After
we'd had breakfast it was down to business
- and several Nike employees delivered presentations
giving an overview of the multi-billion dollar
company.
Kris
Eamon gave us the lowdown on the Who, What,
Why, Where, and When of Nike Basketball.
He explained how every staff member within
the Nike Basketball department is someone
who lives, eats, breathes and sleeps basketball
– being either former players, recruiters,
coaches etc.
Nike
then expressed their views about basketball
on a global level and told us that they are
now building large campaigns supporting European
talent. Great news...but I never thought that
an American would say that "Nike believe
that the next Michael Jordan will not come
from the United States – either Europe
or Asia."
They're wrong of course.....there will NEVER
be another MJ!
Tracy
T was the next to introduce himself. A "regular-looking"
kind of guy and humbly dressed, who would
have believed that this modest man was the
first designer of the Jordan signature shoe!
And he has recently designed all of Vince
Carter's range. I couldn’t believe it!
He told me that if Kevin Garnett hadn't have
disliked the Shox so much, they would've been
his. Imagine that.
Ken
Link – the designer of Lebron's and
Kobe's signature shoes - was amazing. He went
into a great deal of scientific detail about
the motivation behind each shoe. For example,
Lebron likes Batman, so Ken used black. Lebron
likes 50 Cent, so he made the shoe resemble
a bulletproof vest (50's must have fashion
accessory). It was mind-blowing to hear the
stories behind each shoe.
Check
this Kobe Bryant trainer.
Ken
was inspired by the Kill Bill movies - hence
the colourway and the "slashed"
font.
Oh
yeah, it's also handy that Kill Bill and Kobe
Bryant have the same first letters!
After
lunch I was given a tour of the Nike Campus.
I was expecting Umpa Loompas to jump out and
start singing and dancing. I was in Willy
Wonka's factory of sportswear!
Buildings
are named after Nike's successful athletes
– Tiger Woods, Mia Hamm, Lance Armstrong,
many more – and of course, The Michael
Jordan Building!
I
got the chance to roam around the research
labs where all the wear-testing is done.
This
was some top-secret stuff! No joke!
The
labs had engineers and biomechanics all testing
out Nike's products. Shoes hooked up to machines
pounding them to death to test their durability.
All sorts of crazy gadgets...like something
straight out of a James Bond movie.
And
to finish the day, I had a date – a
date with the Nike court within the walls
of The Michael Jordan Building.
