Nike Advertisements
This page is dedicated to those elusive Nike advertisements. As far as I know, this is one of the few sites on the Internet containing the text of actual ads. I don’t have many, so if you have any email them to me (katiekleinman@hotmail.com) and I will post them for humanity/posterity/browsing. Thank you for visiting.
94-year-old swimmers.
89-year-old weightlifters.
99-year-old marathoners.
The back of SI is full of them.
People who forgot to retire.
And never got old.
People who realized:
It’s easier to keep going
If you never stop.
JUST DO IT.
Get up. Get out.
Build up the muscle.
Get rid of the flab.
Go back to school.
Sell the TV.
JUST DO IT.
Master the curveball.
Pound the bag.
Rebuild an engine.
Jump-start a career.
JUST DO IT.
Bench press four big plates.
Dig for fossils.
Bicycle across Canada.
Save an endangered species – yourself.
JUST DO IT.
The only one who can tell you you can’t, is you.
And you don’t have to listen.
Nolan Ryan, 7 no-hitter, 5,453 career strikeouts, 44 years of age.
Barry Sanders-running back, Detroit
Too often we are scared.
Scared of what we might not be able to do.
Scared of what people might think if we tried.
We let our fears stand in the way of our hopes.
We say no when we want to say yes.
We sit quietly when we want to scream.
And we shout with the others,
when we should keep our mouths shut.
Why?
After all,
we do only go around once.
There’s really no time to be afraid.
So stop.
Try something you’ve never tried.
Risk it.
Enter a triathlon.
Write a letter to the editor.
Demand a raise.
Call winners at the toughest court.
Throw away your television.
Bicycle across the United States.
Try bobsledding.
Try anything.
Speak out against the designated hitter.
Travel to a country where you don’t speak the language.
Patent something.
Call her.
You have nothing to lose
and everything
everything
everything to gain.
JUST DO IT.
Provided by Julianna Ludwig on September 10, 2003
Beatrice Brophy, 72, and Barbara Anderson, 74
canoeists and guides in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota
YOU ARE OLDER, IT SEEMS, THAN SOME PEOPLE,
AND SO THEY CALL YOU OLD.
OLD, OLD, OLD. YOU HAVE WRINKLES YOU DO NOT COVER
AND YOUR HAIR IS GRAY AND YOU HAVE LIVED
FOR SOMETHING LIKE SEVENTY-FOUR YEARS ON THIS EARTH.
WITHOUT MUCH COMPLAINT.
there is nothing much to complain about.
BUT SOME PEOPLE LOOK AT YOU AND THINK YOU SHOULD
STOP NOW, REST NOW, GROW OLD NOW, GRACEFULLY.
BUT YOU LIVE GRACEFULLY ENOUGH YOU DON’T HAVE TIME
TO GROW OLD.
YOU HAVE A CANOE.
AND THAT CANOE HAS A RIVER.
AND THAT RIVER DOES NOT END.
and you watch the river flow and watch it flow
AND WATCH THE LEAVES CHANGE COLOR
AND WATCH YOUR HANDS TURN EIGHTY YEARS OLD
IN THE MIDDLE OF A RIVER BEND.
YOU HIKE THIRTEEN MILES AT THE END OF THE DAY
AND THIS IS HOW YOU REST, THAT IS HOW YOU REST.
SO LET THE YOUNG ONES SLEEP. LET THE WHOLE WORLD SLEEP.
YOU WILL SLEEP WHEN YOU HAVE TO.
YOU ARE CROSSING THE WATER, CROSSING THE WATER,
AND THERE IS SO MUCH WATER LEFT TO BE CROSSED.
Carlton Fisk, catcher, 21 years in the major league
I don’t want fifteen minutes of fame.
I want a life.
I don’t want to be a flash in the pan.
I want a career.
I don’t want to grab all I can.
I want to selectively choose the best.
I don’t want to sell a company.
I want to build one.
I don’t want to date a model.
OK, so I do want to date a model.
Sue me.
But the rest of my goals are long term.
The result of day to day determination.
I stay steady.
I redefine the word consistency.
Along the way there will surely be
moments of brilliance.
I am, after all, me.
But the moments will add up to something greater.
A record of excellence.
A plaque in a hall.
My name on a sandwich.
A family that’s a team.
I’ll never look back with regret.
I will always believe in the ideal.
I hope to be remembered, not recalled.
And I hope to make a difference.
JUST DO IT.
Provided by Julianna Ludwig on September 10, 2003
Chinyere Vann
15, and the only girl on New York’s Red Star basketball team
YOU HAD A BROTHER AND YOU WATCHED HIM PLAY BALL.
AND YOU MARVELED AT HIS HANDS.
AND YOU LOVED TO WATCH HIM RUN.
AND YOUR MOUTH OPENED WIDE & FAR
JUST TO WATCH HIM PLAY A GAME HE HAD LEARNED TO LOVE.
and the sound of the cheering had your head thinking:
I COULD DO THAT
I COULD DO THAT
I COULD DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT.
AND SO, ONE DAY, YOU DID.
AND NOW YOU MARVEL AT YOUR HANDS.
AND YOU LOVE TO TURN AND RUN.
And you are 15 only 15 just 15 with a hero inside your head.
AND THE CHEERING SOUNDS LIKE A CHOIR.
AND THE CHOIR IS SINGING SOME NEW SONG.
AND THE SOUND OF THE SONG
HAS YOUR HANDS RISING AND SAYING:
I COULD LOVE THIS
I COULD LOVE THIS
I COULD BE IN LOVE WITH THIS.
AND YOU DO.
AND YOU CAN.
AND YOU ARE.
Did you ever wish you were a boy?
Did you? Did you for one moment or one breath or one heartbeat beating over all the years of life, wish, even a little, that you could spend it as a boy? Honest. Really. Even if you got over it.
Did you ever wish that you could be a boy just so you could do boy things and not hear them called boy things, did you want to climb trees and skin knees and be third base and not hear the boys say, Sure, play, but that means you have to be third base.
Oh ha ha ha.
But did you ever wish you were a boy just because there were boys, and there were girls and they were them, and we were, well, we weren’t them, and we knew there must be a difference because everybody kept telling us there was. But what was it?
You never knew. Like you knew that you were a girl (you run like a girl you throw like a girl you girl you) and that was great, that was swell, but you couldn’t help wondering what it would be like if you…had been…a boy.
And if you could have been a boy, what difference would it have made? Would it have made you faster, cuter, cleaner? And if you were a boy, this incredible bouncing boy, what boy would you have been? All the time knowing no two boys are alike any more than all girls are.
So you wake up. And you learn we all have differences (Yes!) You learn we all have similarities (Right!) You learn to stop lumping everybody in the world into two separate categories, or three, or four, or any at all (Finally!) And you learn to stop beating yourself over the head for things that weren’t wrong in the first place.
And one day when you’re out in the world running, feet flying dogs barking smiles grinning, you’ll hear those immortal words calling, calling inside your head Oh you run like a girl and you will say shout scream whisper call back Yes. What exactly did you think i was?
Provided by Chris Williams and http://www.angelfire.com/ok2/dinkieshenez16/ on November 21, 2002
Fortunately, the Air Dri-Goat
Fortunately, the Air Dri-Goat features a patented goat-
like outer sole for increased traction, so you can taunt
mortal injury without actually experiencing it.
Right about now you’re probably asking
yourself, “How can a trail running shoe
with an outer sole designed like a goat’s
hoof help me avoid compressing my spinal
cord into a Slinky® on the side of some
unsuspecting conifer, thereby rendering me
a drooling, misshapen non-extreme-trail-
running husk of my former self, forced to
roam the earth in a motorized wheelchair
with my name, embossed on one of those
cute little license plates you get at carnivals
or state fairs, fastened to the back?”
To that we answer, hey, have you ever seen a
mountain goat (even an extreme mountain goat) careen
out of control into the side of a tree?
Didn’t think so.
Provided by raggededgemagazine.com
Jackie Joyner-Kersee
32, Runner and Olympic Gold Medalist
THERE WERE TIMES WHEN YOU WERE GROWING UP IN EAST ST. LOUIS
WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU WOULD NEVER FIT IN.
AND YOU THOUGHT YOU WOULD ALWAYS STAND OUT.
AND YOU’D TALK TO YOUR MOTHER AND SAY TO YOUR MOTHER AND COMPLAIN
TO YOUR MOTHER
because that’s what mothers are there for
THAT YOU WISHED THAT YOUR LIFE COULD BE AS NORMAL
AS OTHER PEOPLE’S NORMAL LIVES SEEMED TO BE.
AND THEN ONE DAY YOUR MOTHER WASN’T THERE ANYMORE.
AND THERE WAS NOTHING NORMAL
ANYWHERE ANYMORE.
BUT SHE TAUGHT YOU THAT YOU HAD A BODY AND YOU KNEW IT COULD MOVE.
AND YOU HAD A BODY AND YOU KNEW IT WAS FAST.
AND NOW WHEN YOU RUN IT’S HER FACE YOU SEE.
AND WHEN YOU HEAR THE WIND IT’S HER WORDS YOU HEAR.
AND YOU FIND SHE IS IN YOUR LEGS IN YOUR ARMS IN YOUR FEET
IN YOUR BODY
JUST AS YOU WERE ONCE
IN
HERS.
AND YOU ARE GLAD THAT YOU GREW UP FAST.
YOU ARE GLAD THAT YOU GREW UP SO FAST.
Jerry Rice, wide receiver, Mississippi Valley State
Mother and father told you repeatedly.
Crazy people talk to themselves.
Still you heard the voice.
Loud and clear.
JUST DO IT.
Lear how to hit a fastball.
Work on your left hand shot.
Study harder. Study longer.
Get a raise.
Crazy people talk to themselves.
And still you heard the voice.
JUST DO IT.
Lose the gut.
Master a third language.
Swim across a lake.
Climb the Tetons.
Go to the library and learn how electricity works.
Crazy people talk to themselves.
And still you heard the voice.
JUST DO IT.
Bench press your weight.
Finish a marathon.
Develop a backhand.
Switch careers.
Crazy people talk to themselves.
And finally, you realize, only a madman doesn’t listen.
JUST DO IT.
Provided by Julianna Ludwig on September 10, 2003
Life isn’t about keeping score
Life isn’t about keeping score. It’s not about how many people call you and it’s not about who you’ve dated, are dating, or haven’t dated at all. It isn’t about who you’ve kissed, what sport you play, or which girl or guy likes you. It’s not about your shoes or your hair or the color of your skin or where you live or go to school. In fact, it’s not about grades, money, clothes, or colleges that accept you. Life isn’t about if you have lots of friends, or if you are alone, and it’s not about how accepted or unaccepted you are. Life just isn’t about that. But life is about who you love and who you hurt. It’s about how you feel about yourself. It’s about trust, happiness, and compassion. It’s about sticking up for your friends and replacing inner hate with love. Life is about avoiding jealousy, overcoming ignorance, and building confidence. It’s about what you say and what you mean. It’s about seeing people for who they are and not what they have. Most of all, it’s about choosing to use your life to touch someone else’s in a way that could never have been achieved otherwise. These choices are what life’s about.
Listen
Your heart is beating. This means you are
alive. Your body is moving. This means you cannot
be stopped. The world and all its labels are calling to
you. You’d love to answer. But you’re moving so fast
you can’t hear a thing.
Just do it.
The look in Pre’s eyes
Nobody else ever had it like that.
Sometimes when he ran he was trance dancing.
There were carpenters, mill workers, shopkeepers in the bleachers at Hayward Field. A competitor once said the cheering for Pre was so deafening, you almost wanted to stop running.
He ran the kind of race that made spectators yearn.
Pre died in 1975 in a car crash and it just about broke everyone’s heart.
What would he have done with distance when he was 25 or 30 years old? He placed forth in the 72 Olympic five thousand and would have been 25 at the next Olympics. How far could he have gone? He didn’t get a chance, we didn’t get a chance to know.
What does a great runner who died almost twenty years ago have to o with Nike running shoes?
Everything
Mike Powell, World Record Holder
When I was a kid,
I would run down the hallway of my house,
plant my lead foot just outside of the kitchen,
and jump through the dining room,
into the den,
over the green shag carpeting,
and I would land somewhere
in front of my Mom’s
red leather easy chair.
It was on these occasions,
as I danced around the room,
imagining that I had just broken
the world record,
that my Mom would usually point out
that I had scratched on my take off,
or that my jump was wind-aided.
My Mom was a real comedian.
But then one day, I’m 27 years old and I’m in Tokyo,
and the scoreboard tell me I’m in second place.
So I take off down the runway,
hit the board clean, and leave the ground.
And I think about reindeer,
and dunking from the free-throw line,
and gliders, and slingshots, and Sir Isaac Newton,
and air.
And then everything gets really quiet.
And as I stare at the horizon,
at the peak of my jump,
I think I see,
just for a second,
my Mom’s red leather easy chair
at the end of the pit.
JUST DO IT.
Provided by Julianna Ludwig on September 10, 2003
Now this is a shoe for roads
and for valleys and for the simple cry of
freedom and land ho
and one foot,
let’s not be coy,
in front of the other.
This is a walking shoe for walking for goodness sakes
and it’s awfully clean and it’s awfully white and, well,
“classic”
is a word you could just to describe it, and frankly
we really wish you would.
Provided by Julianna Ludwig on September 10, 2003
The prince knelt down…
The prince knelt down and slipped the glass slipper over Cinderella’s foot. And it fit just right. In fact, it fit almost as comfortably as the new Nike Air Huarache Plus. Which is built on a woman’s last and which has a foot-hugging neoprene upper. So a woman can stop waiting for her stupid prince to come and go for a nice long run instead.
Remember P.E. class?
Remember prison ball and jumping jacks and
how your P.E. teacher made you try to climb that rope that
hung from the ceiling and you never could, never?
Or how you had to do chin-ups and see how
long you could hang and you could only hang something
like 2.5 seconds but that wasn’t good enough,
oh no,
you had to hang something like 65 seconds
and you could never do that and thank God it was only
pass/no pass and you got a pass just for showing up and
trying. Which was good.
But when you got older.
And P.E. teachers got smarter. Because now
you got graded. You got graded and at least once you got
the dreaded C or the equally dreaded C+ and there went
your whole grade-point average and speaking of average
that’s what you were now: plain-old-just-mediocre-better-luck-
next-time-see-ya-later-average and you thought
Now wait just a gosh darn minute who,
exactly, is average? And the answer came back ringing loud
and clear over the top of that chin-up bar: Nobody.
You’re not average because average is a lie.
You’re not average because average means stuck and
you’re not stuck, you’re moving and becoming and trying
and you’re climbing over every bit of fear or opinion or “no
you can’t do that” you’ve ever heard.
So you scoff at average. You laugh. You
guffaw. And you run and you play and you move and the
more you tell your body that it is a well-oiled machine the
more it starts to believe you.
And then one night you have the craziest dream.
You’re in the middle of your old gym. Your P.E.
teacher is standing there. She is grinning. There is a rope
before you. So you climb it. And there is absolutely no
place to go but up.
Just do it.
Nike Slogans
Good news: It’s a leap year. You can run 366 days.
There is no finish line.
Mary had a little shoe it’s sole was full of air and anyone that Mary raced didn’t have a prayer.
Runs end. Running doesn’t.
Where your world becomes the next two strides.
Jack and Jill raced up a hill to see who was faster, Jack’s feet were bare, Jill had NIKE Air, poor Jack could never catch her.
Test your faith daily.
Mother’s, there’s a mad man running in the streets, And he’s humming a tune, And he’s snarling at dogs, And he still has four more miles to go.
There are two types of people: Those who run and those who should. Nike believes in both.
SWOOSH The sound made when you blow by somebody.
You either ran today or you didn’t.
It starts about the time I walk out my front door. I reach the woods, smell the river and I just feel myself come to life again. It’s like yeah, I’m back.
WHO SAYS YOU CAN’T RUN AWAY FROM YOUR PROBLEMS?
MASHINE WASH
COLD WATER
DO NOT BLEACH
TUMBLE DRY
ENDURE
MASHINE WASH
COLD WATER
DO NOT BLEACH
TUMBLE DRY
PUSH YOURSELF
MASHINE WASH
COLD WATER
DO NOT BLEACH
TUMBLE DRY
HAVE HEROES
STATISTICS
AND SIZES AND MEASURE-
MENTS DO NOT MAKE UP A WOMAN. THEY DO
NOT DESCRIBE HER FRUSTRATIONS OR HER VIC-
TORIES, HER EFFORTS OR HER INTENTS. BUT
THEY DO MAKE UP THE TOOLS SHE USES TO
COMPLETE HERSELF. WHICH IS WHY
NIKE DESIGNED THE AIR ELITE © ULTRA IN A SPEC-
IFIC WAY, IN A WAY TO
CUSHION YOUR FOOT
AS IT LANDS, TO PRO-
TECT YOUR FOOT FROM IMPACT, AND TO SUP-
PORT YOUR FOOT WITH EACH AEROBIC MOVE
YOU MAKE. BECAUSE STATISTICS MAY LIE WHEN
IT COMES TO WOMEN, BUT THEY AND
ARE VERY IMPORTANT WHEN
IT COMES TO SHOES.
Steve Prefontaine in the insatiable spirit of Nike running
We made our first pair of shoes for him. We’ll make our last pair of shoes for him. Pre would’ve liked the Nike Triax series for three tangible reasons. They’re light. They’re affordable (he ran about 100 miles a week and went through a lot of shoes). And they’re technically superlative.
They’re runners’ shoes
Tag
“Tag” is a complex game involving many complexities. Someone must first be “it.” Once that is decided this temporary pariah tried to tag someone else, using stealth, speed, resourcefulness, and predatory instincts to transfer his or her “it-ness” to the other person. You can only tag someone with your hands. So if someone who is “it” tags you (with his or her hand) then you become “it” and they are no longer “it.” They are free of “it” and can return to normalcy. You cannot immediately transfer your “it-ness” back to the person who was just “it,” because there are no ‘tag-backs’ in Tag. The only way to lose is if you’re one of the last two people in earth and are tagged by the other person. (Remember, no ‘tag-backs.’) However, it is conceivable to procreate with this person and tag the offspring.
We are Hedonists
We are basically hedonists.
That’s what makes us human.
And we were made to want pretty simple things:
Food.
Water.
Shelter.
Warmth.
And pleasure.
We want what feels good.
We need the thrill that comes from being good at something.
The thrill of doing what we weren’t sure
we could ever actually do.
Nobody wants the thrill more than a runner. The high, the scream,
the finish line that keeps going and going,
and going.
Because of course there isn’t one.
Now a runner runs because she has faith.
Faith the road will carry her.
Faith her knees will last one more mile. And one more mile.
And she knows that running isn’t food. And it isn’t shelter.
And it isn’t even, at the end of the day,
really all that warm.
But it is how she finds pleasure.
And on every road,
there it is again.
If it feels good then just do it.
Why are we so hard on ourselves
Why are we so hard on ourselves and so much easier on others? Did somebody say something once that stuck in our brains and won’t go away? Did we mispronounce something in French, did we trip in front of some guy, did we make some huge mistake that we’ve never gotten over?
What haunts our fine bodies and our fine hearts and makes our heads spin with an image of ourselves we can’t accept? We tell our friends not to be so hard on themselves and we tell our loved ones not to be so hard on themselves and we tell ourselves we’re just not being hard enough.
We are such funny women sometimes. We blame ourselves when blame does not apply (terrible word, that blame). We feel guilty about what we should have done better (terrible word, that should). We are harder on ourselves, harder than we would be on anybody else, anybody. Complete strangers! Big dogs! People we don’t even like!
And the things we expect are so darn weird, things our mothers once said we should be able to do or our fathers wanted us to achieve or our great Aunt Charlotte wanted us to try and they didn’t know that their words would stick like glue to our hearts with a list of expectations wrapped around it. Look: all these expectations get old, real old, and only you know when to yell uncle.
Uncle. Uncle. Uncle.
Because for one moment of your life you feel like feeling … perfect. You feel like dashing into those hills or those open roads or right into the air itself and that’s just what you might do
so Ha
You feel like that rusty old image you carry is slipping away, right over the edge of a mirror and out of view. You feel like moving and if you trip, you trip, if you fall, you will get up. And the air feels like it will carry you and push you and it’s like nothing your feared it would be. And of course everything you expected it would.
Just do it.
Why do I run?
I’m the last man on the Arcata High cross country team.
I was third to last in our league meet.
My brother got 12th.
I run for the glory.
Why do I run?
They said I was the best high school runner in the last 20 years.
Then they said I was washed up and burned out.
Finished.
I know what I was.
I know what I am.
You know what they’re saying now? Me neither.
A WOMAN IS OFTEN MEA-
SURED BY THE THINGS SHE CANNOT
CONTROL. SHE IS MEASURED BY THE WAY
HER BODY CURVES OR DOESN’T CURVE, BY
WHERE SHE IS FLAT OR STRAIGHT OR ROUND.
SHE IS MEASURED BY 36-24-36 AND INCHES
AND AGES AND NUMBERS, BY ALL THE OUT-
SIDE THINGS THAT DON’T EVER ADD UP TO
WHO SHE IS ON THE INSIDE. AND SO IF A
WOMAN IS TO BE MEASURED LET HER BE
MEASURED BY THE THINGS SHE CAN
CONTROL, BY WHO SHE IS AND WHO SHE IS
TRYING TO BECOME. BECAUSE AS EVERY
WOMAN KNOWS, MEASUREMENTS ARE ONLY
STATISTICS. AND STATISTICS LIE.
You are not a goddess
You are not a goddess and most likely you will never be a goddess but just because you are human that doesn’t mean we can’t worship the ground you walk on.
Provided by Julianna Ludwig on 09.10.2003
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE
YOUR MOTHER UNLESS SHE IS
WHO YOU WANT TO BE. YOU DO NOT HAVE
TO BE YOUR MOTHER’S MOTHER, OR YOUR
MOTHER’S MOTHER’S MOTHER, OR EVEN
YOUR GRANDMOTHER’S MOTHER ON YOUR
FATHER’S SIDE. YOU MAY INHERIT THEIR
CHINS OR THEIR HIPS OR THEIR EYES, BUT
YOU ARE NOT DESTINED TO BECOME THE
WOMEN WHO CAME BEFORE YOU, YOU ARE
NOT DESTINED TO LIVE THEIR LIVES. SO IF
YOU INHERIT SOMETHING, INHERIT THEIR
STRENGTH. IF YOU INHERIT SOMETHING, IN-
HERIT THEIR RESILIENCE. BECAUSE THE ONLY
PERSON YOU ARE DESTINED TO BECOME IS
THE PERSON YOU DECIDE TO BE.