About Phil Knight
Philip Hampson Knight (born February 24, 1938) is an American billionaire businessman who is the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Nike, Inc., a global sports footwear, equipment and apparel company. He was previously its chairman and CEO. As of October 2025, Forbes estimated his net worth at US$35.4 billion. He is also the owner of the stop motion film production company Laika. Knight is a graduate of the University of Oregon and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He was part of the track and field club under coach Bill Bowerman at the University of Oregon with whom he would later co-found Nike. Knight has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to each of his alma maters, as well as Oregon Health & Science University. == Early life == Phil Hampson Knight was born on February 24, 1938, in Portland, Oregon, to Bill Knight, a lawyer turned newspaper publisher, and his wife, Lota Cloy (née Hatfield) Knight. He grew up in the Portland neighborhood of Eastmoreland, and attended Cleveland High School. According to one source, "When his father refused to give him a summer job at his newspaper [the now defunct Oregon Journal], believing that his son should find work on his own," Knight "went to the rival Oregonian, where he worked the morning shift tabulating sports scores and every morning ran home the full 7 miles (11 km)." Knight continued his education at the University of Oregon in Eugene, where he ran for the famed Oregon track and field program, was a sports reporter for the Oregon Daily Emerald and was a member of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. Knight earned a business degree (B.B.A.) in 1959 in just three years.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.