Designers’ stories: Two University of Oregon students and their journey to a Nike Outdoor Nationals t-shirt
University of Oregon student Rossi Nelson poses at Hayward Field with the sketch he created for his Nike Outdoor Nationals t-shirt design. Photo by Rian Yamasaki.
By Owen Murray, TrackTown USA
Nike and Eugene are tied together. It’s a relationship that has existed since Bill Bowerman started designing shoes for his student-athletes in the 1950s. It only makes sense, then, that when the peak of the sport that began the company returns to the place of its inception, Nike does too.
With its prestigious high school championship meet, Nike Outdoor Nationals, set to run at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field this June, the company decided to return to local designers once again to tell its story.
This time, though, the students had the pen.
Two University of Oregon undergraduate designers were given the opportunity by Nike to create a commemorative t-shirt — the ideas would come from discussion, life experience, and an understanding of what it means to run in Eugene. These are designers’ stories. This is their process. This is Track Town U.S.A.
Rossi Nelson at Hayward Field. Photo by Rian Yamasaki.
A few months ago, Rossi Nelson was sitting in his kitchen. He lives in the 2125 Franklin building, in between Oregon’s Matthew Knight Arena and the east-west railroad tracks that run along the Willamette River in Eugene. He heard a train.
The route outside the window was carrying lumber. Wrapped around the wood on each car was a surprise.
Three years ago, Nelson entered a contest to design a new transport package for Hampton Lumber. Initially, he was working with a group, but felt that what they had was “missing something”. He was sitting on the couch with his dad when the idea came.
“We have this elk up on our mantelpiece above the fireplace,” Nelson said. “My dad said, ‘What if you just did like an elk or something — represent our area?’
“I could immediately imagine an elk up on these mountains,” Nelson said.
His design won his school’s art department $15,000. When he was in his kitchen this year, he saw the wrap again. He was inspired.
“I’ve seen it before,” he said. “But when I saw that train, that was when I really got the itch to design more. It’s really cool to see your work out there.”
Sports were a little more complicated. Nelson was born with pectus excavatum — essentially, his chest was indented (he describes it as “almost like a bowl pressed into it”). It meant that, after his sophomore year of high school, doctors told him that he’d have to have surgery — and that it would mean that he couldn’t play basketball.
After trying debate club (not as engaging), he turned to his art teacher. The two were close — and the teacher was the one who pushed him towards the lumber wrap design contest. Something clicked.
“When you watch a movie and you feel like it kind of changes your life…that’s what I want to do with my work. I want to give people that same feeling.”
“When you watch a movie and you feel like it kind of changes your life…that’s what I want to do with my work,” Nelson said. “I want to give people that same feeling.”
For him, the movie was Pulp Fiction. He saw it for the first time as a high school freshman and, even though he loved to design, he applied and was accepted to Oregon as a cinema studies major.
It lasted two terms. He didn’t fall out of love with it — he just pivoted to what he knew best instead. He’s an advertising major now, but he thinks of it as art.
University of Oregon student Liz Pollner at the Bill Bowerman workshop exhibit at Hayward Hall. Photo by Rian Yamasaki.
Liz Pollner didn’t plan to come to Eugene.
The junior advertising major spent her first two years of college running track — at Division 3 Ohio Wesleyan University. Her events, the 400 meter and 800 meter, were a way to stay connected with sports. She loves the competitive atmosphere: she ran track and cross country while also playing basketball in high school (and before that, softball, volleyball, soccer and basketball).
“I think like I've always been somewhat involved in some sort of sport throughout my whole life,” Pollner said. “I love the competitive atmosphere.”
She’s the only one in her four-person family, though, who fell in love with sports. In Ohio, she watched the Cavaliers — but not much else. She has family in Portland who sent her Ducks gear (“I’ve been wearing Oregon merch since I was in fifth grade”), and Eugene was on her radar.
It just wasn’t where she thought she’d end up.
Liz Pollner at Hayward Hall. Photo by Rian Yamasaki.
Pollner took an internship with a winery in Portland last summer — even though she’d never been to the West Coast before. After road-tripping 45 hours in her friend’s Ford Escape from Ohio to South Bend, Indiana (saw a friend) to Yellowstone (another friend) to Oregon, she came down to Eugene to watch the U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Track & Field.
She felt the competitive buzz again, but she couldn’t leave Ohio.
Could she?
Pollner worked at her internship for the rest of the summer in Portland before flying back to the Midwest.
“I had been thinking about it for two years,” she said. “I was like, ‘No, I’m not going to transfer. I’m not going to.’”
She spent the fall at Ohio Wesleyan. The itch was still there. By January 1, she was a Duck. Five days before Oregon’s winter term started, she got on her flight west.
After her trip to Eugene, she found that the anxiety she’d had about living on her own was gone — she’d done it. She was alone during her internship, totally independent…and loved it.
“The experience gave me the confidence to say, ‘I can do this,’” Pollner said. “This is the least of my worries.”
It’s only been a few months in Eugene, but she’s already found her new favorite trail — the Amazon — and started running again with the Oregon Run Club. She’s got a spot on the top floor of the student union building where she can see Hayward Field. Both helped her find inspiration.
“When I’m walking around, I just try to pick up on things I see,” she said. “Especially since I’m new to Eugene.”
Pollner sketches designs on her iPad as part of her creative process. Photo by Rian Yamasaki.
What’s almost as important as what Nelson and Pollner do as designers, though, is what they do when they can’t. Designer’s block is a real thing, they said, and creativity isn’t on-command.
When the design isn’t flowing, they go back to their roots.
They’re both chefs: Nelson drew on his experience at the pizza restaurant to make tacos and nachos for his roommate. Pollner made lemon pepper chicken with broccoli and sweet potatoes for hers.
Sports are what pop up too — Nelson said that basketball, like designing, is inherently creative, but he still plays as much as he can when he can’t get the juices flowing.
When they both started sketching for the Nike Outdoor Nationals project, it was words that served as a base.
Pollner leaned heavily into an example she picked up from a podcast she’d listened to after visiting Eugene for the Olympic Trials. In the episode, which focused on the 2018-2020 renovation of Hayward Field, she picked up on a specific detail.
“They were talking about the acoustics in Hayward Field,” she said. “It was specifically designed so that when the entire field is quiet, you can hear someone cough all the way across the stadium. It’s that effect where it makes that moment so much bigger because everyone could hear it.”
It’s true. Her word was reverberation.
Nelson displays the sketches he used to create his design for the Nike Outdoor Nationals t-shirt. Photo by Rian Yamasaki.
Nelson’s process was similarly word-based. He called the phrase he had “poetic”: striving for greatness.
“I’m trying to create this feeling of a grandiose event,” he said of his design. Nike Outdoor Nationals are the championships for high school-age athletes every year. In their world, it doesn’t get much bigger.
He begins on paper, with a yellow Strathmore sketch pad. Tucked into the torn cover are other sketches on scraps — ideas that he got on-the-fly. Everything starts there, in the notebook.
Both Nelson and Pollner learned to use digital software — it’s cleaner — and Pollner pushes her designs from paper into the programs. Some of her artboards there are covered not only with sketches and ideas, but with handwritten notes, too.
Reverberation became tied to an idea, she said, that “these athletes were born in the wrong generation”. They love vintage — and so in went the record player. Records get broken at Hayward Field — another note. Not all of it gets used, but it all has an impact.
That’s the process. It’s creativity — not instant, not on-command, but inspired and innovative. It’s no mistake that those two words headline Nike’s mission statement.
They’ve both thought about what it’ll look like for their shirt to hang on a shelf this summer.
“I've been stressing a little bit about this one just because I wanted it to look perfect,” Nelson said. “I feel like if it's going to have a Nike swoosh on it, I want it to be like my best work ever.”
For him, he said, it’ll feel real when it’s printed. Until then, this seems like a dream.
“Every once in a while, it'll hit me,” Pollner said. “I'll be like, ‘Wow, I'm working for Nike right now.’ I feel like it hasn't really hit me yet, what I'm doing.”
It’s not the only thing. She thinks back to a few months ago, when she told herself she’d never transfer from Ohio Wesleyan.
What would she tell herself now?
“I would tell myself to go for it,” she said. “I didn't realize until I came out here this summer that change is scary, and that it's hard to be by yourself and do big things.”
The change was probably the biggest risk she’s ever taken, she thinks.
“But also, I think the bigger the risk, the bigger the reward. That's probably what I would tell myself: Yeah, it's going to be scary. It's going to be hard to leave your friends. You're comfortable where you are, but you have all these goals and ambitions and if you want to accomplish them, it's going to require big risk and big change.”
Rossi and Pollner’s designs can be found on this year’s Nike Outdoor Nationals merchandise, available for purchase at Hayward Field during the June 19 - 22 event.