A legendary Oregon track coach who cofounded the shoe company 聽in 1964; 14 years later, it became . Sick of importing expensive European running shoes in the fifties, Bowerman designed and built his own pair for his athlete Phil Knight. 鈥淭hey were a white, rubber-coated fabric, the kind you鈥檇 use for a tablecloth you could sponge off,鈥 Bowerman recalled in Kenny Moore鈥檚 biography, . Famously, in 1971 Bowerman invented the modern running-shoe tread by molding a rubber sole using his wife鈥檚 waffle iron. (See Waffle.) The first Blue Ribbon shoe to become popular was the , a black and white runner that today seems surprisingly fashionable. Bowerman died in 1999 at 88.
(Photo: Tim Tomkinson)
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