The Onitsuka Tiger track and field offerings trickled into the US running shoe market, following the surge of shoes brought in by Blue Ribbon Sports, that invaded the West Coast running scene in the late 60’s. The first of these shoes was a simple and effective multi-purpose spiked version to mirror the Tiger Marathon. Since there was little differentiation between most of the sprint spike and “distance” spikes they were an alternative to the Puma and adidas models that made up more than 90 percent of the spikes in use at the time. These were an early tool in my quiver of spike between the high school and college experiences.