top down. It runs almost like a league of its own. I want to see it keep evolving. Maybe we start turning these programs into academies.&nbsp;EYBL is already special. I think it could evolve into something even bigger.&nbsp;Whether or not they make the pros, young players need the experience of playing for a vision that’s bigger than themselves.&nbsp;The end goal could be a trophy, like for Peach Jam, but reaching that is made up of other goals, like coming together with your teammates to problem-solve and learning how to be coachable. It’s important for players to know early on what playing on a team is like, because it’s a theme that continues as you become an adult.&nbsp;I still love the game — and I’ll do whatever I can to stay around and contribute.&nbsp;I’m trying to lead by example with these young guys, who have their futures ahead of them. They can look at my own journey and see themselves in me.&nbsp;The Nike KD18 EYBL Rocket Power is available now. The next stop of the EYBL season is the weekend of May 17 in Memphis.&nbsp;

The NBA Champion and 15-Time All Star talks about his involvement with the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League, his ambitions for grassroots basketball, and his admiration for the next generation of talent.

How I Got Here

To Kevin Durant, the Right Platform Creates Greatness

<h3>Loved work is hard work, says sports analyst Monica McNutt. And when it comes to basketball, she’s no stranger to putting the work in. A former Division I athlete, McNutt now covers the NBA, WNBA and women’s college basketball at ESPN and elsewhere, and literally has a front-row seat to the action. What’s it like to witness the triumphant ascendance of a sport she’s lived and loved her whole life? In a word: “Surreal.”&nbsp;</h3><h3>Fresh from the WNBA Finals, McNutt joined us at Nike’s NYHQ, ahead of announcing our <a href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-nba-wnba-g-league-partnership-extension" rel="noopener noreferrer">historic partnership extension</a> with the NBA, WNBA and NBA G League, to talk hoops, career and fandom. If you’re not already dedicated to the women’s game, you will be after this. Her advice to you? “Pick a city and pull up!”&nbsp; </h3>

I was there for the Liberty’s 2024 Championship win. There for game five. It's the first time that it's a winner-take-all overtime game in the finals in WNBA history. It's the first time that a series has two overtime matchups in the five-game set.To be in that arena, to celebrate with this current iteration of the New York Liberty, and then to turn around and see Liberty legend Teresa Weatherspoon with tears streaming down her face… it was this culmination of the athletes I loved and grew up watching as a young girl in ’97 through the early 2000s, when the league was in its formative years. Fast forward 28 years to 18,000 fans in Barclays Center; Ellie, the Liberty mascot, is an icon; it’s like a super team of sorts. It’s this incredible combination of the past and the present, basically the trailblazers and the players taking it to the next level.&nbsp; When you call a game, you want to educate and entertain. This year, there was definitely more emphasis on educating. Because, yes, it's a bigger audience — we're so glad you're here — but there's some steps and people and names you should know. There’s a dance of how to infuse and capitalize on the energy of the now while paying homage and respect to how we got here.Big-picture conversation? Across society, it's so easy for us to each be in our silos. And it’s easy to think that, because the women’s game is showing up in your algorithm over and over, that mainstream has truly caught on. I don't know if that's true. Yes, this year we've seen monster progress with incredible viewership across the WNBA and women's college basketball. But I still think we have a long way to go. One thing that I love to do when I’m calling a game, especially on the road, is to check out local podcasts. What’s been the conversation in the community? Either for both teams if I'm traveling to do a national game, or if I'm traveling with the Knicks to do a Knicks game. I think podcasting has given us this unique lens into the fan experience, because fans are smart and engaged and locked in. You can pick up really cool insights. Sport is so much about the community, and that’s where I find some of my favorite nuggets.&nbsp;

Sport allows us to have conversations. It brings together community and it empowers people, particularly our young women. There's so much <a href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-and-the-tucker-center-are-partnering-to-keep-girls-in-sport" rel="noopener noreferrer">research on women who go on to be leaders and C-suite executives because of their background in sport</a>. And if you're interested in sport at all, there's a seat for you in the women’s game. Come check it out. Show respect and pay homage to these athletes for doing incredible things. Basically, pick a city and pull up!&nbsp;For girls in sport, I’m already seeing a boldness and an audacity and expectation. I'll be 35 this month, but I vividly remember, not so long ago, boys getting certain things we didn't get. And it was like, “Hold up, let me get this straight: They ain't won no tournament games and I have, but they get the better X, Y, and Z?!”This generation has shown us that multiple things can be true. I can be incredibly appreciative of the opportunity in front of me and also say, “Hey, we're deserving of more as student athletes on this campus.” This generation’s willingness to speak up for themselves and ask for better, even if the conditions might not be poor, but to say, “this can be improved” — I think that's dope.&nbsp;Two career moments stick with me where I knew I was doing the right work. The first was 2021. South Carolina and UConn were one and two in the country in women's NCAA basketball and I called the game with broadcaster Lisa Byington. Incredible contest: <a href="https://about.nike.com/en/stories/behind-the-scenes-of-paige-bueckers-new-york-fashion-week" rel="noopener noreferrer">Paige Bueckers</a>, Aliyah Boston, <a href="https://about.nike.com/en/stories/a-ja-wilson-and-dawn-staley-on-their-coach-player-bond" rel="noopener noreferrer">Dawn Staley</a>, Geno Auriemma. I remember waking up that day feeling like they were gonna call me and say they were putting somebody else in. It was huge for me. And then, last year's Game 2 of the NBA Eastern Conference playoffs, Knicks versus Sixers. That finish will be something I remember for the rest of my career. The rest of my life, frankly.&nbsp;

My advice for young women looking to advance in sport: Have a healthy relationship with the word “no.” Use it to protect yourself and your dreams and receive it without it decimating your aspirations. And that can be tough. Sports are so saturated. There's a reason people want to get into it! It's competitive, just like the actual games. You need to have a certain level of toughness to keep navigating the series of “no’s” that are, frankly, inevitable.Second, you gotta be where your feet are. The only thing in life that is truly inevitable is change and for a lot of us — byproducts of American society, Millennials down to Gen Z, whoever — we want to skip steps. But there's no microwave. You know what I'm saying? Let it slow cook. Learn what you're supposed to learn in each season and enjoy it. Because if the job takes over your life, you may miss out on some of the things personally, right? So, while you've got balance, or maybe your personal life is the leader in the clubhouse, enjoy it, because it can change.&nbsp;Movement is a nonnegotiable for me. It's funny, for ex-athletes, I find it takes a long time to develop the soft workout regimen because it's like, “If I'm not sweating or burning 1,000 calories, did I do anything?!” And now, being a bit older and not competing at a high level anymore, you learn the importance of different modalities and listening to your body. I am always down to throw around some kettlebells. I love a good Pilates class. Even walks, right? Getting outside, taking in some fresh air, just moving my body. That’s one of the things I took from my athlete foundation. You have to move, for your muscles and your mind.&nbsp;&nbsp;Thinking about the next season of the W, I’m thrilled about the expansion. I think when you've got a charter organization like the Liberty that finally gets their championship, you got new organizations coming in, you've got athletes that are connecting both on and off the court, brands as big as ever — it makes you think, “What is it going to look like in 10 to 15 years when the generation of girls that got to watch this version of the WNBA are turning pro and becoming college athletes on their own?” You can only imagine that the boldness is going to continue. And the talent. You got Caitlin Clark coming out of college knocking down all those records, having a historic rookie season. You got JuJu Watkins coming behind her. The talent keeps growing. And a true love for the game.&nbsp;

The acclaimed sports analyst calls the shots on the future of the game.

For The Win

Monica McNutt Says We Haven’t Even Come Close to Peak Women’s Sports

If you toe the starting line against Jakob Ingebrigtsen, he will beat you. The Norwegian middle-distance runner says it with a casual coolness, and yet his accolades reflect a talent that’s dead serious. When he was 16 years old, Jakob became the youngest man in history to run a mile in less than four minutes. Now the 23-year-old is one of the world leaders in both the mile and the 5,000 meters.He attributes his supreme confidence to his insane competitive drive against his two older brothers, who pushed him to become one of running’s brightest, most accomplished stars. Here, Jakob talks on competition, goals and the attitude it takes to win. Competition, not sport, was our family's first love. When it came to us finding running, none of our parents did any kind of sports. But because we’re a big family, us boys are always finding ways to compete with each other, and running was an immediate way to settle the score.Siblings are worthy of both your emulation and envy. When I was young, saying that I wanted to be like my brother was synonymous with saying, ‘I want to beat them.’At the same time, when your family wins, you win. I remember when I saw Henrik crying when Filip won the World Championships in 2017. Henrik told me he had the exact same reaction when I won at the Olympics. Weirdly, we feel like we’re part of each other’s process when we achieve some kind of success.I’ve brought a professional approach to running since I was 5 years old. I’d have a mental routine going before my races by the time I was in the first grade.&nbsp;My friends were wearing flip-flops. I was wearing a speed suit. The most important thing in my life was to win my races.

Even as a kid, you sense that your country has a national sport. We’re not a big running nation. Growing up in Norway, running wasn’t cool — I never talked about it at school. That’s global football and cross-country skiing. We focused on running as we got older, but we grew up playing everything, especially snow sports. Now, we’re breaking barriers for our country. We’re the new running nation.&nbsp;The competitive side of running is even more important than the physical aspects. Me and Henrik both learned from our older brother being, ahem, sort of arrogant and, uh, cocky in some ways. He always went into a race thinking he could win, even when he was way slower than the rest of the field. But he inspired the two of us to build our own confidence. If he gets a bronze, I’m naturally going to get silver or gold.Running is a lonely sport, so when you have moments when you’re challenging another runner to do something historic, those stick with you. My brothers and I trained with <a href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-and-eliud-kipchoge-celebrate-20-years" rel="noopener noreferrer">Eliud Kipchoge</a> for <a href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/inside-look-at-nike-breaking2-project" rel="noopener noreferrer">Breaking2</a>. Seeing the level of athletes who trained alongside him was crazy. At the end of the day, we all have the same goal: to see how fast human beings can go at different distances. We’re competing for that honor, but we’re also united by that competition.The most important thing that younger runners can do is to set goals for themselves. For me, it was to beat my brothers, and by doing that, I became one of the best runners in the world.&nbsp;Doing what everyone else is doing is boring. By running in Norway, I was the weird kid. Now I’m winning medals.&nbsp;

For the world-champion middle distance runner, winning is a family business.

Nike exists to serve the complete athlete, and shares their winning mentality. As a champion for athletes and sport, Nike partners with athletes who share the belief that sport can break barriers, push limits, spark change and move the world forward.

Brand of Athletes

Jakob Ingebrigtsen on Beating His Brothers — and Everybody Else

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Nike Unveils Aero-FIT Performance Apparel Innovation: Cooling Technology for a Hotter World

A neuroscientist, a computational engineer and an industrial designer sit at a desk, poring over the latest electroencephalography (EEG) and pressure-mapping results. Down the hall, pressure plates respond to steady footsteps while motion-capture sensors blink to life as another round of testing begins.This isn’t a scene from a NASA work room or sci-fi Hollywood blockbuster — it’s a typical day at the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/lebron-james-innovation-center-nike-sport-research-lab" target="_blank">LeBron James Innovation Center</a> and its top floor Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL), where dozens of scientists, engineers and designers come together to study every element of human performance.&nbsp;While many people know this facility exists, few understand the full scope of its work, or that the research extends beyond the physical and into the mind itself. Led by world-renowned neuroresearchers, Nike’s Mind Science team is devoted to exploring how the brain and body interact to shape the future of athletic performance.

Nike Mind Nodes 1

Their latest breakthrough, <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-mind-001-mind-002-official-images" target="_blank">Nike Mind</a>, is a sensory footwear platform more than a decade in the making that aims to redefine how athletes prime for and recover from competition.&nbsp;We sat down with seven Nike Mind teammates to learn how this long-awaited technology moved from concept to reality.

THE NEURAL ARCHITECT: GRAEME MOFFAT, PHD Principal Researcher, Nike Sport Research Lab As principal researcher on Nike’s Mind Science team, Graeme Moffat leads the neuroscience behind Nike Mind — decoding EEG readouts, pressure maps and muscle signals to understand how sensation shapes focus and performance. With a background in brain-computer interface research, he’s helping translate the science of perception into design principles that can be felt underfoot. For Moffat, this project isn’t just about a new shoe. It’s about proving how the mind and body can be trained together through sensation.One of the easiest ways to get out of your head is to get into your body — to actively engage your senses. With Nike Mind, what we see in the brain is increased activity in the sensory motor network and a rise in alpha oscillations linked to relaxed alertness.&nbsp;Like your hands, the bottom of your feet have unique skin with 10 to 20 times more mechanoreceptors than most other areas. These are the parts of our body to feel and navigate the world. To complement this, each node in Nike Mind moves independently, shifting slightly to translate force through the bottom of the foot. The result is a more direct connection to the ground.We used sensory science to determine the placement of the 22 nodes. By measuring what’s called the two-point discrimination threshold — how far apart touches have to be before you feel them as separate — we were able to map the density of receptors across the foot. That’s why nodes are more closely spaced in the forefoot and wider apart in the heel.We used everything: underfoot plantar-pressure sensors, electromyography of the lower limbs and human EEG. Athletes walked in the shoes and comparator models while we measured their brains before, during and after. What we saw were clear differences in brain activation and oscillation patterns, signals that reflected how the sensory system in this shoe was activating the brain. This is a completely new way to make footwear, designed from the sensory system outward. It took nearly 10 years of research and iteration to make it work.It is incredible technology. It's like a walking anti-fatigue mat built into my shoes. It's just a fantastic feeling. I don't want to take them off at the end of the day.The Mind Science team itself is unique. We have neuroscientists, perception researchers, physiologists and engineers all working together. It’s a mix of disciplines that normally don’t sit inside a company like Nike, and it allows us to move from deep scientific insight to real product innovation quickly. We can prototype, test with athletes and iterate at a pace no one else can. It’s a capability that sets Nike apart.

THE BRAIN MAPPER: TREVOR BARSS, PHD Lead Researcher, Mind Sciences Team Working alongside Moffat, Trevor Barss helped run the early neuroscience studies that defined Nike Mind’s foundation. A sensory neuroscientist specializing in neurophysiology, he used EEG and other measures to study how tactile feedback changes patterns of brain activity, the signals linking movement, focus and awareness. The team’s findings revealed distinct shifts in sensory-motor activation and alpha rhythms when athletes wore Nike Mind footwear, insights that continue to shape how the NSRL explores the mind–body connection.For the first 45 years, Nike’s research focused on the body from the neck down. The next forty-five will include the brain.&nbsp;My role was to study unique aspects of brain activation while athletes were wearing the footwear. We measured electrical activity in the brain before, during and after movement and paired that with perception data. The goal was to connect what athletes reported feeling with what we could actually see happening neurologically.We found that this collaboration between perception and neuroscience is what gives the work its power. You might detect increased activation in one region of the brain but without understanding the athlete’s experience, you don’t know whether that’s good or bad. When you combine both, you get meaning.When I first arrived at Nike, I was amazed by the environment. In most research settings, if you want to talk to an expert outside your field, you email, you schedule, you wait. Here, I can walk three desks over and have a conversation with someone who is a world-class expert in biomechanics, physiology or materials science. That proximity accelerates everything.The strength of this lab is its seamless flow of expertise. Neuroscientists, engineers, designers and developers work side by side, testing, iterating and learning from each other in real time. It removes silos and sparks ideas that none of us could reach alone.We’re at the starting line of an entirely new field. The methods are established but applying them to footwear and apparel is uncharted territory. Each experiment raises new questions.For me, the most inspiring part is being surrounded by brilliant minds who share that curiosity. When you pair deep scientific expertise with creative design thinking, you open doors to discoveries that redefine what performance can mean.Looking ahead, the possibilities are endless. We have sensory receptors all over our body. Anytime you change sensory input, you’re interacting with your nervous system. Delving into that connection could open up whole new ways of supporting athlete awareness, focus and recovery.

Nike Mind Top View Scan

THE ENGINEERING WIZ: ELIZABETH RAISSIAN Senior Director, Performance Engineering Inside Nike’s Performance Engineering Lab, Elizabeth Raissian’s work lies at the intersection of product functionality and code. For Nike Mind, she and her team built the digital framework that made the concept manufacturable at scale, using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and simulation tools to model how each node, flex point and pressure zone behaves underfoot. Their modeling ensured a precisely tuned sensorial design that delivers consistent feel and feedback across every size and stride.The big unlock was using computational methods to crack the scale challenge. Nike Mind has many small parts within a larger system. We wrote scripts that determined where each node needed to be for athlete performance and how those placements could still be manufactured consistently.Our goal was to make sure every athlete has the same experience no matter their shoe size. We used FEA to test variables like node size, height and material. That helped us identify the sweet spot between too much and not enough sensation. Once we had that, we could scale it proportionally across sizes so the product felt consistent from end to end.For me, this has been a dream job I didn’t know existed. I get to combine tough technical work with the creativity of working alongside designers, sports researchers and other specialists. After 23 years, I still haven’t been bored.What excites me most is how fast the tools are evolving. We’ve built a strong foundation and now new technologies are coming in that let us do things we wouldn’t have thought possible a decade ago. It changes how we approach products and opens doors for the future.

THE BRIDGE BUILDER: SEAN LU Footwear Developer For more than two decades, Sean Lu has helped take Nike’s boldest concepts from prototype to production. As a developer, he works at the crucial handoff point where innovation meets scaling the shoe production for Nike’s business. On Nike Mind, that meant solving unprecedented production challenges like how to create and bond 22 independent cushioning nodes while preserving the precise sensory design that makes the technology groundbreaking.My expertise is to bring a design to life by practicing project management and leadership while working closely with many different functional teams. The goal is always both team excellence and product excellence, making sure the product meets the brief, the design intent, is tested and proven.The biggest challenge was producing and attaching 22 individual nodes in a consistent way. Regular shoes might have five or six major parts. Here we had 22, each needing to be made and bonded precisely. Solving that required new methods of make very different from conventional shoemaking.One crucial breakthrough was the stretchy strobel. In normal shoes it’s stiff. But here it had to stretch multidirectionally so the nodes could move freely and transfer sensation. Without that, the whole system wouldn’t work.There were moments we thought, this is too difficult, maybe we can’t do it. But we always asked ourselves: are we truly doing the best we can or is there another way? Once you achieve it, the value for the athlete makes it all worth it.

THE CREATIVE VISIONARY: ERIC AVAR VP, Creative Director, Innovation Few designers have shaped Nike’s visual and performance language more than Eric Avar. After spending decades creating some of the brand’s most iconic footwear from Foamposite to Free to the Kobe line, Avar joined the Nike Mind project to help translate complex neuroscience into design. His focus: find simplicity, stay curious and create a shoe that reawakens the body’s natural connection to movement.What made this project next-level was the chance to forget everything we knew about traditional footwear. Instead of chasing propulsion or flight, we asked how to create a more natural sensory underfoot experience — one that could strengthen the mind-body connection to help make athletes feel calm, focused and present.My role was to help guide the creative vision. To connect the macro and micro details of science, art and story. The best ideas happen when those dimensions align. My job was to help the team see the true north and to bring clarity to how the science should feel once it’s on foot.Every dimension of this project was new — new science, new engineering, new design language. Each insight from the lab reshaped how we approached materials or geometry and every prototype fed new questions back to the scientists. That constant back-and-forth was where the breakthroughs happened.Performance design is always a balance. Too much cushioning and you lose sensation; too much sensation and it becomes overwhelming. Our challenge was to find harmony between comfort, clarity and awareness.This feels like a new frontier — a new paradigm of performance. We’re proving through science but we’re also discovering through intuition. The more we lean into that mix of curiosity and expertise, the more magic we’ll uncover.What I love most about this new technology is that it represents the unknown. It’s a reminder that performance isn’t only about going faster. It’s about feeling more, thinking deeper and reconnecting with the moment.

THE MASTER ORCHESTRATOR: MATTHEW NURSE, PHD Chief Science Officer, NIKE, Inc. With a background spanning biomechanics, physiology and performance research, Matthew Nurse has guided Nike’s most ambitious science-led innovations. As Chief Science Officer, he oversaw the Nike Mind project from a multidisciplinary vantage, coordinating scientists, designers and engineers to keep the various parts moving in sync.Most people don’t fully appreciate the importance of sensory feedback from the body, especially the feet. The foot is full of thousands of sensors that give the brain constant information about balance, position and spatial awareness. This is the first product built with the intent of influencing that feedback to help athletes stay focused, present and more aware of their environment.If the body is the engine, the mind is the driver. With Nike Mind, we’re starting to think about how to make the driver sharper and clearer. Mental preparation has become just as important as physical and we’re only scratching the surface of what’s possible.Science and creativity have to leapfrog each other. Science shouldn’t limit dreams but it can help target them. Some of these concepts aren’t new but only now do we have the design and manufacturing capabilities to make them real. Building floating, independent nodes that compress and rotate to deliver sensory information to the brain wasn’t possible 20 years ago. Today it is.Athlete feedback drove everything. We went through hundreds of iterations, tuning the number, density, flexibility and placement of the nodes to make sure the sensation was enough to feel and focus on but not so much that it became distracting. It had to be “just right” and only athletes could tell us where that balance was.The beauty of Nike Mind is that beyond feeling grounded, you are grounded. Using tools like EEG, we’ve measured changes in brain activity in the areas linked to focus and presence. That’s the first time we’ve been able to show — and prove — that footwear construction can influence how the mind works.And this is only chapter one. We’ve focused on the body for decades. Now, as we look at the mind alongside it, the opportunities for athletes are limitless.

THE PROBLEM SOLVER: BRYAN YOUNGS Innovation Program Director, Footwear Bryan Youngs brings more than 20 years of footwear expertise focused on transforming innovation into manufacturable reality. For Nike Mind, he led the scale-up effort, translating a handcrafted sensory prototype into a system that could be produced consistently and reliably. By bridging advanced innovation with global manufacturing, he helped ensure the concept could move from lab experiment to product launch.The idea of sensory footwear has been around for a decade but the challenge was scale. For years it was an arts-and-crafts project —&nbsp;something you could hand-make but not mass-produce. With MIND, we had to move past that to create something we could build with our manufacturing partners while still preserving the complex architecture underfoot.With our manufacturing partners, we developed a system that simplified the build from dozens of individual attachments down to just a few key steps. That shift allowed us to replicate the sensorial experience athletes loved from the earliest prototypes while making it manufacturable at scale.Our willingness to wrestle with the hardest problems is something that makes Nike very unique. We’d failed to solve sensory footwear for 10 years but each attempt taught us something. We have the willingness to keep asking the big questions and then the patience and persistence to finally crack them. With these two new products, we’re just getting started. <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/topics/nike-football-2026" target="_blank">See more of our Universe of Nike Football.</a>

Rachel Cavanaugh is a Portland-based freelance writer who covers food, lifestyle, travel, fitness, adventure and the outdoors. Her work has appeared in Men’s Journal, Outdoor Life, GearJunkie, MSN, Yahoo, The Independent, The Hollywood Reporter, Digital Trends, Bustle, Elite Daily, Mic, Travel Oregon, Matador Network and others. She has a background in digital production and brand storytelling and holds a journalism degree from the University of Montana.

Rachel Cavanaugh

It took more than a decade to crack it: shoes that can connect your body to your mind to help you stay calm, focused and present.

Zach Doleac's work is as eclectic as he is, a tasteful blend of polish and grit. His imagery forges honest connections with real people — from boxers in Goma, refugees in Beirut, clowns in Cairo and cowboys from Polson to Houston.&nbsp;When not on assignment, Zach is rarely still, pedaling around the Pacific Northwest, grooving to a beat, or sliding on snow, usually in the company of his pup, Frida.&nbsp;You can find more of Zach's work on his <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.zachdoleac.com/" target="_blank">website</a> or follow him on <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.instagram.com/zachdoleac" target="">Instagram</a>.

Zach Doleac

Innovation

Inside the Nike Mind Team That Turned Neuroscience Into Footwear

Bringing Sport Science to Our Products

January 25, 1964. Saturday.The Beatles registered their first number-one hit song in the United States: “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”And on a cold, rainy day in Portland, Oregon, a coach and his former athlete met for lunch at the Cosmopolitan Hotel to discuss a possible business partnership.One hour later, Phil Knight and <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/bill-bowerman-nike-s-original-innovator" target="_blank">Bill Bowerman</a> stood, reached across the table and shook hands. Blue Ribbon Sports was born.To understand how two Oregonians arrived at that moment — and why it held — we have to go back a decade, to a teenager who had just been cut from baseball.

The Handshake That Started It All

The Beginning

Phil Knight grew up in Southeast Portland and went to Cleveland High. As he tells it, he was the last cut on the sophomore-and-under baseball team — a decision that stung.“I was heartbroken but my mom said, ‘You are not going to mope around the house. You’re either going to get a paper route or go out for track.’ Well, that was easy. I went out for track.”That decision set him on a course that would change his life, and, eventually, the sports world.Knight tried out for track and quickly found his stride. While he was physically smaller than his teammates, he was fast, competitive and willing to work.At one early meet, his father, William, a labor lawyer who would later become publisher of the Oregon Journal, introduced him to Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman. The two older men had gone to college together at the University of Oregon. That day was his first introduction to the coach who would later shape his life.By then, Knight was already starting to win and place in local races, enough to earn a name in Oregon’s competitive prep scene. During his junior year, he spotted a headline that stuck with him: Bill Dellinger, a runner from the University of Oregon, who had just won the mile at the national championships under Bowerman’s coaching.“It was startling,” Knight said. “It was a huge headline in The Oregonian and that’s when I became aware of Bill Bowerman and what a phenomenal program he had.”

The Hamburger of Runners

Although small and lean, Knight never let size hold him back. In 1955, he played on Cleveland’s city-championship basketball team, finished second in the league 880-yard run and took fourth at the state meet. By fall, he’d earned a spot on Bowerman’s track and cross-country teams at the University of Oregon.Long before his first practice, though, his father had already turned to Bowerman for guidance — an early glimpse of the connection that would define both men’s careers. Curious to get the coach’s perspective on whether Phil should attend college or join the military, William Knight wrote to him that fall.Bowerman replied with his trademark mix of bluntness and care.“My first concern is for your young man’s education,” he wrote. “All will not be fun and frolic. It takes hard work for success in anything … it is a privilege to have your son here, also a responsibility for me, for you and for him.”

Like many freshmen before him, Knight soon learned what that meant, struggling under the bombastic Bowerman. “After my freshman year, I had to sit down with myself and ask if I was going to go back to that crazy man, or not,” Knight recalled. “I realized if I go back, I’m just going to have to do things his way because he’s not going to change. So I went back.”That decision proved pivotal. Bowerman saw potential in Knight —&nbsp;not as a star runner but as an ideal test subject. “I wasn’t one of the best runners on the team,” Knight admitted. “Bowerman knew he could use me as a guinea pig without much risk.”He called Knight the “hamburger” of runners — hearty stock, forgiving, determined — and began using him to test early shoe prototypes. In August 1958, Bowerman sent Knight a letter outlining his summer training plan and added a postscript: If you have a pair you think would make good flats, send them down. They’ll be ready when school starts.The pair Knight received that fall featured an experimental white, rubber-coated fabric — “the kind you’d use for a tablecloth you could sponge off,” Bowerman later said. They were crude, functional and a glimpse of what was coming. The coach was still years from finding a manufacturing partner but his drive to build a faster, lighter shoe had already found its first willing tester.

From Track to Business

By the time Knight graduated from Oregon in 1959 with a degree in business, his competitive drive had shifted from the track to the classroom. The next stop was Stanford where he enrolled to pursue his MBA.At first, his path seemed uncertain. But during his final year, a class called “Small Business Management” caught his attention. It was a class that would quietly spark the idea of a lifetime.“It was the only entrepreneurship class so it was one of the classes that I was most interested in,” Knight said.&nbsp;He developed a strong rapport with his professor, Frank Shallenberger, who assigned the students a simple but open-ended project: invent a new business, define its purpose and create a marketing plan to support it.Knight had recently overheard a conversation among photographers at the Oregon Journal, where he’d worked summers during college. They were talking about a surge of inexpensive Japanese cameras that were starting to rival the more powerful and costly German models.“Electronics was a popular topic at that time and the smart kids chose to write about things like that,” Knight said. “But I didn’t know anything about electronics so I wrote about something that I did know about — shoes.”Drawing from his experience as one of Bill Bowerman’s wear-testers, he built his hypothetical company. By 1962, German sports shoes were on the rise in the U.S. — high quality, yes, but expensive. Knight saw an opening.He turned the idea into a paper he wrote almost literally overnight with a single bold hypothesis: Can Japanese sports shoes do to German sports shoes what Japanese cameras did to German cameras?Knight argued that Japanese-made running shoes could compete on both price and quality with the dominant German brands. Knight received an “A.” When the assignment was over, he couldn’t shake the idea. “I wrote a letter of inquiry to virtually every Japanese shoemaker that I could find.”Only one company replied: the Kow Hoo Shoe Company of Hong Kong. The letter, written in imperfect English, was polite but discouraging.“It is with regret to inform you that due to lack of [such] equipment and material, we can hardly manufacture [such] type of shoes and trust that every shoemaker in Hongkong (sic) fails in doing so. We are expert in manufacturing Golf shoes, Skating boots and Bowling shoes etc.”It wasn’t the answer Knight had hoped for, but it didn’t matter. A seed had been planted that would soon take root.Shaken but not deterred, he was about to face the opportunity of a lifetime.That story — and more — will come in future Department of Nike Archive features on The Record.

Go behind the scenes of the famous business deal between Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman — co-founders of Nike.

History

Walk through NIKE, Inc.’s global campus in Beaverton, Oregon, and you’ll experience a place defined by both its scale and the life within it.This isn’t an office park or even a corporate headquarters. It’s a world. And it’s one built around sport, where movement, the landscape and daily life intersect in ways that feel all-encompassing.Spanning more than 400 acres, this rolling campus has buildings named for legendary athletes and running paths that wind past soccer fields, a lake and cutting-edge innovation labs dedicated to the future of sport. It’s an intentional, expansive environment.Last fall, this city within a city, teeming with thousands of employees, was given a new name: the Philip H. Knight Campus, honoring its visionary co-founder whose restless belief in athletes&nbsp;and innovation helped build the company from a fledgling startup into a global force.But long before this campus existed — before the full-size track, the 11-lane pool and 30-foot-high rock-climbing wall, the hundreds of thousands of square feet of athlete buildings or the world-renowned <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/topics/next-level" target="_blank">Nike Sport Research Lab</a> — Nike had no headquarters at all. In 1964, it was known as Blue Ribbon Sports, and it had far humbler surroundings.

Before There Was a Campus

In April 1964, a shipment of 300 pairs of shoes arrived at the home of Bill and Lota Knight on SE Claybourne in Portland. Their 26-year-old son, Phil Knight — known to friends as “Buck” — was beginning his shoe business, and he stacked the boxes in the basement laundry room.This space became, quite literally, the company’s first office.“I don’t remember if I asked them,” Knight later recalled in an interview with the Department of Nike Archives. “I just moved the shoes in.”

From there, Knight would load the shoes into his Plymouth Valiant and drive to high schools around Portland, trying to sell them directly to runners. Sometimes the athletes didn’t have cash on hand, so they would come by the house later to buy a pair.“It was pretty amazing that they could find their way,” says Knight. “We were on a one-block street that was hard to find.”As Knight’s shoe company, Blue Ribbon Sports, grew, it decamped from his parents’ basement, but stability was still years away.The first official office opened in 1967 at a small building at SE 50th and Powell Boulevard in Portland. Rent was only $50 a month.“It was cheap,” says Knight. “Cheap and available.”Inside, the tiny space served as nearly everything at once: home office, warehouse, sales office and retail store. Orders were packed in the back, invoices typed at the front desk, and shipments mailed out by hand.“We’d get an order and go back and pack the shoes in a box,” recalled Bob Woodell, an early employee and the company’s first chief operating officer. “Then we’d come up front and type up the invoice, address and stamp the envelope, and mail it out. Those were the days when if you could get a 10-pair order, you’d be in heaven.” It wasn’t exactly a quiet office space. At exactly 4 p.m., the jukebox next door at the Pink Bucket Tavern would kick on, its bass vibrating through the wall.“You could set your watch by it,” recalled Woodell. “Boom, boom. You’d know it was 4 o’clock.”The Powell office was the first stop in what became a nomadic stretch for the young footwear company.During the next decade, Blue Ribbon Sports moved repeatedly — from its first offices in southeast Portland to Tigard’s Horace Mann building then to Beaverton and back to Tigard, near Nimbus Drive, before returning to Beaverton, where the company operated out of a pair of offices on Murray Boulevard known internally as “Murray I” and “Murray II.” Along the way, it also established its first dedicated product warehouse on Burnside in Portland, separate from its office spaces. By this point, it had claimed its permanent moniker —&nbsp;Nike, after the Greek goddess of victory.By the early 1980s, Nike employees were scattered across more than 20 buildings throughout the Portland area. The company was growing rapidly, but it didn’t yet have a true home base.

A Place to Unite the Team

Nike knew it needed to bring everyone together in one location.“We were spread out in buildings all over Washington County,” says Knight. “When we could move to a central place, we felt we could improve communications between the various departments.”There was also a perception problem. The company was gaining momentum as a major global business, but it didn’t yet look like one.

“[We] had some traction, but we had no presence,” recalled Jim Robison, who joined the company in 1979 and later helped lead the campus project. “People were flying in from Asia and Europe, and they’d come to a little 40,000-square-foot building across the street from K-Mart. Then they’d have to get back in the car and go someplace else for a meeting, have the meeting, then get back in the car and go back.”Nike needed more than space. It needed an environment that reflected what it was becoming.

Nike-PHK-history-arial-timelaps

In 1984, the company found that physical grounding in a 75-acre parcel just north of its existing offices in Beaverton. Nike purchased the land for $5.5 million in cash, securing the footprint for what would eventually become its permanent world campus.But construction didn’t begin right away.“We decided we didn’t want to move on building the headquarters until we really understood what our brand stood for,” says Knight.That clarity came in 1987, when Nike <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/full-court-press-how-nike-found-its-footing-in-college-basketball" target="_blank">sharpened its core identity</a>.&nbsp;“By 1987, we said we were going to be a performance company,” says Knight. “We were going back to our roots — that was our focus.”With that came a bigger question: If Nike was becoming a global company, what should its world headquarters look like?

Designing a Sense of Place

When construction began, the goal wasn’t just to bring people together. It was to create a place that felt fundamentally different from the offices it had outgrown.“We wanted a campus atmosphere because everybody is a junior in college at heart,” says Knight. “We wanted a place where you could get your work done, but also a place you wanted to be.” That idea became the foundation for everything that followed.

Rather than a single high-rise, the new headquarters would take shape as a collection of buildings organized around shared spaces, more like a college quad than a corporate office park. There would be room to move, gather and think.&nbsp;Early buildings were designed with places to eat, meet and reset. The Joan Benoit Samuelson Building, for example, functioned similarly to a student union, with a cafeteria, small shops and informal gathering spaces that drew employees together throughout the day. Weekly gatherings like the “Thirst Thursday” summer beer garden brought together employees across roles and tenures in a way that blurred the lines between departments.

“Everyone from rookie hires to senior executives bumped elbows and lifted pints together,” recalls Nike historian Scott Reames. “It was a relaxed atmosphere that encouraged employees to let off a little steam and also meet Nike colleagues from across every department.”Nearby, the Bo Jackson Fitness Center served as a campus recreation space, with workout facilities and fields that hosted intramural sports.“Employees would be surrounded by each other all day, every workday — in their offices, at lunch, at the gym and on the jogging trails. This proximity promoted spontaneous interactions, facilitated collaboration, and fostered a sense of community,” says Reames.

Incorporating Natural Elements

Nature wouldn’t be pushed away or relegated to an afterthought. It was central to the campus design.At the heart of the grounds, a manmade lake was introduced, with buildings arranged carefully around it. Rather than treating water and landscape as obstacles, the team chose to build with them, shaping the campus around the environment rather than forcing the environment to conform.

The earth that was removed to create the lake became a berm surrounding the campus — a quiet, tree-lined buffer that separated the company’s space from the outside world while creating running paths that looped through the property.The effect was intentional. Drawing inspiration from the contrast of dense urban life and quiet interiors he had experienced in Japan, Knight envisioned a place that offered a sense of calm after the intensity of work travel.“You’d go out and fight the wars,” he says, “and you’d come home and just want a place where there was peace.”

Even the buildings themselves reflected that thinking. Kept relatively low in the beginning, they were spread across the landscape to take advantage of light, space and the surrounding environment. With more land available, Knight and his leadership team made the decision to build outward rather than upward, favoring four-story structures over taller towers. Inside, design decisions prioritized openness and movement, with elements like expanded stairways introduced to bring in more daylight, even at the expense of usable office space.From the beginning, the campus wasn’t just built to house a business. It was built to reflect its identity as a company shaped by athletes and the environments they move through.

Built Around Athletes

As the campus took shape, even its buildings’ names reflected the company’s values.Early plans that referred to the buildings simply as “A,” “B” and “C” were scrapped in favor of a system that better aligned with Nike’s sports culture.“I said, ‘If you want to name our buildings that way, you’re going to have a heck of a time,’” recalled project leader Howard Slusher. “‘It doesn’t seem like who we are. Why don’t we just name them after our athletes?’”That thinking reshaped the plan. Buildings were named for athletes who stood apart in their sport — Hall of Famers, figures who were head and shoulders above their peers.The first buildings were named for icons like Steve Prefontaine, Joan Benoit Samuelson and Michael Jordan, a precedent that would continue as the campus grew.

The original campus came to be over a two-year stretch, beginning in 1990 with buildings such as Mike Schmidt and Michael Jordan, and continuing through 1992, culminating with the Nolan Ryan Building.For the first time, the company had a place designed for how it worked — and for what it aspired to become.It wasn’t just a headquarters. It was a foundation.“Bringing the Footwear Design and Apparel Design teams together created amazing synergy,” recalls former Design Director Wilson Smith, who spent more than 40 years with the company. “We were separated only by an internal bridge between the two sides of the building...I don’t think it was coincidental that we look back on the 1990s as the golden age of product design.”

Expansion and reinvention

Growth came quickly — and in waves.By the late 1980s, construction was moving in step with the company’s momentum, with new buildings added as demand surged. Nike officially dedicated its new headquarters in October 1990, bringing together employees who had long been spread across the region.The pace didn’t slow. Within a decade, Nike expanded the campus significantly, roughly doubling its footprint as the business surged in the 1990s. The athlete-naming tradition continued, with buildings honoring figures like Ken Griffey, Jr., Mia Hamm and Jerry Rice, reinforcing the connection between the company and the athletes it served.

The next phase wasn’t just about scale but also capability.As Nike entered the late 1990s and early 2000s, the campus evolved to reflect a company no longer building with contingency in mind, but rather with confidence in its trajectory.“The original campus was laid out in such a way that if Nike’s business took a sharp downturn — which was a threat in the 1980s — one or more of the buildings could be sold off or rented to another company,” explains Reames. “But the explosive growth in the 1990s cemented the idea that the second expansion would need no back-up plan, and the layout of the new buildings reflects that air of permanency.”New facilities were larger, designed to support a rapidly expanding workforce and the increasingly complex demands of a global brand. Additions like the Tiger Woods Center, dedicated in 2001, created space for large-scale gatherings, from sales meetings to product launches, that previously required off-site venues. Each building expanded not just how much space Nike had, but what the campus could do.

The evolution culminated in a sweeping modern expansion that reshaped the campus once again.Beginning in the late 2010s, Nike undertook a major development project that included three major new buildings across thousands of acres and more than 1.1 million square feet of new space. The expansion introduced a new architectural language — darker, more minimal structures designed with sustainability, performance and collaboration at their core — and brought together research, design and product creation in closer proximity than ever before.“Nike leadership wanted world-class architecture that captured the ethos of the brand and reflected Nike as a leader,” says Gene Sandoval, partner, ZGF Architects, who led the design of the Sebastian Coe Building, which opened in 2018. “Seb Coe was designed to represent movement, dynamism and be an inspirational creative office space nestled in the North Wood Forest.”Nike knew what it wanted from its structures. When Sandoval would bring plans to Knight and Howard Slusher, they would tell him to “go bigger.” Knight's philosophy was simple: if Nike was going to do this, it was going to do it big. Sandoval says he was continually struck by how seriously they took the idea that architecture should carry the culture and ethos of the brand.That vision shaped every detail of the Seb Coe Building. Nestled in the North Wood Forest — and originally named for that forest — the building was designed around preservation. They were asked to preserve as many trees as possible, and they wanted the interiors to feel like you were part of the surrounding woods. This can be sensed strongly in the cafeteria, with the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the forest. The building was meant to feel like it was coming out of Oregon.In its cantilevered front, a water element anchors the structure’s most striking feature. The original plans called for the cantilever to reach 60 feet from base to tip — until Sandoval showed them to Mark Parker, who pushed for more. They ended up doubling it. At 120 feet, it stands as an engineering marvel unlike any other building in Oregon.At the center of the architectural transformation was 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>, which opened in 2021, representing a sea change in how Nike develops product. At its core was the groundbreaking Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL), a world-class innovation laboratory built to study athletes in motion. Equipped with hundreds of motion-capture cameras, dozens of force plates and advanced testing environments, the lab allowed researchers, designers and engineers to observe performance in real time and translate it directly into innovation.“The NSRL is the epicenter of where we work with athletes of all abilities, all backgrounds, all skills and all sports,” says Matthew Nurse, Nike Chief Science Officer.If the LeBron Building represented a leap forward in sport science, the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/inside-the-serena-williams-building" target="_blank">Serena Williams Building</a> reflected an equally ambitious investment in creativity.

Opened in 2022, the 1-million-square-foot structure is the largest on campus and one of Nike’s most significant commitments to design. It brought together teams across product, insights and merchandising in a single space, designed to accelerate collaboration and push new ideas from concept to reality. Dedicated labs, immersive environments and expansive showrooms allowed teams to test, visualize and refine ideas at scale.“The whole building takes your breath away,” says Serena Williams of the building named after her. “Every element, everywhere you go, is an opportunity to be inspired.”The more recent additions marked a new era for the campus, one characterized not just by growth, but by integration. Science and creativity, research and design, all working side by side.

A Rare Workplace

Taken together, decades of considered decisions have created something rare at the Philip H. Knight Campus: a workplace that operates at the scale of a global company, but can feel like a personal, immersive home for its teammates.For first-time vistors, the impression is immediate. Walk the campus, and open fields and tree-lined paths reshape your sense of distance. Crossing from one side to the other can take 15 minutes or more, and the setting shifts constantly, from wide-open spaces to scenic stretches that feel hidden within the landscape. Like any special space, the people give it its energy. Teammates pass one another between meetings, mid-conversation or mid-stride in moments that feel closer to a college campus than a corporate office, raising quick waves as familiar faces cross paths throughout the day.

It’s the kind of place Phil Knight envisioned early on. Somewhere you come back to reset and prepare to go again.“I worked at Nike for 30 years and studied it closely as the company’s historian for 17, and I truly believe that the creation of what is now the Philip H. Knight Campus was a catalyst that fostered an unprecedented era of creativity and innovation,” says Reames.&nbsp;“If the Nike campus is the nucleus, then its employees are the electrons, bouncing off one another to create energy, light and ideas.”

A new name, a lasting legacy

For more than three decades, the campus has been known simply as Nike World Headquarters, the center of a company that grew from a basement operation into a global force.In 2025, it was officially renamed the Philip H. Knight Campus, cementing its connection to the company’s co-founder.“This is more than a name change,” wrote <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/elliott-hill-ceo-of-sport-interview" target="_blank">Elliott Hill, President &amp; CEO, NIKE, Inc.</a>, in a letter to Nike employees. “It’s a tribute to the man whose vision created a global movement. And it’s a reminder,&nbsp;to every one of us who will walk these paths and run these fields, of what can happen when belief meets action.”The renaming will be formally marked on May 21, 2026, a moment designed to bring the Nike community together around the legacy — and future — of a space that has shaped the company for more than 35 years.In that sense, the renaming doesn’t mark a new chapter as much as it clarifies the one Nike has been writing all along. From a basement laundry room to a world headquarters spanning hundreds of acres, the throughline remains the same: a belief in athletes, in innovation, and in knowing that the greatest is always yet to come.

From a basement laundry room to a global headquarters spanning hundreds of acres, the throughline for the space remains the same: a belief in athletes, in innovation, and in knowing that the greatest is always yet to come.

The Definitive History of Nike’s World Campus

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 characterize 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.

Converse Archivist Sam Smallidge on the intersection of Converse, Chuck Taylor, and basketball.

He was hired by Converse in the early 1920s…

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 U.S. 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 colorway 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 colors, allowing teams to match their uniforms to their shoes for the first time. Chucks was basketball, and basketball was Chucks.

Howard “H” White on the Chuck’s basketball legacy

Howard “H” White on how Chucks made the game

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 favorite of these “beach boys” and perfectly adapted to the new street sport, thanks to its underfoot cushioning, grippy rubber and form-fitting canvas upper.

Converse Archivist Sam Smallidge on how the slip-on style became an instant hit with “sidewalk surfers."

The low-top came out in 1957…

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.

Converse CONS team rider Sean Pablo upholds the shoe’s legacy in Los Angeles.

Streetwise Chucks

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 aughts, but the shoe’s musical roots stretch back to artists topping billboard charts in the ’50 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 &amp; 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 color. First introduced for basketball-centric reasons, the rainbow of hues also made a statement by breaking down color barriers on court and off, celebrating diversity and championing self-expression in all forums.

Converse Archivist Sam Smallidge on the introduction of color into the Chuck family.

Not conforming and rebelling is kind of baked into our DNA…

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 customizable badge for those independent enough not to follow — and for an ever-evolving roster of collaborators.

Jonathan Olivares on what makes the Chuck iconic

Jonathan Olivares on the Chuck as an iconic canvas

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 aughts 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 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.

Chuck Upcycled Flannel

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 customizable 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 aughts wore on and digital media democratized 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 myriad 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 customized 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.”

Artist Cory Infinite on the Destiny All Stars and his lifelong love of the Chuck.

I’ve loved Chuck my entire life…

Photographer Denise Stephanie Hewitt on the power of the Chuck

Denise Stephanie Hewitt reflects on the Chuck

Recognizing 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 catalog. 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 personalization platform with the introduction of Converse By You, a digital design program 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.

A Chuck gets better the longer you wear it…

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.

Journey of an Icon: The History of the Chuck Taylor All Star

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