U nless Chicago and Portland meet in the finals of the NBA championship series, as they did in June 1992, Michael will come to Portland, Oregon only once a year to jump, shoot, and slam a basketball against the Portland Trailblazers. comes more often to Port, land for another reason, though. Several years ago a successful head track coach from the University of Oregon and one of his former college runners combined to produce a new shoe for runniiag and jumping. With this, the Nike company was born. As sales began to erupt with undreamed-of success, nearby Mount St. Helens was also erupting and scattering ash over the new company's headquarters. Years later, Michael would wear Nike shoes to perform his wondrous work. Together with Spike Lee as the quirky Mars Blackmon, would make many marvelous television advertisements for Nike, who called Jordan's shoes Air Jordan. In the summer of 1991, a Nike television commercial would credit the near sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers to Mr Jordan, as and the Chicago Bulls exploded in the NBA finals. It must have been the shoes, a Los Angeles Laker cheerleader look-alike sadly proclaimed. Children of all ages and races now buy and wear Air Jordan in fanciful emulation. A different kind of eruption occurred on September 16, 1990, when representatives of Operation Push clashed in boisterous argument with corporate spokespersons from Nike on the hour-long television show Town Hall after Push announced its intention to institute an economic boycott against Nike. Push, an acronym for People United to Serve Humanity, traveled to Portland with the express purpose of leaning on Nike to shove them into specific types of affirmative action and other similar policies. Operation Push was founded in 1971 by civil fights leader Jesse Jackson, who determined then to include economic objectives within the civil rights movement. Jackson's plan was to target national and multinational enterprises to pressure them into hiring more minorities and utilizing the resources of the minority community. Push's premise was that corporations rely heavily on minority participation in purchasing goods, perhaps even requiring it to be profitable. Push concluded that these same corporations have a social responsibility to recognize minorities as much more than consumers. Although blacks spend $260 billion on goods and services each year, little of that money is recycled through black business. Push believes corpor.ations must make the minority community a part of the corporate community by (1) providing jobs, including management positions at all levels; (2) placing substantial contracts with such minority-owned and minority-operated businesses as insurance companies, banks, advertising agencies, and construction companies; and (3) making significant contributions to minorities' neighborhoods, status, and opportunities. One firm's experience with boycotts contains lessons all firms should heed,