We streamed the Ben Affleck-Matt Damon movie Air the other day. Set in 1984, it is the air-brushed story of how a talent scout for the Nike Shoe brand successfully pursued Michael Jordan, finally signing him to a massive contract to become the face of Nike’s basketball shoe division. It’s a fun movie, and as we all know, things went pretty well for Michael Jordan and for Nike, Inc. after that. But I’m still not a big fan of the company, and it is because of a bit of non-nuclear fallout from the Cold War.
Remember the Cold War? The duck and cover drills, the Dr. Strangelove mutual destruction scenarios. To ensure our survival, the US military constructed anti-aircraft missile silos throughout the country. Over 200 of these missile silos batteries were deployed nationwide to protect 40 “defense areas.” The name of this massive project? Nike, after the Greek Goddess of Victory.
The Chicago-Gary region was number three on the list of “defense areas.” Twenty battery sites were constructed in the area. Our Northwest Suburban site, Site C92/94 was located in the town of Vernon Hills. The site was active for 8 short years, from 1955 until 1963 when it was supplanted by other local missile emplacements.
The site sat unused until 2000 when the military turned over the decommissioned site to a consortium composed of the Village of Vernon Hills, Community High School District 128, Stevenson High School District 125, and Lincolnshire Prairie View District 103. As a member of the Board of Education of Stevenson, I welcomed the opportunity to utilize the acreage as athletic fields to supplement the ones on our landlocked Lincolnshire campus.
It took some years to develop the site. The Village and the school districts cooperated on plans for a sports complex, a complex to be named Nike in remembrance of the site’s historical significance. But that part of the dream fell away when in October of 2003, Vernon Hills received a letter from Kenneth Kwartler, Nike, Inc’s Assistant General Counsel stating “Neither the site’s location nor its history requires or entitles you to use our famous brand as your own.”1
We had been swooshed! Instead of The Nike Sports Facility, the Vernon Hills Athletic Complex was born. The seven of us on the Stevenson Board, and the administrative team as well, were initially disappointed, but to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, a field, is a field, is a field.
Even so, the Nike episode left me with a sour taste for the shoe retailer. And since neither the lineage nor the history of Air Jordans requires that I ever purchase a pair, believe me, Assistant General Counsel Kwartler, I never will!
Read last week’s blog HERE.
1https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2003-11-01-0311010072-story.html
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Well put, Les. Who’s appropriated the name, after all?
I grew up in a town that just talked about “the Nike site.” It took many years (and a move into the city) to find out that Nike meant nuclear missiles. I’m not sure they were there when I was.
Thanks to favoring that other team at the United Center through the Jordan years, I have never felt inclined to try the sneakers. I think I’ll keep waiting.
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How do “Air Connar Bedard” ice skates sound?
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