Dear Phil Knight -- Winning Does Not Take Care of Everything

Dear Mr. Knight:

I see throughout the internet people astonished with your company's latest ad campaign featuring sex addict and serial adulterer Tiger Woods saying "winning takes care of everything." So you may feel this is piling on that a High School Athletic Director's voice is being added to the chorus. But the not so subtle implications of this campaign I see as needing a strong response from people who care about kids and families.

In no way do I begrudge Tiger Woods the right to perform in the PGA. I forgave Tiger Woods for his personal indiscretions. I hope he wins this week. But that is easy for me to do as to me Tiger Woods is mostly a commodity. I am sure his personal indiscretions will always live with him as a person and always affect important relationships in his life. None of us are perfect.

It will be hard for me to ever forgive Nike for making light of Tiger's issues by even the subtle implication that winning could take care of anything other than adding a few more dollars to Tigers already sizable fortune as well as Nike's coffers.

After Penn State revealed last year that Nike Coach Joe Paterno was in part culpable for covering up if not allowing the sexual abuse of children to go on under his watch, Lane Wallace wrote a piece for The Atlantic Monthly on the incident. The piece started with "we are biased to believe in the innocence of those we admire -- even when they have blood on their hands."

I saved that quote.

High School Athletic Directors across the country get two regular complaints from parents. My child's team should be winning more or my child should get more playing time. We manage these complaints as best we can and work with our coaches, athletes and parents to keep these two important issues in perspective.

Why I kept that Atlantic Monthly quote is that I have learned after being an athletic director for 19 years that winning programs can hide big problems. So although I want our teams at my school to win, I know just winning does not equate to the kind of experience I would want for my child or your child (or your grandchild now). If a Jerry Sandusky can victimize children at a place like Penn State University, it can literally happen anywhere. I want to make darn sure it doesn't happen at my school.

This was further reinforced last week when I like you was astonished to see Rutgers University Basketball Coach -- I understand another Nike Coach -- Mike Rice hurling basketballs at players and hitting and slapping them in practice not to mention the derogatory and offensive name calling. I gained another quote from Wall Street Journal Columnist Jason Gay who wrote a piece on the Rutgers debacle in which he stated "intoxicated by sports another school loses its way."

I thought intoxicated was an interesting choice of words by Mr. Gay because intoxicated not only implies to stupefy but also to poison. The single minded pursuit of winning can both blind us and poison our community. One of the main reasons I got into High School sports was the power that sports has to build community, but clearly sports also has the power to poison a community too as it has at Rutgers.

Nike seems to be on a bit of a losing streak with inspiring athletes and coaches. Not only associated with Rutgers and Penn State, it must sting a bit to be associated with the drug cheat Lance Armstrong and girlfriend killer Oscar Pistorious. I have seen your internet defenders saying the purpose of the "winning takes care of everything" campaign actually is Nike firing back at all its detractors.

I think you should take a closer look at your mission statement and original intent that made you the company you are.

The Nike Mission Statement is "To Bring Inspiration and Innovation to Every Athlete in the World"

Above my desk is a picture I am sure you have seen many times too. It is a picture of the first Nike sponsored athlete -- Steve Prefontaine (Pre) -- and the quote above Pre crossing the finish line at Hayward Field says "to give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift." I was living in Oregon as a young boy when Pre died and I like you and your company were inspired by not that he won but how he won.  He won and lost showing great courage and even Pre -- yes a flawed person too -- knew it was more important how he competed than that he won.

A sad irony to this piece is that just before I read about your "winning takes care of everything" ad campaign, I had listened to a tribute to Anne Smedinghoff. I did not know Anne but I wondered if our lives intersected as she grew up in a nearby Chicago suburb of River Grove, attended Fenwick High School where I know a number of coaches, and then attended Johns Hopkins University three blocks from my childhood home and where my father has worked for years. Anne had dedicated her life to the service of others and was working for the State Department in Afghanistan when she was killed by a suicide bomber this past week. She was 25.

When Secretary of State, John Kerry, teared up announcing her death, I think it was as much about how she lived her life than the outcome of her life. She lived it fearlessly serving you and me and the people of Afghanistan.

So something rang hollow about your ad campaign to me today. The message you are sending to kids is a real negative one. It is not important how you win. It is only important that you win.

Sadly, that is the message they hear a lot these days. The outcome is what is most important, not how you get there. I do not agree with that. I do not think that sentiment lives up to the legacy that Nike once had. I think it trivializes truly heroic lives like Anne Smedinghoff's. I hope you will read about her way too brief life. Maybe it will inspire you as it did me.