NIKE CROSS TRAINERS

“The forefoot strap did work. It became legitimized when McEnroe played the circuit in it. He said “this is the best tennis shoe I’ve ever played in.” Mats Wilander also played in it when he was #1. The concept of cross training or doing multiple activities really hit home when we took Bo Jackson (who played both major league baseball & grid iron) and did those commercials. The strap actually did work, it helped those guys in their lateral movement. You were still able to go out and run in it and I know cause I was the guinea pig that was strapping on the product”

SANDY BODECKER > NIKE

“I was thrown literally into the position to get this aerobic thing going. To this day I hate Reebok with a passion. I worked with Tinker, Sandy, Mark Parker, I mean you go right to the top of the company. It was ground breaking, it was fun, people weren’t afraid to take risks and that’s what’s kept me round Nike this long. It’s the most memorable project I ever worked on.... With McEnroe, someone was carrying the shoe back from a developer and it was never intended to be shown to him. “What’s this?” he says “I’m gonna wear this” and we were like “wait a minute, you’re not supposed to, here’s a whole bunch of other stuff”. This was 87 maybe, he liked the higher cut, anyway he wore it and people just went WHOA! It caused some nerve ends to pop in the market that’s for sure”.

JOHN BARBOUR > NIKE