There is no finish line
If you’ve read the stories that say that the Nike “swoosh” is inspired by the wings of the Greek goddess of victory, newsflash: it isn’t true. The swoosh was in development before the name Nike originated. And if it wasn’t for longtime Nike historian, Scott Reames, BA ’89 (public relations), we probably would never know that.
Reames already had the shoe industry in his blood when he first joined Nike. As a child, he watched his grandfather serve the people of Missouri through their family-owned shoe business and later found himself journeying cross-country with his father, a traveling shoe salesman, before his family eventually settled down in Eugene.
But it was something like fate when Reames achieved his degree from the UO at the same time that Nike was going through major structural changes, with plans to expand internationally. In 1992, they needed an events and marketing coordinator. Reames fit the bill.
“The start of the 90s was a consolidation,” said Reames in Third Thursday Connections alumni event. “That was great, and it solved a lot of problems, but at the same time we were expanding globally, so it was causing a lot of silos and you didn’t have as much of a line of sight. It’s a nice problem to have when you’re so big and so successful that you’ve got boxes all over the world, but it was also a growing pain.”
At the time, it was also a growing pain for Reames. He almost quit twice in his first year of working at Nike, initially because of difficulty adjusting to Nike’s unique company culture, and later because of its “crazy work pace.”
“Six months of work can go down the drain in an instant,” Reames says. “That’s how Nike works. You come in with the best intentions and then someone comes in with a better idea at the last second and we say, ‘Sure, let’s give it a try’.”
Nike’s nontraditional corporate structure threw Reames off, but it later worked to his benefit when he was pitching big project ideas to the top officials in the company and became the person they said, “Sure, let’s give it a try” to.
During his 29-year career at Nike, Reames helped expand the company in ways that were unprecedented. He founded A.I.M (Appearance/Information Management), a team which helped manage all aspects related to securing a Nike athlete appearance at a sales meeting, ad shoot, or press event, and later on helped Phil Knight’s, BBA ’59 (accounting), 2016 memoir, Shoe Dog, become a New York Times bestseller.
How? In 2005, Reames pitched a proposal coined DNA (Department of Nike Archives) directly to Knight, with the hopes that bringing new and existing content together would help elevate the brand’s storytelling. Reames had always had a love for public relations, and he knew that people were interested in Nike’s history.
He walked out of that pitch as its first corporate historian. But then came the hard part—sifting through years of untouched material in the archives and approaching employees new and old to flesh out Nike’s story.
“From the very beginning, I have been adamant that DNA must capture the full story, including the mistakes and controversies. Fortunately, Phil Knight told me very early on that he was absolutely fine with my talking with any former employee, whether they left on good terms or not, and that everyone’s story matters. I took that to heart and for the 16 plus years I was in that role, not one person refused my request to be interviewed,” said Reames. “It was extraordinary to hear their very personal, and often emotional, accounts of their highlights and frustrations during their careers. And it was a privilege to be trusted to capture and preserve these stories and share them with the current generation of Nike employees.”
His access to early correspondence and memos helped provide the foundations for Shoe Dog and, in the acknowledgments section at the end of the book, Knight thanks Reames for “deftly sifting facts from myths”. Myths like the one about the “swoosh”, which as it turns out, was only debunked in 2010 because Reames initiated a two-hour recording session with founders Phil Knight, Jeff Johnson, Bob Woodell, and Carolyn Davidson, who finally settled the matter.
Though Reames retired on October 1, 2021, he left behind a legacy of storytellers that have made the brand what it is today, and he also is a story in his own right. A Nike veteran through and through, he embodies the ad campaign from the 70s, the one that states, “there is no finish line”, only the road to beating your next personal best.
Now, as Nike approaches its 50th birthday in May, Reames says the challenge for Nike is to keep telling amazing, inclusive, and empowering stories that inspire consumers to “write the future, ” to “dream crazy, ” or to . . . yes, “just do it.”
- By Sage Kiernan-Sherrow, MA ’21 (journalism)