Win at All Costs – Inside Nike Running and Its Culture of Deception – Matt Hart (Dey St.)
“It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how
you play the game” – Grantland Rice, early 20th
century sportswriter. Ah, remember the good old days…
There is a phrase that gets tossed around, “sport is a
metaphor for life,” which has been credited to actor Robert Redford, of all
people. As I read Win at All Costs by journalist Matt Hart, which delves
into the deceptive culture of cheating, fraud, and lying that is pervasive at
Nike Running; I couldn’t help but think of how reflective this story is on the
current state of our country.
With quite literally billions of dollars at stake in the
world of sports, we have seen over the course of time, words like truth,
integrity, and honesty, become quaint thoughts from a bygone era, replaced by a
ruthless, win at all costs, and screw the rules attitude. Cheating and rule
breaking have become not only accepted, but expected, not only in sports, but
in everyday life. As former UCLA Bruins head football coach “Red” Sanders (no
it wasn’t Vince Lombardi) first said “winning isn’t everything, it’s the
only thing.”
Hart, who covers sports science, performance enhancing drugs
and human powered adventure and exploration, (whatever that is) does a nice job
of capturing the intrigue and spy novel stuff that is a part of this story. Win
at All Costs, is a well-researched and written tale, that will hold the
attention of not only those who follow the sport of running, but those with
even a passing interest in the business of sports. Hart’s portrait includes all
the colorful characters and the internal machinations at Nike, all brought
forth by a whistleblower, in the spy novel twist of a mysterious jump drive
containing internal Nike documents, with a skilled eye to detail.
Anyone who even remotely familiar with Nike’s early story
and that of the late, legendary, runner Steve Prefontaine, know that
improvements came in form of harder work in training, and enhancement of
equipment. In the case running, that came in form of improved shoes and
housewife sacrificing her waffle maker, for a new version of the sneaker sole.
Sports, like so much in our life, has gone through a
radical transition. Athletes, once admired for their on field abilities, are
now more often lauded for their social media following, woke social stances and
other non-sport endeavors. With our collective eye off the ball, cheating, rule
breaking and defrauding fans has become common place. We end up with world rife
with performance enhancing drugs and the pursuit of trying to find ways around
the drug testing regimens becoming a cottage industry all their own. We live in
a world where scumbags who abuse their wives or girlfriends are welcomed back
to elite sports because the can hit the longball, the strike zone, the opposing
quarterback or the wide receiver on the deep route, almost as well as the can
their significant other. Law and order, and rules be damned; this is about
ticket, jersey, and sneaker sales and ringing the cash register. So, bang on
the garbage can and get a shot in the ass all you want, because in the end
getting caught won’t matter much.
You can’t help but draw comparisons between this story
and the news of the day; where not only is corruption, fraud, dishonesty and
cheating accepted and/or overlooked, it is applauded and often abetted by a
complicit news media, whose job it used to be, to call out these dirty dealings.
The media has become nothing more than glorified stenographers for talking
points and adoring cheerleaders for criminals.
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