In the summer of 1979, Central Linn High School track coach Tinker Hatfield called the sports desk and told me he was going to be the 1980 Olympic coach for Taiwan. This was news of great significance in Corvallis, Oregon.
“We’re having a going-away party,” he said. “If you want to take any pictures or do an interview, come to my house on Sunday.”
I drove 15 miles from Corvallis to Shedd, where Hatfield and his two sons, Tinker Jr. and Tobie, posed for photographs and talked about the future.
The Hatfields had built a formidable track and field program in the rural outpost of Shedd/Halsey, about halfway between Oregon State and the University of Oregon. Tinker’s boys were both state pole vault champions and Ducks of the first order; Tobie was leaving the UO to accompany his father to Taiwan.
Tinker Jr. was a young architect who told me he had his eye on a promising startup company, Nike, co-founded by another ex-Duck, Phil Knight.
People are also reading…
Both talked about a pair of track spikes that Knight’s long-time collaborator, Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman, had made for Tobie. As I recall, Bowerman personally X-rayed Tobie’s feet so that he could drill the spike holes in structurally perfect spots.
That was the first time I knew anything about Nike beyond the swoosh. The ambitious young shoe company was still a year away from making a public stock offering, but I remember the Hatfield boys warning that “it could be big.”
What did I know? I wore Pumas.
Tinker is now in his 34th year at Nike. He is executive vice president of design. His brother, Tobie, is Nike’s director of innovation.
That’s what came to mind last week when UA athletic director Greg Byrne announced the Wildcats had reached a 10-year contract extension with Nike, worth about $38 million in cash, equipment and apparel.
Arizona has officially been a “Nike school” since 1995, worth about $50 million.
Byrne did not attempt to leverage Nike, or pursue a deal with Adidas or Under Armour, as former Nike schools ASU, Utah and UCLA did.
“Most of the kids identify with and like Nike products,” UA football coach Rich Rodriguez said Saturday. “It’s good to be a Nike school.”
The sports apparel business in college football and basketball has grown beyond the Hatfield boys’ long-ago imaginations. When the UA initially joined Nike 20 years ago, softball coach Mike Candrea was permitted to keep an ongoing deal with Reebok. Women’s basketball coach Joan Bonvicini had a similar, independent deal with Asics.
By 1998, when the UA fully joined Nike, school President Peter Likins flew to Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, to investigate charges that Nike operated foreign “sweatshops” and that it was in violation of human rights.
Once Likins completed his research, the UA agreed to be a full-on Nike partner for $1.4 million per year. Now it is almost triple that amount.
Now the swoosh dominates the UA sports landscape.
All-American linebacker Scooby Wright recently posted a Twitter photograph that displayed at least 14 articles of Nike gear in the background: shoes, shirts, jerseys, you name it. UA athletes have so much Nike gear that players no longer require a back-to-school wardrobe (and the money to buy it).
They can wear various Nike outfits 365 days a year.
In the ’90s, when RichRod was the football coach at Glenville (W.Va.) State, he often took leftovers and used gear from the nearby West Virginia Mountaineers.
“A lot of the times the colors didn’t match exactly,” he remembers. “We might use a Magic Marker or paint to cover it up.”
After Monday’s football practice, junior cornerback DaVonte’ Neal wore color-coordinated gear that, from head to toe, included 11 swooshes, in my quick count.
“I love Nike, I must say; Nike is the flashiest of the flashy,” said Neal. “I’ve got a whole wardrobe of Nike: gloves, wristbands, socks, shoes, shirts. I’ve got everything.
“I love Nike.”
Neal arrived at Arizona two years ago from Notre Dame, where he was part of the Fighting Irish’s then-contract with Adidas.
“Adidas was nice,” he said. “They even make a real good cleat now, the Adizero. But it’s absolutely not Nike.”
The UA now employs seven full-time people in its athletic equipment department, and many more part-timers. When the Hatfield boys were considering careers with Nike, 30 years ago, Arizona had two full-time equipment people, Ed Thomas and Phil Gaines.
The school’s brand of choice was Champion.
Now, with so much Nike gear for so many sports, mixing and matching colors of everything from jerseys to helmets and footwear, a Pac-12 athletic department has more sports apparel than a sporting goods store.
And the UA doesn’t have to spend a dime for any of it.
