But there's more to Mr. Norman than experience leading creative
for brands like Nike, Coca-Cola and Gatorade --
you'll find out in this week's edition of Six Things.
1. He was born in the Texas state psychiatric
hospital. John came from a broken family, his mother
suffered from mental illness and he was raised as an only child by
his grandmother in South Dallas on government welfare services. As
a result, he believes that a lot of creativity comes from being
poor. "With a deck of cards or dominoes I'd make crazy house
models. In an open field I'd make believe I was in an army," he
said.
2. His last name on his birth certificate is
Eisenberg. John was adopted his senior year by his
grade-school basketball coach, Ralph Norman, and legally changed
his name after high school.
3. His worst job was supposed to be his best
job. In his ninth grade summer, John took a job at a
cheerleading-uniform manufacturer because he thought there would be
cheerleaders working there. He ended up being sent to work in the
thread cage to hand out industrial spools of thread to elderly
seamstresses. The ladies had him draw pictures for them all day.
Popular requests were animals and replicas of their homes based on
pictures they would bring in.
4. He worked as a construction worker
to pay for college and his specialty was
carpentry. "I love the finish work, the detail work. I
love building a house, but the thing I really look forward to is
the wood trim and the cabinetry," he said. He also believes that
you can tell a lot about a man by how he handles a hammer. In his
own words: "If it takes him 20 whacks, chances are he's afraid of
something, if he misses on his first whack and puts a dent in the
wood, he's too aggressive. It should take three whacks max to get a
nail in."
5. He took up road cycling while living in Amsterdam and
rode on the Nike amateur team. He tackled two of the
hardest stages in the Tour de France -- L'Alpe d'Huez and Le Col du
Tourmalet -- finishing both times, but not without crying. "It was
like riding on the moon," he said, "the fog was so thick you were
basically in a cloud. When the cloud would clear, the snow had made
Mother Earth raw, like everything was brought down to its
primordial phase."
6. His family lives on a horse farm in Manakin-Sabot,
Virginia. John plays basketball with his two sons, watches
his two girls ride horses competitively -- the family owns three --
and he occasionally hammers a fence board or two. John once told
his daughters that horses are "like land dolphins in their
gracefulness" and they will never let him forget it.
