48 pages • 1 hour read
Phil KnightShoe Dog
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “1968”
Wanting to dedicate more time to Blue Ribbon, Knight switches jobs and becomes an accounting professor at Portland State University. On the first day of class, a young woman sitting in the front row catches his attention. She has blue eyes and is dressed stylishly. Her name is Penelope “Penny” Parks. Though she’s quiet, she proves to be the most capable student in the class. One day Knight asks if Parks would like a job working for his shoe company. She agrees.
Parks proves to be a skillful and efficient worker and an integral part of the small office. Her presence boosts Woodell’s mood. One day after work, Knight asks Parks out to dinner. She accepts. Knight takes her to the Oregon Zoo. She says she’s seeing someone, but he’s “just a boy” (124), while Knight seems more mature and worldly. They continue dating and soon spend almost all their time together, both at Blue Ribbon and at Knight’s apartment. They meet one another’s parents. Ultimately, Knight asks Penny to marry him. She says yes.
Knight flies to Japan and meets with Kitami. Kitami approves of Knight’s sales and invites him to a company picnic on a small island. During the picnic, Knight meets a man named Fujimoto, who tells Knight that his home was wiped out in a typhoon. One item he was not able to replace was his bicycle. When Knight returns to the United States, he sends Fujimoto $50 for a new bicycle—and “thus another life-altering partnership was born” (134).
On September 13, 1968, Knight and Penny get married in Portland.
Chapter 8 Summary: “1969”
Knight hires more sales representatives. He made $150,000 in sales in 1968 and expects to double that in 1969. Knight quits working at Portland State and begins paying himself a salary. During his last week of teaching, he meets a young woman painting in the hallways. Her name is Carolyn Davidson. Knight takes her contact information in case he decides to hire an artist for advertisements.
Knight calls Bowerman to hear his report of the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games. Blue Ribbon had a booth in the Olympic Village, but it generated little notice. Bowerman ran into Kitami, whom he disliked.
Knight sends a memo out to his company telling employees that he has a spy working inside Onitsuka. This spy is Fujimoto, though he doesn’t identify Fujimoto by name in the memo.
In the spring, Penny learns she is pregnant. Knight and Penny move to a new home in Beaverton. Knight uses his savings for a down payment on the home and pledges the house. His banker, Harry White, approves. Knight also decides to find a larger office space for Blue Ribbon. He and Woodell drive around Portland in search of the right space. During these drives and visits, Knight and Woodell bond. They find an office in Tigard, to the south of Portland. Knight promotes Woodell to operations manager.
In September 1969 Penny gives birth to a boy named Matthew. In November, Knight receives a letter from John Bork demanding a raise. After writing Bork a letter, Knight sends Woodell down to Los Angeles to smooth things over. Bork stays on with Blue Ribbon, but Knight decides to move warehouse operations up to Oregon.
Chapter 9 Summary: “1970”
Knight flies to Japan to sign a new deal with Onitsuka. He meets with Mr. Onitsuka and Kitami in the conference room, and they agree to renew Blue Ribbon’s deal for another three years. Knight wished for a five-year renewal but accepts the three-year deal anyway.
Onitsuka is ready to send a large spring shipment to Oregon and asks Blue Ribbon for $20,000. Knight, however, does not have the money and asks Onitsuka to wait a few days. Although he cobbles together the necessary funds from “receivables,” the problem forces him to think of longer-term financial solutions. He asks friends and family members for loans. Woodell’s family loans Knight $5,000.
In June 1970 Knight sees Steve Prefontaine on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Prefontaine is a runner for the University of Oregon and is described as “perhaps the greatest of all time” (163). Bowerman describes him as both “the fastest middle-distance runner alive” and “the best runner [Bowerman] ever had” (163).
After reading about Japanese trading companies in a magazine, Knight enters a Bank of Tokyo in Portland. He asks a man working there if he might be connected with a Japanese trading company. The man says that one, Nissho Iwai, has an office right above them and then leaves and returns with an executive from Nissho. The executive offers Knight a deal on the spot, but Knight must first clear the decision with Onitsuka. Knight sends Onitsuka a wire, but the company doesn’t respond.
Knight receives a call from someone on the East Coast claiming they’ve been approached about becoming Onitsuka’s main US distributor. Knight writes Fujimoto, who confirms that Onitsuka is considering ending its partnership with Blue Ribbon.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
In Chapter 7 Knight deepens his commitment to Blue Ribbon by quitting his secure job as an accountant at Price Waterhouse and becoming an accounting professor at Portland State University. He hopes this change will give him more free time to focus on Blue Ribbon. Authority figures like Knight’s Price Waterhouse boss and his father frown on his decision to leave his steady job to support his company. His boss asks him, “Why the hell would you do something like that?” (118). Knight’s father worries that teaching at Portland State University isn’t respectable enough. Such reactions serve to illustrate the strength, conviction, and independence Knight demonstrates in pursuing his “Crazy Idea.” As he suggests in the Prologue, Knight never stops pursuing this idea, even in the face of doubt from figures he respects, and this drive becomes key to the company’s ethos, with The Desire for Victory as Nike’s Binding Spirit.
In Chapter 7, Knight forms the most important partnership of his life and career when he meets and marries Penny, the former student in his accounting class. Knight says of the importance of this partnership: “In the past I’d told myself Bowerman was my partner, and to some extent Johnson. But this thing with Penny was unique, unprecedented. This alliance was life-altering” (130). In Chapter 8, their relationship deepens as they learn to live with one another. Penny must learn to make do with limited means while Knight tries to get his start-up company off the ground. Knight’s relationship with his father also changes, as his father no longer sees Blue Ribbon as a waste of time and instead finds the problems Knight faces interesting. Knight calls his father almost every night to talk over the latest challenge Blue Ribbon faces. Knight thus depicts his personal relationships as inseparable from his business—a fact he underscores in meditating on the double meaning of “partner.”
Perhaps Blue Ribbon’s greatest challenge during these years is what Knight calls the “cash flow problem” (159). His bankers, White and Wallace, are unwilling to loan Knight more than $1 million until Knight puts cash in his account and leaves it untouched for a period. Knight’s first solution for this dilemma is to hold a small public offering, but the offering fails. In the end, Knight is forced to seek and accept loans from family and friends, something he promised he would never do. It is in challenging moments—like accepting $5,000 from Woodell’s parents—that Knight reminds himself to “keep going…Don’t stop” (163). This tenacity proves important as Knight’s relationship with Onitsuka becomes less stable in the following chapters.
