Bill Bowerman Biography

Bill Bowerman

Oregon track coach from 1949-72 who co-founded Nike with his former student Phil Knight; coached 24 NCAA individual champions at Oregon and won four team championships; his most famous student was distance runner Steve Prefontaine; U.S. track coach at the 1972 Olympic Games; his experiments with leather, latex, glue and a waffle iron in the 1960s resulted in the modern running shoe used around the world today. Died of natural causes.