Colorado University Athletics

Smith To Take NIKE Position

Smith To Take NIKE Position
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            BOULDER ? Mike Smith, the University of Colorado’s director of equipment since 1998, will be leaving the school at the end of March to join NIKE as the innovation project manager for NIKE team sports.

 

            Smith, 34, will help the Buffaloes start spring football before moving to Beaverton, Ore., to assume his new role.  In the newly created position, he will deal with the design and development for innovative apparel for all of NIKE team sports categories (football, men’s and women’s basketball, baseball, soccer and golf).

 

            “It’s an extension of many of the products that we’ve dealt with here at CU,” Smith said.  “Colorado has long been a focus of NIKE’s research as it relates to new technologies, especially high-end athletic apparel, primarily game uniforms.  That will certainly continue as far as CU is concerned, I’ll just be on the other side of the fence helping to get things done.  I’ll continue to work very closely with the University’s athletic programs and student-athletes in that regard.”

 

            Such innovations that CU has been involved with include the Nike Cooling Top, and a new, high-end, woven cordura game pant, which performs significantly better.  A new project that Smith will be involved in is the new Nike “Pro” underlayer line, which features woven venting to keep the body cool.

 

Smith worked 10 years as football equipment manager, as he was hired full-time on August 1, 1995.  He has worked closely with NIKE for almost his entire tenure, as CU and the sports shoe and apparel giant have been partners since 1996. 

 

            He has also worked five Hula bowls (1998-2001, 2004) as its equipment and operations manager, coordinating the many needs of almost 100 of college football's most outstanding players. 

           

A Denver native, he was a three-sport letterman at Broomfield High School and graduated from the University of Colorado in 1992 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics. While he was a student at CU, he worked on the grounds crew, served as a Ralphie runner (accompanying the team to the 1989 Orange Bowl), and worked three years as a student equipment manager, and was head manager his senior year.

 

            CU is in the process of replacing Smith, and hopes to have his successor named by the start of football drills, which begin March 30.