Source: Wall Street Journal online
Late one spring afternoon last year, a mystery man sat in the back of a creative-writing seminar at Stanford. Evidently a student, he was much older than anyone else in the room. He was wearing a black blazer and white Nikes. He said his name was Phil.
As the days passed, the man's identity gradually came into focus. The instructor 'made several vague allusions to Phil taking off in his private jet,' recalls Andre Lyon, an English major enrolled in the class. And tales about Michael Jordan found their way into the man's literary discourse.
After a couple of weeks, a rumor began to circulate that the old dude in the Nikes was Philip H. Knight, the billionaire founder of the world's largest sportswear company.
The rumor was true. For four decades, Mr. Knight, who is now 69 years old, built the Beaverton, Ore., company into the industry titan while maintaining a personal reputation for seclusion and secrecy. As chief executive, he received visitors in a small conference room, only rarely allowing executives into his inner sanctum. Since leaving the top job in 2004 to be company chairman, Mr. Knight has lowered his profile further, stepping into the public spotlight only when one of his CEO successors was ousted in early 2006.
But it was around that time that Mr. Knight was surfacing anew in the classroom. Though not registered as a student, Mr. Knight has periodically taken classes with Stanford undergraduates over the past three years, swapping homework assignments and even going out with fellow students for a few beers at Palo Alto bars. He has told fellow students that he is writing a novel.
Mr. Knight turned down several interview requests for this story. But a former classmate, Ben Stillman, described his presence in class as Hemingwayesque. Mr. Knight 'doesn't tell long yarns and long stories,' says Mr. Stillman. 'He doesn't reveal too much about himself. But you understand something more is going on underneath.'
Mr. Knight's access to classes may have something to do with his pocketbook. Last year, Mr. Knight announced a $105 million donation to the Stanford Graduate School of Business, from which he graduated in 1962. His previous Stanford donations include a professorship at the business school, a graduate-school building and gifts to the athletic department, according to a university spokeswoman. Mr. Knight got his bachelor's degree from the University of Oregon in 1959, and he makes big donations to Oregon, too.
Mr. Knight's late-career academic journey began a few years ago, after he visited the campus office of Tobias Wolff, a novelist and Stanford English professor. Mr. Knight 'said he wanted to do some writing,' and was looking for advice about where to begin, Mr. Wolff says.
'I suggested he start somewhere at his level of ability,' Mr. Wolff says.
He welcomed Mr. Knight to an entry-level creative-writing class, but in a low-profile manner. 'Let's say there was an effort to make sure students didn't know his identity,' Mr. Wolff recalls.
As Mr. Knight became a regular in various English classes, he rarely tipped his hand. During the spring of 2006, for example, Mr. Knight could be found on campus most Wednesday evenings for 'English 95: Form and Theory of the Novel' -- a 'seminar for creative writers' that was known in the department as 'the novel salon.' The class was taught by a department lecturer named Adam Johnson, who declined to comment for this story. A photo taken during what appears to be the class's opening session shows a packed basement classroom with 15 students; while others smile with notebooks at the ready, Mr. Knight looks away.
Mr. Knight was, however, a full participant in the class. His homework assignments, circulated to classmates, show a candid passion for words. 'Write sensuously. Words have feeling,' he advised in a short essay dated April 25, 2006. 'The simplest use of words can often have the greatest power.' Students in the weekly sessions remember debating Mr. Knight about themes and characters in novels like 'Kiss of the Spider Woman' by Manuel Puig and Edward Schwarzschild's 'Responsible Men.'
Though notably older than his fellow students, Mr. Knight soon became a popular fixture on the Stanford campus, known for hosting after-class gatherings at Palo Alto bars with his wife, Penny, before taking a private jet back to his home outside Portland, Ore. 'He'd always pay,' recalls Mr. Stillman.
The festivities -- some attended by senior professors in the English department -- included little trips to the Stanford Park Hotel and Blue Chalk, a lounge whose Web site invites guests to 'kick back and enjoy a cold beer or one of the signature margaritas.' Mr. Knight even found his way onto online social-networking site Facebook: He appears in a photo posted there, his arms around two undergraduates, with a third student holding what appears to be a drained margarita.
In class, Mr. Knight's fellow students say he was studious and intense. 'I was struck by how confidently he spoke,' says former classmate Amelia Ashton, who said as a student Mr. Knight maintained the 'conviction of a CEO.' 'He liked books with strong male protagonists,' recalls Jasmine Hanifi, who was a junior.
One of Mr. Knight's homework assignments suggested he had a penchant for Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel 'The Sun Also Rises,' about American expatriates, known for its thrilling bullfighting scenes set in Spain. 'Writing 12 drafts and discussing them with Scott Fitzgerald did not hurt this book,' wrote Mr. Knight. 'Love stories are what the public wants more than any other type of story, but they are the most difficult to write. Even for Hemingway.'
But Mr. Knight took exception to the book's unadorned dialogue, prose that he says might have used a bit more narration from Mr. Hemingway's pen. Mr. Knight also seems to disdain Brett Ashley, the book's femme fatale who is 'central to everything,' but 'had nothing endearing about her except her beauty.'
It was during a discussion of 'So Long, See You Tomorrow,' the Midwest murder mystery by William Maxwell, that Mr. Stillman says he learned that Mr. Knight was no beginner to the art of fiction writing. Mr. Knight's wife 'started talking about Phil's own constant struggle to get a novel of his own finished. It had maybe been 20 years,' Mr. Stillman says. At another time, when Mr. Stillman asked Mr. Knight about the book, he says, the chairman said it existed, but wouldn't give any details. He was 'very secret about it,' recalls Mr. Stillman.
Mr. Knight hasn't been seen on campus during the current term, which started in September, says Mr. Wolff, though he didn't rule out the possibility that Mr. Knight would return later in the year. A short walk from the English classrooms, ground will be broken next year for Mr. Knight's latest development on campus, the Knight Management Center. It will include new classrooms, dining facilities and a 600-seat auditorium. At the final session of the Stanford writing seminar, Mr. Knight gave each student a $200 Nike gift certificate, say those who were there.
The novelist Mr. Schwarzschild, who visited one of Mr. Knight's classes, says he is still struck by Mr. Knight's unassuming approach to learning the craft. 'He could easily import someone, fly them up in a helicopter. But he wanted to be part of a true workshop, as an equal. He didn't want to be CEO. He wanted to be Phil Knight, the student.'
Nicholas Casey