Aaron Cooper got his foot in the door as Nike's first basketball design intern. He now designs the Scottie Pippen, Charles Barkley and Alonzo Mourning lines of shoes.

A slowdown in the U.S. footwear market has hurt Nike's stock. It dropped nearly 30 percent in price between a February high of $75.75, down to April's low of $54.125.

After a $6 billion year in 1996, Nike is homing in on a $9 billion year for fiscal '97, a 33 percent increase in sales.

Nike Pysche concluded

To the outside world, however, Nike is looking less and less ethical. The United Methodist Church, shareholders in the company, recently asked the Nike board of directors to address working conditions in Southeast Asia. Every newspaper in America, it seems, has run a story on Nike's overseas factories.

As if anyone needed more evidence that Nike is dangerously close to emerging as the new symbol of the corporate villain, last week Gary Trudeau, perhaps the most powerful satirist in the country, kicked off a series of Doonesbury cartoons lampooning the company's factories in Vietnam.

"I really don't care for them anymore," says Jackie Duncan, a 25-year-old who recently heard some of the negative buzz. Hanging out in Pioneer Square in her Nikes, Duncan says, "I'm gonna tell everyone I know not to buy Nike. I'm gonna buy my daughter Filas instead."

The question is: How does this bad PR affect the true believers in Beaverton?

In a word, they're angry.

"They just don't report the whole story," Farris says. "We are being misrepresented."

"I get so angry I can't even talk about it," says designer Cooper. "It fires me up. It bothers me personally because I'm a part of Nike. When I go to meet anybody, and they see my face-I'm Nike. And so if somebody bags on Nike or disrespects Nike, they're disrespecting me."

Every Nike staffer we spoke with said the accusations of harsh working conditions, low pay and lack of independent monitoring in factories in Indonesia aren't true.

Indeed, the accusations have only strengthened the belief on campus that Nike is a force for good in the world.

Farris says Nike's factories in countries like Indonesia and Vietnam are an extension of the company's greater mission: creating opportunity for the underprivileged.

"I think we're doing a great job, quite frankly, to help evolve some of these cultures," he says. "Two dollars a day-remember, we're talking about another culture that's just emerging. This is a good situation in that culture."

"We're paying fair wages under the economic rules," Farris continues. "I mean, America did the same thing. We had kids working in coal mines. It's an evolutionary process. These cultures are evolving."

Despite the belief on campus that the outside world just has it plain wrong, the accusations are taking their toll.

"I know this has had an impact on all of you at work and home," Knight wrote in an e-mail to staff on April 14. "And it's not over yet. Nike will continue to be used as a target."

Judging from the mood on campus, however, Knight should hardly be worried that his staff is suffering from a lack of self-esteem. If Nike's effort to redefine itself from a simple athletic-shoe company to one with a more important calling has accomplished anything, it's that the employees in Beaverton seem immune to outside criticism.

"It's one thing when you're a cigarette company, and you know your shit stinks," says Corpuz. "But at Nike, we know the kind of great things we're doing."

Critics of the Swoosh certainly have their work cut out for them. Nike is that rare company whose corporate mission has been embraced by the public. Either that, or more people are swayed by watching Michael Jordan and the NBA playoffs than by reading Doonesbury and editorials in The New York Times.

"I really don't read the papers that much," says Liz MacDaniels, an executive assistant at a local engineering firm.

Standing outside her workout club in Southwest Portland, MacDaniels looks like she spent her last paycheck in NikeTown. From gym bag to sweats, from T-shirt to shoes, she is covered in Swoosh.

"The Swoosh stands for endurance," she says. "It stands for excellence."