| Jordan Geller with Bowerman Waffle Iron Shoe (l, Cullen Collection) Mark Covert Moon Shoe (r, Geller Collection) by Mark Cullen copyright 2017 |
"No surface is good enough
for these shoes!”
Jordy Geller was cleaning a
display table in a bank vault in Portland, OR.
Don’t mess with Geller when
it comes to early Nike running shoes.
Geller is famous in the
collecting world as the founder and curator of the “ShoeZeum,” his collection
of almost 2500 athletic shoes which first was on display in San Diego and then
Las Vegas. An attorney with an MBA, he is the pre-eminent collector in
the United States.
Geller was eager to show me
his iconic Moon Shoes, so-called because their revolutionary waffle sole made a
footprint reminiscent of that of the earliest astronauts on the moon.
Mark Covert’s Moon Shoes became
the first Nike Waffles to cross a finish line, in the 1972 U.S. Olympic Trials
marathon.
They are the Mona Lisa of the
collecting world.
Mona’s nice but she’s just
not a Moon Shoe.
For a company for which there
is no finish line, the Covert Moon Shoes have become iconic for having crossed a
finish line first.
To be clear, three pairs of Nikes were ahead of Covert's in that same race, but Covert's were the first with the waffle sole that transformed the industry. Well over 40 years later, the runners I coach wear their direct descendants.
To be clear, three pairs of Nikes were ahead of Covert's in that same race, but Covert's were the first with the waffle sole that transformed the industry. Well over 40 years later, the runners I coach wear their direct descendants.
 |
| Triple Crown Bowerman Backyard Shoe (Geller), Bowerman Waffle Iron Shoe (Cullen) , Mark Covert Moon Shoe (Geller)  |
Our meeting was a long time coming.
Geller had kindly invited me to a public unveiling of the shoes the previous
June, but as his event was in Portland the night before the last day of school
for this longtime Seattle teacher, alas, for me the unveiling had to wait.
I have never tried to add to
a collection of running shoes and memorabilia I amassed while running at the
University of Oregon in the early 1970s, and so I am more archivist than
collector. My treasures are the archive of a college kid who happened to be in
Eugene as Blue Ribbon Sports morphed into Nike.
Talk about being in the right
place at the right time: I started running in Bill Bowerman’s beginning running
class in September of 1971. While most remember him for inventing the
waffle-soled shoe and co-founding Nike, I was awestruck that the man who had
just come out of the tunnel at Hayward Field to teach our PE class had been
named head coach of the US Olympic track and field team the week before.
When I got to the bank vault,
Geller had more than the Covert Moon Shoes on display. He had brought two pairs
of Blue Moon shoes, handmade by Bowerman, as well as the white Progressive
Moons, also the product of genius.
Geller brought the single
shoe found buried on Bowerman’s property with the original waffle iron. I was
spellbound by this shoe and found it hard to take my eyes off it. How utterly
remarkable that it survived, and in relatively good condition.
 |
| Moon Shoes from Geller's Definitive Collection Backyard Moon Shoe in front Blue Moon Shoes - back row Covert Moon Shoes (l) and Progressive White Moon Shoes (r) - middle row |
My collection pales in comparison to Geller’s in terms of numbers, yet I do have some gems. I surprised Geller by bringing the three pairs of my shoes which best represent the development of Nike and its transition from Blue Ribbon Sports:
- Blue Ribbon
Sports Onitsuka Tigers resoled with waffle iron material. Declared Phil Knight
upon seeing these at the 2016 Portland World Indoor Championships, “Bill Bowerman put the soles on these shoes.”
- Bowerman waffle
iron shoes – yes, from wife Barbara’s waffle iron – one of the original 300 handmade
pairs.
- Waffle Trainer
prototypes handmade by Dennis Vixie, the podiatrist in Eugene who doubled as my
orthotician and one of the earliest designers for Nike.
Our shoes formed a remarkable
display of the earliest Blue Ribbon Sports and Nike shoes. Have there ever been
this many Moon Shoes in the same place at the same time? It had been a long
time since a merged collection of these iconic shoes had occupied the same
space – likely not since they were first made as long as 46 years ago, if then.
Much discussion between us focused
on how we can make our treasures more widely available for public viewing.
While these discussions are in the early stages, it was terrific to find common
intent.
 |
| Rarefied Air When the Moon is in the 7th (and a half) House Front Row Bowerman Waffle Iron Shoes(Cullen), Mark Covert Moon Shoes (Geller), Progressive White Moon Shoes (Geller), Dennis Vixie Nike Waffle Trainer prototypes (Cullen) Back Row Blue Ribbon Sports Onitsuka Tigers with waffle sole applied by Bill Bowerman (Cullen), Blue Moon Shoes (Geller), Blue Moon Shoes (Geller), Bowerman Backyard Shoe (Geller)  |
I also brought several pieces
of my memorabilia collection, including Nike’s first product catalogue,
Bowerman signatures, and a t-shirt with a logo of Gerry Lindgren’s Stinky
Foot, his late, lamented Tacoma running store.
I mean, when was the last
time you saw a Stinky Foot logo?
That’s what I thought.
Feast your eyes.
The power of these shoes –
their draw – astonishes me every time. At Indoor Worlds I was interviewed by ’96
Olympic decathlon gold medalist Dan O’Brien for USATF’s Cool Down program. The
attraction, of course, was my shoes, and this interview drew an audience larger than every other one
of the entire global championships. A close second was their interview with
Michelle Carter, which makes me one of the very few people on the planet to have
notched a win over the Olympic shot put gold medalist in 2016.
During the course of our
hour-and-half meeting - very generous on the Gellers’ part as they have a
five-month-old daughter at home - our discussion of the early Nike era turned
to Steve Prefontaine and Geller noted his friendship with Pre’s sister, Linda.
Came the email the next day:
“Linda Prefontaine wants to share your Steve story on Facebook. She asked me to
ask you if that’s OK.”
Um, yes.
My story is about about what
happened between Prefontaine and me the day he won the 1972 Olympic Trials
5,000m race. When Thomas Byrne of IAAF’s Spikes Magazine approached me before
the Prefontaine Classic last year and asked if SpikesMag could post the story,
I quickly agreed, and it went viral within the track and field world.
The response to Linda
Prefontaine’s post on Facebook was quite similar: the engagement rate was
remarkable. Linda and I had some memorable exchanges and we’ve agreed to meet
at this year’s Pre Classic.
A longtime Facebook holdout,
I figured this was as compelling a time to join as any. Now I find I’m friends
with relatives – what a concept! – as well as with most of the East African
distance running community.
Who knew? Here I thought that
life as we knew it had ended when ‘friend’ became a verb.
I didn’t quite tell Geller
what I was up to, and it was not until eight days later that I finally returned
the shoes to their safe deposit boxes in Seattle.
It was spring break when I
left Portland, and I traveled to Hood River in the Columbia River Gorge, long
my favorite Pacific Northwest getaway place. I spent three days there with the
shoes in tow.
I am quite sure that Geller
is apoplectic at the thought, but I have traveled with my treasures before and
follow the advice of a cousin who was in the insurance industry for many years:
tape them to your chest. Well, not quite, but when I say that they were never
out of my sight, that is quite literally true.
I crossed the high desert of
Central Oregon and made my way to Bend, site of this year’s US National Cross
Country Championships and high on my list of places to live once I conclude my
40+ year teaching gig.
I dropped by Teague
Hatfield’s Footzone running store and had the pleasure of meeting him and the
staff, including Barb who, memorably, convinced a very busy Hatfield that he
really should come out of his office to meet this guy who just showed up with a
bunch of old running shoes.
The fun of this collection is
exactly what happened in the store that day: the excitement of the unexpected,
the common language, the shared history and context - the not needing to
explain.
So it is now with Geller and
me. Two peas in a pod are we, new friends who share a common passion. Even
more, we share a deep, heartfelt appreciation for what we have in these old
shoes. From the intricate stitching to the ‘fat swoosh’ (it was not always so
sleek) to the progression of the waffle material in its different iterations, we
appreciate the thoughtful decisions evident in every single design element.
We are grateful for the
shared, unabashed understanding that these shoes touch our souls.
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| Two Peas in a Pod Well, in a bank vault, actually. Trackerati with Bowerman Waffle Iron Shoe and ShoeZeum with Mark Covert Moon Shoe Photo credit: perplexed bank guard. We can't go on meeting like this. Actually, we can. And will! |
Related links:
ShoeZeum website
ShoeZeum tour with Jordy
Geller
Steve Prefontaine 1972
Olympic Trials story
Phil Knight at 2016 World
Indoors meets my shoes
USATF
Cool Down Interview: Dan O’Brien with Mark Cullen
