Phil Knight - Early Years

Early Years

Phil Knight is the son of "a lawyer turned newspaper publisher", William W. Knight, and his wife Lota (Hatfield) Knight. Growing up in the Portland neighborhood of Eastmoreland, he attended Cleveland High School in Portland. According to one source, "When his father refused to give him a summer job at his newspaper, believing that his son should find work on his own, Buck went to the rival Oregonian, where he worked the night shift tabulating sports scores and every morning ran home the full seven miles."

Knight continued his education at the University of Oregon in Eugene, where he was a member of Phi Gamma Delta ("FIJI") fraternity, was a sports reporter for the Oregon Daily Emerald, and earned a business administration degree in 1959. As a middle-distance runner at the school, his personal best was 4:10 mile, winning varsity letters for track in 1957, 1958, and 1959.

In 1977, together with Bill Bowerman and Geoff Hollister, they founded an American running team called Athletics West.