Shoe Dog (41 page)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I
've spent a fair portion of my life in debt. As a young entrepreneur I became distressingly familiar with that feeling of going to sleep each night, waking up each day, owing many people a sum far greater than I could repay.

Nothing, however, has made me feel quite so indebted as the writing of this book.

Just as there's no end to my gratitude, there seems no proper, logical place to begin to express it. And so. At Nike, I wish to thank my assistant, Lisa McKillips, for doing everything—I mean everything—­perfectly, cheerfully, and always with her dazzling smile; old friends Jeff Johnson and Bob Woodell for making me remember, and being patient when I remembered it different; historian Scott Reames for deftly sifting facts from myths; and Maria Eitel for applying her expertise to weightiest matters.

Of course, my biggest and most emphatic thanks to the 68,000 Nike employees worldwide for their daily efforts and their dedication, without which there would be no book, no author, no nothing.

At Stanford, I wish to thank the mad genius and gifted teacher Adam Johnson for his golden example of what it means to be a working writer and a friend; Abraham Verghese, who instructs as he writes—quietly, effortlessly; and numberless graduate students I met with while sitting in the back row of writing classes—each inspired me with his or her passion for language and craft.

At Scribner, thanks to the legendary Nan Graham for her steadfast support; Brian Belfiglio, Roz Lippel, Susan Moldow, and Carolyn Reidy for their bracing, energizing enthusiasm; Kathleen Rizzo for keeping production moving smoothly forward while always maintaining a sublime calm; above all, thanks to my supremely talented and razor-sharp editor, Shannon Welch, who gave me the affirmation I needed, when I needed it, without either of us fully appreciating how much I needed it. Her early note of praise and analysis and precocious wisdom was everything.

Randomly, in no order, thanks to the many pals and colleagues who were so lavish with their time, talent, and advice, including super agent Bob Barnett, poet-administrator extraordinaire Eavan Boland, Grand Slam memoirist Andre Agassi, and number artist Del Hayes. A special and profound thank-you to memoirist-­novelist-journalist-sportswriter-muse-friend J. R. Moehringer, whose generosity and good humor and enviable storytelling gifts I relied on through the many, many drafts of this book.

Last, I wish to thank my family, all of them, but particularly my son Travis, whose support and friendship meant—and mean—the world. And, of course, a full-throated, full-hearted thanks to my Penelope, who waited. And waited. She waited while I journeyed, and she waited while I got lost. She waited night after night while I made my maddeningly slow way home—usually late, the dinner cold—and she waited the last few years while I relived it all, aloud, and in my head, and on the page, even though there were parts she didn't care to relive. From the start, going on half a century, she's waited, and now at last I can hand her these hard-fought pages and say, about them, about Nike, about everything: “Penny, I couldn't have done it without you.”

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Copyright © 2016 by Phil Knight

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First Scribner hardcover edition April 2016

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Interior design by Kyle Kabel
Jacket design by Jaya Miceli and Jonathan Bush
Swoosh courtesy of Nike

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-5011-3591-0
ISBN 978-1-5011-3593-4 (ebook)