Shoe Dog (30 page)

I wrote down Hsieh's office address and grabbed Gorman. The concierge at our hotel drew us a map—which proved useless. Hsieh's office was in an unmapped part of the city. The worst part. Gorman and I walked down a series of unmarked lanes, up a series of unnumbered alleys. Do you see a street sign? I can barely see the street.

We must have gotten lost a dozen times. Finally, there it was. A stout building of old red brick. Inside we found a precarious staircase. The handrail came off in our hands as we walked up to the third floor, and each stone step had a deep indentation, from contact with a million shoes.

“Enter!” Hsieh shouted when we knocked. We found him sitting in the middle of a room that looked like the nest of a giant rat. Everywhere we looked were shoes, and more shoes, and piles of shoe pieces—soles and laces and tongues. Hsieh jumped to his feet, cleared a space for us to sit. He offered us tea. Then, while the water boiled, he began educating us.
Did you know that every country in the world has many many customs and superstitions about shoes?
He grabbed a shoe from a shelf, held it before our faces.
Did you know that in China, when man marries woman, they throw red shoes on the roof to make sure all go
es well on wedding night?
He rotated the shoe in the scant daylight that managed to fight through the grime on his windows. He told us which factory it came from, why he thought it was well made, how it could have been made better.
Did you know that in many countries, when someone starts on a journey, it's actually good luck to throw a shoe at them?
He grabbed another shoe, extended it like Hamlet holding Yorick's skull. He identified its provenance, told us why it was poorly made, why it would soon fall apart, then tossed it aside with disdain. The difference from one shoe to another, he said, nine times out of ten, is the factory. Forget design, forget color, forget all the other things that go into a shoe, it's all about factories.

I listened closely, and took notes, like Gorman on the plane, though the whole time I was thinking: It's a performance. He's putting on a show, trying to sell us. He doesn't realize that we need him more than he needs us.

Now Hsieh went into his pitch. He told us that in exchange for a small fee he'd gladly connect us with the very best factories in Taiwan.

This had the potential to be big. We could use someone on the ground, to pave our way, to make introductions, to help Gorman acclimate. An Asian Giampietro. We haggled over commission per pair, for a few minutes, but it was a friendly haggling. Then we shook hands.

Deal? Deal.

We sat down again and drew up an agreement to establish a Taiwan-­based subcompany. What to call it? I didn't want to use Nike. If we ever wanted to do business in the People's Republic of China, we couldn't be associated with China's sworn enemy. It was a faint hope, at best, an impossible dream. But still. So I picked Athena. The Greek goddess who brings
nike
. Athena Corp. And thus I preserved the unmapped, unnumbered Road to Heaven. Or a shoe dog's idea of heaven.

A country with two billion feet.

I SENT GORMAN
home ahead of me. Before leaving Asia, I told him, I needed to make one quick stop in Manila. Personal errand, I said vaguely.

I went to Manila to visit a shoe factory, a very good one. Then, closing an old loop, I spent the night in MacArthur's suite.

You are remembered
for the rules you break.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

IT WAS THE
Bicentennial Year, that strange moment in America's cultural history, that 365-day lollapalooza of self-examination and civics lessons and seminightly fireworks. From January 1 to December 31 of that year, you couldn't change the channel without hitting upon a movie or documentary about George Washington or Ben Franklin or Lexington and Concord. And invariably, embedded in the patriotic programming, there would be yet another “Bicentennial Minute,” a public service announcement in which Dick Van Dyke or Lucille Ball or Gabe Kaplan would recount some episode that took place on this date during the Revolutionary era. One night it might be Jessica Tandy talking about the felling of the Liberty Tree. The next night it might be President Gerald Ford exhorting all Americans to “keep the Spirit of '76 alive.” It was all somewhat
corny, a little bit sentimental—and immensely moving. The yearlong swell of patriotism brought out an already strong love of country in me. Tall ships sailing into New York Harbor, recitations of the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence, fervent talk of liberty and justice—it all refreshed my gratitude about being an American. And being free. And not being in jail.

AT THE 1976
Olympic Trials, held again that June in Eugene, Nike had a chance, a fantastic chance, to make a good show. We'd never had that chance with Tiger, whose spikes weren't top caliber. We'd never had that chance with the first generation of Nike products. Now, at last, we had our own stuff, and it was really good: top-­quality marathon shoes and spikes. We were buzzing with excitement as we left Portland. Finally, we said, we're going to have a Nike-shod runner make an Olympic team.

It was going to happen.

It needed to happen.

Penny and I drove to Eugene, where we met up with Johnson, who was photographing the event. Despite our excitement about the trials, we talked most about Pre as we took our seats in the packed bleachers. It was clear that Pre was on everyone else's mind, too. We heard his name coming from every direction, and his spirit seemed to hover like the low clouds roiling above the track. And if you were tempted to forget him, even for a moment, you got another bracing reminder when you looked at the runners' feet. Many were wearing Pre Montreals. (Many more were wearing Exeter-­made products like the Triumph and the Vainqueur. Hayward that day looked like a Nike showroom.) It was well known that these trials would have been the start of Pre's epic comeback. After being knocked down in Munich, he'd have risen again, no doubt, and the rising would have begun right here, right now. Each race prompted the same thoughts, the same image: Pre bursting ahead of the pack.
Pre diving through the tape. We could
see
it. We could
see
him flush with victory.

If only, we kept saying, our voices choking, if only.

At sunset the sky turned red, white, and a deep blackish blue. But it was still bright enough to read by as the runners in the 10,000 meters gathered at the starting line. Penny and I tried to clear our minds as we stood, hands clasped as if in prayer. We were counting on Shorter, of course. He was extremely talented, and he'd been the last person to see Pre alive—it made sense that he'd be the one to carry Pre's torch. But we also had Nikes on Craig Virgin, a brilliant young runner from the University of Illinois, and on Garry Bjorklund, a lovable veteran from Minnesota, who was trying to come back from surgery to remove a loose bone in his foot.

The gun went off, the runners shot forward, all bunched tight, and Penny and I were bunched tight, too, oohing and aahing with every stride. There wasn't an inch of separation in the pack until the halfway mark, when Shorter and Virgin violently pushed ahead. In the jostling, Virgin accidentally stepped on Bjorklund and sent his Nike flying. Now Bjorklund's tender, surgically repaired foot was bare, exposed, smacking the hard track with every stride. And yet Bjorklund didn't stop. He didn't falter. He didn't even slow down. He just kept running, faster and faster, and that blazing show of courage won over the crowd. I think we cheered for him as loudly as we'd cheered for Pre the year before.

Entering the final lap, Shorter and Virgin were in front. Penny and I were jumping up and down. “We're going to get two,” we said, “we're going to get two!” And then we got three. Shorter and Virgin took first and second, and Bjorklund plunged ahead of Bill Rodgers at the tape to take third. I was covered with sweat. Three Olympians . . . in Nikes!

The next morning, rather than take a victory lap at Hayward, we set up camp at the Nike store. While Johnson and I mingled with customers, Penny manned the silk-screen machine and churned
out Nike T-shirts. Her craftsmanship was exquisite; all day long people came in to say they'd seen someone wearing a Nike T-shirt on the street and they just had to have one for themselves. Despite our continual melancholy about Pre, we allowed ourselves to feel joy, because it was becoming clear that Nike was doing more than making a good show. Nike was dominating those trials. Virgin took the 5,000 meters in Nikes. Shorter won the marathon in Nikes. Slowly, in the shop, in the town, we heard people whispering,
Nike Nike Nike
. We heard our name more than the name of any athlete. Besides Pre.

Saturday afternoon, walking into Hayward to visit Bowerman, I heard someone behind me say, “Jeez, Nike is
really
kicking Adidas's ass.” It might have been the highlight of the weekend, of the year, followed closely by the Puma sales rep I spotted moments later, leaning against a tree and looking suicidal.

Bowerman was there strictly as a spectator, which was strange for him, and us. And yet he was wearing his standard uniform: the ratty sweater, the low ball cap. At one point he formally requested a meeting in a small office under the east grandstand. The office wasn't really an office, more like a closet, where the groundskeepers stored their rakes and brooms and a few canvas chairs. There was barely room for the coach and Johnson and me, never mind the others invited by the coach: Hollister, and Dennis Vixie, a local podiatrist who worked with Bowerman as a shoe consultant. As we shut the door I noticed Bowerman didn't look like himself. At Pre's funeral he'd seemed old. Now he seemed lost. After a minute of small talk he started bellowing. He complained that he wasn't getting any “respect” anymore from Nike. We'd built him a home lab, and supplied him with a lasting machine, but he said that he was constantly asking in vain for raw materials from Exeter.

Johnson looked horrified. “What materials?” he asked.

“I ask for shoe uppers and my requests are ignored!” Bowerman said.

Johnson turned to Vixie. “I sent you the uppers!” he said. “Vixie—didn't you get them?”

Vixie looked perplexed. “Yes, I got them.”

Bowerman took off his ball cap, put it back on, took it off. “Yeah, well,” he grumbled, “but you didn't send the
outer soles
.”

Johnson's face reddened. “I sent those, too! Vixie?”

“Yes,” Vixie said, “we got them.”

Now we all turned to Bowerman, who was pacing, or trying to. There was no room. The office was dark, but I could still tell that my old coach's face was turning red. “Well . . . we didn't get them on time!” he shouted, and the tines of the rakes trembled. This wasn't about uppers and outer soles. This was about retirement. And time. Like Pre, time wouldn't
listen
to Bowerman. Time wouldn't
slow down
. “I'm not going to put up with this bullshit anymore,” he huffed, and stormed out, leaving the door swinging open.

I looked at Johnson and Vixie and Hollister. They all looked at me. It didn't matter if Bowerman was right or wrong, we'd just have to find a way to make him feel needed and useful. If Bowerman isn't happy, I said, Nike isn't happy.

A FEW MONTHS
later, muggy Montreal was the setting for Nike's grand debut, our Olympic coming-out party. As those 1976 Games opened, we had athletes in several high-profile events wearing Nikes. But our highest hopes, and most of our money, were pinned on Shorter. He was the favorite to win gold, which meant that Nikes, for the first time ever, were going to cross an Olympic finish line ahead of all other shoes. This was an enormous rite of passage for a ­running-shoe company. You really weren't a legitimate, card-­carrying running-shoe company until an Olympian ascended to the top medal stand in your gear.

I woke up early that Saturday—July 31, 1976. Right after my morning coffee I took up my position in my recliner. I had a sand
wich at my elbow, cold sodas in the fridge. I wondered if Kitami was watching. I wondered if my former bankers were watching. I wondered if my parents and sisters were watching. I wondered if the
FBI
was watching.

The runners approached the starting line. With them I crouched forward. I probably had as much adrenaline in my system as Shorter had in his. I waited for the pistol, and for the inevitable close-up of Shorter's feet. The camera zoomed in. I stopped breathing. I slid out of my recliner onto the floor and crawled toward the
TV
screen. No, I said. No, I cried out in anguish. “No.
NO
!”

He was wearing . . .
Tigers
.

I watched in horror as the great hope of Nike took off in the shoes of our enemy.

I stood, walked back to my recliner, and watched the race unfold, talking to myself, mumbling to myself. Slowly the house grew dark. Not dark enough to suit me. At some point I drew the curtains, turned off the lights. But not the
TV
. I would watch, all two hours and ten minutes, to the bitter end.

I'm still not sure I know exactly what happened. Apparently, Shorter became convinced that his Nike shoes were fragile and wouldn't hold up for the whole twenty-six miles. (Never mind that they'd performed perfectly well at the Olympic Trials.) Maybe it was nerves. Maybe it was superstition. He wanted to use what he'd always used. Runners are funny that way. In any case, at the last moment he switched back to the shoes that he wore when he won the gold in 1972.

And I switched from soda to vodka. Sitting in the dark, clutching a cocktail, I told myself it was no big deal, in the grand scheme of things. Shorter didn't even win. An East German surprised him and took the gold. Of course I was lying to myself, it was a very big deal, and not because of the disappointment or the lost marketing opportunity. If watching Shorter go off in shoes other than mine could affect me so deeply, it was now official: Nike was more than just a
shoe. I no longer simply made Nikes; Nikes were making me. If I saw an athlete choose another shoe, if I saw anyone choose another shoe, it wasn't just a rejection of the brand alone, but of me. I told myself to be reasonable, not everyone in the world was going to wear Nike. And I won't say that I became upset every time I saw someone walking down the street in a running shoe that wasn't mine.