In the days leading up to the 1972 U.S. Olympic marathon trials, Mark Covert went to a fledgling running company's store at 855 Olive St. in Eugene for a free T-shirt.
To drum up grassroots buzz for their parent company's recent transition from Blue Ribbon Sports to Nike, store employees gave away hand-screened T-shirts with Nike's logo on the front and runners' names on the back. Covert got his in the orange of Cal State Fullerton, where he starred as a distance runner.
But before he left, a store employee named Geoff Hollister offered Covert something else.