But is it really the 40th birthday of Nike Cortez? To find out, we have to go back in Nike history to the late 60’s. Most of you might know that before Nike, Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight worked with Onitsuka Tiger, today also known as Asics. Bill Bowerman was a running coach at the University of Oregon with a lot of ideas. Phil Knight was a middle distance runner who studied journalism at the University of Oregon. And that is where the two founder of Nike met.

After graduating Phil Knight joined the Army where he was active for one year before starting to study economics at Stanford. This is where the Nike saga begins. Inspired by Bill Bowermans quest to improve the shoes for the athletes he coached – Phil wrote an essay entitled ””Can Japanese Sports Shoes Do to German Sports Shoes What Japanese Cameras Did to German Cameras?” and that pretty much says it all. Adidas was pretty dominant at that time, and Puma was the runner up. Even in the US. So, in 1962 he went to Japan where he saw the Tiger shoes. As everything made in Japan, these shoes were of top quality. And they did not cost a fortune either. In a very American way, he called the owner, Mr.. Onitsuka who agreed to meet with Phil. Phil told some made up story that he was an importer/exporter from US, and wanted to distribute the Tiger shoes there.

Somehow he convinced Mr. Onitsuka to give him exclusive rights to the west of USA. When asked what his company was called, Phil was caught a bit of guard. He didn’t have a company yet, but had to make something up. Allegedly Phil said Blue Ribbon Sports, since his favorite beer was Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. True or not, I like that part of the story so I am sticking to it.

Phil ordered samples, and went home. It took over a year to receive the first samples. I don’t know about you, but I would have given up after a few months. When Phil got the samples he mailed some of them to his old track and field coach Bill Bowerman who called back, not only with feedback – but he wanted to join Phil. Bill already had a bunch of ideas on how to improve sportshoes… And so it begun. Blue Ribbon Sports started to import shoes, and also to help Tiger with developing.

1968 Tiger launched the Bill Bowerman designed Corsair. It featured a full length foam cushioning, and a light weight leather upper. The outsole had a herringbone pattern. It was, compared to what could be found from the German giant adidas, a footwear revolution.

In the early days of the 70s BRS and Tiger Company parted ways. As Bill Bowerman was the designer of the Corsair, they agreed on slitting the rights to that shoe but not the name. So when Nike released it in 1972 they named it Nike Cortez. Today, Nike Cortez is a classic and has sold way more pairs than its origin Onitsuka Tiger Corsair which is still in production. And since the shoe was renamed, and also had the famous Swoosh added in 1972, I would say it is wrong to celebrate its 40th birthday this year.

Happy Birthday Nike Cortez

And by the way. If you haven’t checked out Gary‘s work on the complete guide to Seinfeld’s sneakers, you need to do that right now.