Adolf Dassler

Adi Dassler was a shoemaker first and a businessman second. He made spikes in his mother's laundry in Herzogenaurach, persuaded Jesse Owens to wear them in 1936, and after splitting from his brother Rudolf, who founded Puma, built Adidas around his own designs. The screw-in studs on the boots West Germany wore to win the 1954 World Cup final in the rain are the example usually cited, and he kept testing shoes with athletes until late in life.