Translated from the original Spanish article. Read in Spanish
Nike's first great sole didn't come out of a lab. It was made in a kitchen waffle iron.
An obsessed coach
Oregon, United States, the 1960s. Bill Bowerman was the track coach at the University of Oregon and he had an obsession: lighter shoes for his runners.
In 1964 he founded, together with Phil Knight, a company called Blue Ribbon Sports. At first they made nothing: Knight sold Japanese running shoes out of his car.
In 1971 they changed the name to Nike, after the Greek goddess of victory. And its famous logo was drawn by a design student… for just 35 dollars.
The Nike logo cost 35 dollars: a student drew it.
The waffle iron morning
But something was missing: a sole that would grip the new synthetic running tracks.
One morning, Bowerman looked at his wife Barbara's waffle iron and noticed the grid. He poured liquid polyurethane into it to mold a sole.
The waffle iron, a wedding present, was ruined. But the idea worked. That's how the waffle sole was born: small rubber studs that grip the ground.
From the kitchen to the world
In 1974 they patented the sole, and by 1975 their waffle trainers had passed one hundred thousand orders.
Decades later, that waffle iron was found buried on the Bowerman family's land. A kitchen gadget that ended up as a piece of sports history.
From a kitchen… to one of the biggest brands on the planet.
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Sources (in Spanish)
- Historia de la empresa: Wikipedia, Nike.
- Bill Bowerman y la suela waffle: Wikipedia, Bill Bowerman.
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