ouduckhunter
1/12/2011, 12:10 AM
I thought that this was an interesting article about Phil Knight and Nike's philosophy towards the quacks, especially this part in bold. It's not news that Knight and Nike support them, but it's kind of scary to see just how much money and technology is poured into that program.
http://tinyurl.com/45g4rqe
GLENDALE, Ariz. – There he was, the man in black, with the sunniest disposition in the house.
Phil Knight spent a long time Monday night standing on one of his favorite patches of ground – the sideline of the Oregon Ducks football team.
Kickoff was about an hour away and he was smiling. He chatted with coaches, with fabled Nike designer and fellow Duck Tinker Hatfield and with fellow Duck and former NFL player Ahmad Rashad.
He appeared to be satisfied, like somebody who was ready for whatever outcome emerged between his beloved Oregon Ducks and the Auburn Tigers.
With a half-hour to go to kickoff, Knight said his good-byes and began walking off the field, headed to his seat elsewhere in the University of Phoenix Stadium.
“Well,” he said enroute, “it’s a pretty exciting event. And I love exciting.”
He returned to the sideline for the game’s frantic conclusion, standing as close to the action as Coach Chip Kelly.
Knight walked from the field alone after the Tigers’ 22-19 victory, following the dejected Ducks players in front of him. But at one point he looked up and smiled: “Heckuva game, wasn’t it? Fabulous.”
While the game’s outcome was a letdown for the team, representatives of Nike and the university emphasized before and after the contest how this football season has signaled an arrival of sorts. The football team and, by extension, the university, are no longer a distant oddity to the rest of the country. And the sports equipment and apparel giant based near Beaverton contributed significantly to that shift of public opinion.
“I guess it was in 1996, after the Cotton Bowl,” Hatfield said after Monday’s game, “we had played very well, but there was clearly a difference between the quality in terms of the size and speed of Colorado versus Oregon.
“We felt like – we, being Nike -- felt like we could help the University of Oregon just improve the level and quality of athletes. It’s been a long, kind of steady build. And I think as you can see today we’re quite equal to the best in the country in terms of athleticism and its a good feeling to know that we had a little hand in that.”
That help has included hundreds of millions of dollars from Knight personally to improve the athletic facilities for the university. And it has included regular interaction between the Oregon athletic department and Nike designers.
The design relationship took off about 10 years ago. Then-University President Dave Frohnmeyer, whose lawyer father was a contemporary of Knight’s lawyer father, agreed to the arrangement.
The football team’s ever-changing array of uniforms have attracted most of the attention. But Nike and the Ducks have worked together to develop products, including the Pro Combat Uniforms that 10 other Nike collegiate football programs, including Oregon State University, wore in the 2010 season.
But Nike officials, including Todd Van Horne, Nike’s global creative director for football, emphasize that the Ducks always have final say on uniform selection.
The past two years, that’s meant Chip Kelly is chief aesthetician for the team and that was underscored on Monday. In mid-December, Nike introduced to great fanfare in Dallas the uniform that the Ducks would wear in the national championship, which included white pants. So when the Ducks trotted out before the game with gray pants, it underscored who has final say.
Really not that big of a deal, said David Williford, Oregon’s sports information director.
“Chip usually makes the decision,” he said before Monday night’s game start.
Nike concurred.
“As we’ve always said, what the Ducks decide to wear on game day is ultimately up to them,” Nike spokeswoman Erin Dobson said. “We provided the team with a home and away options and they recently chose to include the 2011 version Pro Combat anthracite pants, replacing the white.”
Football equipment choice can be a sensitive issue, and not just for aesthetic reasons.
One Nike product was under scrutiny from the game’s start.
The Nike Air Zoom Alpha Talon cleat took a public relations hit in this year’s Rose Bowl. ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews told viewers that Texas Christian University’s Horned Frogs were having difficulty maintaining their footing on the field’s natural turf because their new Nike shoes – the Talons, a shoe introduced in Dallas at the same time as the Ducks BCS uniform – were slipping. Andrews went on to say the Horned Frogs didn’t have backup cleats.
The Horned Frogs went on to win the game and finish with an undefeated season. But the segment of the blogosphere that intensely follows and comments about Nike’s garments and equipment wondered about the shoe’s efficiency.
A few days after the game, TCU’s athletic director Chris Del Conte, and a Nike spokesman sent separate e-mails supporting the cleats and the relationship between the school and the equipment company.
Nevertheless, when Ducks kick returner Josh Huff slipped on the opening kickoff, one reporter in the pressbox said, “One slip.”
When Huff slipped again on his 16-yard return, a nearby reporter said, “Two slips.”
At the end of the game, Hatfield watched the Auburn celebration from a second row seat at the 30 yard line. He guessed he was among at least 500 Nike employees attending the game. He also figured the Ducks football team will be back on the national stage again soon.
“I don’t want to speak for Phil Knight,” Hatfield said, “but he’s very philosophical about these things. A lot of us are just preprogramed to go back at it again…this game just proves that we belong here.”
Besides occasionally standing on the sidelines, another Knight football predisposition is attending Kelly’s post-game press conference. Well before the coach’s arrival after the defeat, Knight walked in with two friends and took a seat in the rear row. The former accountant grabbed a final game stat sheet and studied the numbers.
He paused to say, “Obviously the program has come a long way and it can go nowhere but up.”
His analysis of the game was brief: “Very close game. We lost by a field goal. It’s that simple.”
Will the Ducks will be back in the hunt for a national championship next year?
“Absolutely.”
-- Allan Brettman
http://tinyurl.com/45g4rqe
GLENDALE, Ariz. – There he was, the man in black, with the sunniest disposition in the house.
Phil Knight spent a long time Monday night standing on one of his favorite patches of ground – the sideline of the Oregon Ducks football team.
Kickoff was about an hour away and he was smiling. He chatted with coaches, with fabled Nike designer and fellow Duck Tinker Hatfield and with fellow Duck and former NFL player Ahmad Rashad.
He appeared to be satisfied, like somebody who was ready for whatever outcome emerged between his beloved Oregon Ducks and the Auburn Tigers.
With a half-hour to go to kickoff, Knight said his good-byes and began walking off the field, headed to his seat elsewhere in the University of Phoenix Stadium.
“Well,” he said enroute, “it’s a pretty exciting event. And I love exciting.”
He returned to the sideline for the game’s frantic conclusion, standing as close to the action as Coach Chip Kelly.
Knight walked from the field alone after the Tigers’ 22-19 victory, following the dejected Ducks players in front of him. But at one point he looked up and smiled: “Heckuva game, wasn’t it? Fabulous.”
While the game’s outcome was a letdown for the team, representatives of Nike and the university emphasized before and after the contest how this football season has signaled an arrival of sorts. The football team and, by extension, the university, are no longer a distant oddity to the rest of the country. And the sports equipment and apparel giant based near Beaverton contributed significantly to that shift of public opinion.
“I guess it was in 1996, after the Cotton Bowl,” Hatfield said after Monday’s game, “we had played very well, but there was clearly a difference between the quality in terms of the size and speed of Colorado versus Oregon.
“We felt like – we, being Nike -- felt like we could help the University of Oregon just improve the level and quality of athletes. It’s been a long, kind of steady build. And I think as you can see today we’re quite equal to the best in the country in terms of athleticism and its a good feeling to know that we had a little hand in that.”
That help has included hundreds of millions of dollars from Knight personally to improve the athletic facilities for the university. And it has included regular interaction between the Oregon athletic department and Nike designers.
The design relationship took off about 10 years ago. Then-University President Dave Frohnmeyer, whose lawyer father was a contemporary of Knight’s lawyer father, agreed to the arrangement.
The football team’s ever-changing array of uniforms have attracted most of the attention. But Nike and the Ducks have worked together to develop products, including the Pro Combat Uniforms that 10 other Nike collegiate football programs, including Oregon State University, wore in the 2010 season.
But Nike officials, including Todd Van Horne, Nike’s global creative director for football, emphasize that the Ducks always have final say on uniform selection.
The past two years, that’s meant Chip Kelly is chief aesthetician for the team and that was underscored on Monday. In mid-December, Nike introduced to great fanfare in Dallas the uniform that the Ducks would wear in the national championship, which included white pants. So when the Ducks trotted out before the game with gray pants, it underscored who has final say.
Really not that big of a deal, said David Williford, Oregon’s sports information director.
“Chip usually makes the decision,” he said before Monday night’s game start.
Nike concurred.
“As we’ve always said, what the Ducks decide to wear on game day is ultimately up to them,” Nike spokeswoman Erin Dobson said. “We provided the team with a home and away options and they recently chose to include the 2011 version Pro Combat anthracite pants, replacing the white.”
Football equipment choice can be a sensitive issue, and not just for aesthetic reasons.
One Nike product was under scrutiny from the game’s start.
The Nike Air Zoom Alpha Talon cleat took a public relations hit in this year’s Rose Bowl. ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews told viewers that Texas Christian University’s Horned Frogs were having difficulty maintaining their footing on the field’s natural turf because their new Nike shoes – the Talons, a shoe introduced in Dallas at the same time as the Ducks BCS uniform – were slipping. Andrews went on to say the Horned Frogs didn’t have backup cleats.
The Horned Frogs went on to win the game and finish with an undefeated season. But the segment of the blogosphere that intensely follows and comments about Nike’s garments and equipment wondered about the shoe’s efficiency.
A few days after the game, TCU’s athletic director Chris Del Conte, and a Nike spokesman sent separate e-mails supporting the cleats and the relationship between the school and the equipment company.
Nevertheless, when Ducks kick returner Josh Huff slipped on the opening kickoff, one reporter in the pressbox said, “One slip.”
When Huff slipped again on his 16-yard return, a nearby reporter said, “Two slips.”
At the end of the game, Hatfield watched the Auburn celebration from a second row seat at the 30 yard line. He guessed he was among at least 500 Nike employees attending the game. He also figured the Ducks football team will be back on the national stage again soon.
“I don’t want to speak for Phil Knight,” Hatfield said, “but he’s very philosophical about these things. A lot of us are just preprogramed to go back at it again…this game just proves that we belong here.”
Besides occasionally standing on the sidelines, another Knight football predisposition is attending Kelly’s post-game press conference. Well before the coach’s arrival after the defeat, Knight walked in with two friends and took a seat in the rear row. The former accountant grabbed a final game stat sheet and studied the numbers.
He paused to say, “Obviously the program has come a long way and it can go nowhere but up.”
His analysis of the game was brief: “Very close game. We lost by a field goal. It’s that simple.”
Will the Ducks will be back in the hunt for a national championship next year?
“Absolutely.”
-- Allan Brettman