Driven from Within Read online

  In ninth grade it was like trouble was nailed to me. The first suspension was because I didn’t read the student handbook. Nobody gets to school the first day and reads the entire handbook. So I didn’t know you couldn’t go off campus. The guy said, “Now you have enough time to read it—three days.” That just fueled it all. From that day on I just didn’t like the school. I felt like they really didn’t give me a chance. If you suspend me the first day, you really don’t want me around. Now this was right at the time Roots was on television, and my parents made all of us kids watch it. I was rebellious.

  I was suspended again, this time for cursing out a teacher. The last suspension, my mother locked me in the car with the window down about an inch. That’s child abuse today. She parked right in front of the bank’s teller window where she worked so she could watch me. I couldn’t get out. Most dogs would die. She dared me to open up that door. By the end of the year, I was just trying to stay out of trouble.

  I HAD SEEN THE LIGHT.

  All that rebellion was out of my system. That spring I was playing baseball. The coach was really trying to be helpful, so he got me out of class early so I could help him line the field for that day’s game. Now I’m minding my own business, putting down this perfect line from the right-field fence to home plate. I see these guys out there smoking cigarettes, skipping class, and they start messing up my line.

  I’m just thinking, “Oh, please don’t do that.” I go out there and tell him to stop messing with the line. The guy gets ready to kick his foot at the chalk, and before that foot hit the ground I was on him. And here comes the principal. He had to be watching me because by the time I threw the first punch, the principal had come running. The other guy started it. I finished it, and the next thing you know I’m suspended again. I couldn’t wait for that school year to be over. I had a great sports year, but in everything else, I struggled.

  Years later, I would go back and visit my old high school, and the principal—the same guy who gave me those suspensions—tells all these kids, “You should be like Mr. Jordan. When he was here, Mr. Jordan never got in trouble.”

  I didn’t have another year like ninth grade until my second NBA season, when I broke my left foot and missed 64 games. The day I found out it was actually broken, I went home and cried. It was like a part of my life had been taken away, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  GEORGE KOEHLER Michael gets the cast off and he has no flexibility or mobility, and he says, “I have to go test this out.” It was all atrophied. So we drive to the gym.

  Michael says, “Come on, let’s go play one-on-one.”

  I said, “Michael, you just got the cast off an hour and a half ago. You’re not supposed to even be on the foot.”

  Now he’s literally limping. He’s got one leg. He was so hungry to get back on the court. That eight weeks or ten weeks he was in the cast, Michael was like a caged lion. He would pace in the house. It was just tough to be around him because he wanted to get back, and nobody would let him. It was like a thoroughbred going to the finish line, and they were just yanking on the reins, trying to hold him back. So we start playing one-on-one. Now I played high school basketball, but I was terrible, I didn’t even start. But all white guys can shoot, and I wasn’t a bad shooter. It was, “Make it, Take it,” and we were playing to 10. I think I’m winning 4-1.

  I said to him, “You can’t be doing this stuff.”

  All I could think about was, “What if he hurts himself?” I make a shot and go up 5-1. So he tosses me the ball.

  He goes, “No more.”

  I said, “What?”

  He says, “No more points.”

  I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me, Michael.”

  So I go around him and go up to take a jumper. From nowhere, he comes up from behind and grabs it out of the air. Now I’m trying to anticipate which way he’s going to go because I know he has one leg. My guess was not even close to what he did. I lost 10-5. I didn’t score another point. Not even close. He was so quick, even on one leg. I got beat by a one-legged man. Even though he was Michael Jordan, he still had one leg. He probably could have put a roller skate on one foot, and it still wouldn’t have mattered. When he said, “No more,” it meant “No more.”

  MOM

  THAT YEAR WAS ABOUT LEARNING DISCIPLINE AND PATIENCE.

  HE KNEW WHAT HIS HEART WANTED TO DO, BUT HIS BODY WAS TELLING HIM SOMETHING ELSE. HE HAD TO LEARN TO WAIT ON THE BODY. OH, IT WAS HARD.

  TINKER HATFIELD The first two Jordan shoes really weren’t designed very collaboratively, at least compared with how Michael and I would work together later. The first one wasn’t even designed for Michael. It was a shoe in the basketball line that had been re-colored with the “wings” logo stuck on it. The second one was an industrial design project. It was by Bruce Kilgore and Peter Moore, and built in Italy, so Michael had little interaction with that one, as well.

  By the time the Jordan III came along, Peter Moore, the lead designer on the initial Air Jordan products, and Rob Strasser, who brought Michael into Nike, had left the company, hoping to lure Michael away with them. I’m sure they had it in the back of their minds that if things didn’t go well with the design process of the Jordan III, it would be easier to get Michael.

  The fact that Michael was coming off the broken foot his second season didn’t help matters. My office was right next door to Peter’s. He was a bit of a reluctant mentor to me. But he was a brilliant guy, really bright. Peter had this interesting stack of sketches, and you could just see that he had spun his wheels on the third shoe. He actually waited until it was too late to execute the Jordan III. I can remember this as clear as yesterday. Peter calls me into his office. He says,

  “YOU DO IT. DESIGN MICHAEL JORDAN’S NEXT BASKETBALL SHOE.” A WEEK LATER, PETER WAS GONE.

  I was thrown into the middle of this highly charged political environment. Phil Knight was upset. Peter and Rob were making a play for Michael to leave Nike. Michael didn’t know me at all. But after meeting with Michael twice, it became very obvious to me that he was design savvy. I had figured out he was into suits, and he was buying really nice Italian leather shoes. So I had a sense of his style.

  I WANTED HIM TO THINK LIKE HE WAS A DESIGNER ON THE PROJECT, AN EQUAL PART OF THE TEAM.

  He was able to talk on a very high level about inspiration, performance and his own personal interests. He was able to speak very clearly to all the things a designer would want to understand. I remember listening to him and saying to myself, “This is going to be great.”

  The two previous shoes basically had been hi-tops. Michael asked about doing something in between a hi-top and a low-top. He knew it would be great because the shoe would be light and still have a little more stability than a low-top. That was a performance thought, and you don’t normally get that from an athlete. They don’t always make great coaches, and they certainly don’t make great product designers.

  OBVIOUSLY MICHAEL DEMONSTRATED A LITTLE MORE CAPACITY.

  One of the things Peter left behind in his stack of sketches was the Jumpman. Someone outside Nike had taken a photograph of Michael doing his spread-eagle dunk. Peter had a poster made of that shot with Michael in Air Jordan apparel. He traced the shot, modified it a little bit and created the Jumpman logo. But it had never been used on product.

  WITHOUT DISCUSSING IT WITH MICHAEL, I INCORPORATED THE JUMPMAN INTO THE SHOE DESIGN.

  We found some fake elephant skin that looked sort of like it was embossed. The “New Buck” material is almost like a suede. It is embossed and buffed so that the leather looks like elephant skin. I put that onto the shoe, along with some really beautiful material that we call floater, which is a leather that has been tumbled for a long period of time. When they tan leather, it is processed so much that the original wrinkles of the animal are eliminated, which is why leather is smooth. But that’s not really the way the original animal skin looks. So when it’s tumbled, the leather gets its wrinkles back. Tho
se wrinkles can be enhanced, but the leather becomes a little bit softer and weaker in the process. That’s why it had never been used in athletic shoes.

  So I used the leather, the elephant skin, applied the Jumpman, made up a sample of the actual shoe, and then sketched up some apparel using some of the same elements. Ron Dumas, another designer, took the sketched ideas, refined them and made it all work. We developed the whole line in a matter of weeks. No one slept for days.

  FRED WHITFIELD Rob and Peter were going to create an entire company for Michael. They already had an apparel company they called Van Grack. And they even had a shoe designed. They made a hell of a presentation. I’ll never forget it. We were all there—MJ, his mom and dad—at Michael’s townhouse. I know Michael had a lot of respect for Strasser and how smart he was. Same for Peter Moore, who was a design genius. It would have been a lot of risk for Michael, but they laid it out there.

  At the time, we were looking at the upside. It could be our own little company. We could generate more income, have complete control, and still be on the cutting edge creatively. Rob had been in a power struggle internally at Nike. He was the guy from the beginning who was innovative enough to do the original Air Jordan shoe. Once that became successful, Strasser was the one who kept pushing to grow the line. So when my contract was coming up, he came to us and said,

  “LET’S GO OUT ON THE EDGE. LET’S DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT. LET’S START OUR OWN SHOE COMPANY.”

  Peter was our lead designer, and I had worked very closely with him. And Rob was a very good friend of the family.

  DAVID FALK Michael called me after the meeting in Chicago. Over a period of time, Rob had laid out this whole plan for Michael to leave Nike. He was going to represent Michael, not just with the shoes, but everything. In addition to the shoes, the new company was going to handle all of Michael’s marketing. I would say, in theory, it wouldn’t have been a bad idea if something like that had happened right out of North Carolina.

  But Michael was at Nike, and it was becoming the most successful endorsement in the history of professional sports. To say that I was in shock would be the understatement of the century. First, I thought Strasser was a really close friend, and to think he would have done all this behind my back amazed me. Second, it’s the kind of thing that seems really sexy and exciting to a client because they’re not seeing the downside.

  I had a meeting with Michael’s parents, who were very, very competitive. I said,

  “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. THIS IS GOING TO BE LIKE WORLD WAR III FOR PHIL KNIGHT.

  And Phil is a very competitive guy. This is his number one talent leaving, and he’s not going to say, ‘No problem, you have my blessing. Take my number one endorser. Good luck.’”

  I HAD JUST COME OFF A VERY DIFFICULT YEAR.

  I HAD TO FIGHT THE BULLS JUST TO GET BACK ON THE FLOOR AFTER I BROKE MY FOOT.

  YOU COULD SAY I WAS GETTING MY BUSINESS EDUCATION. I HAVE NEVER BEEN AFRAID TO ASSERT MYSELF ON OR OFF THE COURT.

  AND I WASN’T AFRAID OF CHANGE.

  I SAW HOW THINGS COULD TURN. SO I WENT INTO THOSE CONVERSATIONS WITH ROB AND PETER WITH AN OPEN MIND.

  TINKER HATFIELD Michael was playing golf in California, so we all gathered there for the Jordan III presentation. Phil Knight is there. And he’s scared to death because he knows Michael is thinking about leaving Nike. Both of Michael’s parents are there. This is the biggest presentation of my life. My boss is sitting next to me, and I’m sure he’s either worried about Michael leaving, or worried Michael won’t like the design.

  A half hour goes by. An hour goes by. We’re all sitting in a conference room with no windows. Another hour goes by, and you could see Michael’s father starting to get a little steamed. Delores is cool. Phil is very cool. Finally, four hours after the scheduled start of the meeting, Michael walks into the room with Howard.

  MICHAEL’S IN A VERY BAD MOOD. YOU COULD TELL HE DIDN’T WANT TO BE THERE.

  Turns out he had been with Rob and Peter on the golf course for those four hours. They had come pretty close to sealing a deal with Michael. They told him there wasn’t anyone at Nike who could do the kind of work they had done, that no one would know how to advertise or market him. Michael came into the meeting begrudgingly. He says, “All right, show me what you’ve got.”

  So I took him through our two previous meetings. “Remember when we talked about this? Remember when we talked about that? You told me how you wanted to play around with the height of the shoe.” I let him know I took all that to heart. Phil Knight is sitting there listening, because he didn’t know you needed to work with athletes collaboratively on all aspects of the design.

  In those days I wouldn’t show anything until I had set it up verbally. I had to prove to everyone in that room that I knew what I was doing. So I showed some drawings. “This is what I came up with as a result of our collaboration. Here is what I think the shoe could look like.” All of the sudden, Michael started to warm up. He’s making the connection between what we had talked about and a two-dimensional representation of our conversations. You could see him losing his edge and coming more into the meeting.

  I told him we called in a few favors and that I actually had a sample of the shoe. He says, “You have a shoe already?” It was underneath a black cover. When I pulled off the cover, Michael just lost it—his bad attitude disappeared. He got a big smile on his face. He grabbed the shoe.

  AT THAT POINT, HE REALIZED THE SHOE WAS HIM. IT WAS PART OF WHO HE WAS AT THAT MOMENT.

  The Jumpman, which until that point Michael had only seen in poster form, was now a logo on his shoe. I didn’t put a swoosh on the side of the shoe, only on the back because I wanted him to know this was going beyond whatever Nike had done to that point. Then I brought out the apparel. Until that moment, Phil hadn’t seen anything, either. I wanted the drama, though there was enough of that already. I wanted the impact. At that point in the meeting, Michael is talking a mile a minute about colors. He had completely changed.

  THE JORDAN III WAS DIFFERENT FROM ANYTHING THAT HAD COME BEFORE, AND MY LIFE MIRRORED THAT FACT.

  THE DECISION TO STAY AT NIKE ENDED ONE PERIOD AND ANOTHER. WITHIN 18 MONTHS, I HAD A SON, A WIFE, AND I WAS TAKING MY GAME TO ANOTHER LEVEL.

  HOWARD “H” WHITE We all know how competitive Michael Jordan is. Nike is an extraordinarily competitive place. Phil is a pretty competitive guy. Nike wanted to take over the world. Michael wanted take over the world of basketball. So that drive was mirrored from one to the other.

  Michael is by the numbers. You tell him, “Michael, you could do it this way and get there quicker.” But Michael has never believed in shortcuts. He’s not interested in getting there quicker if it’s not the right path. He’s going from point 1 to point 10 in order. He only knows one way to do anything, whether it’s practice, a game of basketball, ping pong, dressing—he brings everything he has to the table every single time he sits down. And that’s what he did at Nike. Nike was a place doing things exactly the same way as Michael.

  WHEN YOU SEE MICHAEL JORDAN, YOU SEE A MAN WHO IS NOW CALLED THE BEST EVER.

  BUT YOU ONLY SEE THE EXTERIOR. YOU SEE THE FORCE, THE BALD HEAD, THE LONG, LANKY BODY. BUT WHAT DROVE THAT MACHINE IS FAR BIGGER THAN WHAT IT PRODUCED ON THE OUTSIDE. THE DIFFERENCE IS THAT IT RESIDES INSIDE HIM. IT IS RELENTLESS.

  So there was something for Michael to plug into at Nike. You could have the greatest game in the world, but if you had to plug into a place with no electricity, what do you have? When he came on board at Nike, there was something to plug into that helped light everything that has happened for both of them. They are parallel stories.

  The shoes that you saw really represented who Michael was at that time. They were a reflection of his life as it was being lived. Nike wasn’t trying to fool anybody. It really was Tinker Hatfield’s interpretation of this individual. It was beautiful. Tinker and Michael became a family. They talked to one another; they would go out with one another. They believed in somethin
g, which was the spirit of this place, Nike.

  TINKER HATFIELD In one of our more recent meetings, I asked Michael whether it was the design of the shoe that got him to stay at Nike. I just wanted to know what really turned the tables toward Nike. He said, “Well, it was great to see that shoe, but it was my dad. My dad said, ‘Son, these guys can do right by you.’” He listened to his dad, and he listened to his own heart in terms of how the process had culminated in the design of a shoe that was like no other. That turned him on. To this day, Phil Knight thinks I helped save Nike that day. I don’t know if it was true or not, but that’s his perception.

  Rob and Peter were talking about a startup, so there was no guarantee. My father was very street-smart, and he based his opinion on balancing a guarantee versus a non-guarantee. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to take the money in front of you, instead of the money that might be down the road. I could have broken my foot again. It could have become a chronic problem, like Bill Walton’s. I didn’t have that sense, but no one knew for sure.

  Nike put a big deal on the table that expanded our line, gave me more creative control and approval rights. Within Nike, it appeared we were expanding the line, when in essence we were starting another company beneath the Nike umbrella. Rob and Peter understood my feeling about the guarantee. They told us to use what they were trying to do to get what we wanted from Nike. And that’s what we did.

  MOM I truly believe in commitment and integrity and honesty. We started with Nike. Maybe Phil wasn’t there a lot in the beginning, but Michael was part of his company. Rob and Peter got their start at Nike. Phil had trusted them to be strong leaders. Now you see you can own a little more for yourself—Mr. Jordan and I didn’t think that was fair.