Strubing’s submission to the swoosh constitutes one small victory for Nike’s next big plan: rather than trying to roll into new markets with the subtlety of an Abrams tank, the Beaverton, Ore., sporting giant is trying a little guerrilla warfare on new frontiers. It’s a risky bet. Can a 32-year-old company seen by many as the establishment–with deep-enough pockets to sign up any hot athlete who comes along (Serena, LeBron)–recast itself as a credible player in growing nonteam sports? Nike is now spending nearly as much time trying to build businesses in categories like skating and golf, two areas where it’s had trouble making connections. Early signs say the strategy is working. “We understand much better today than we did five years ago the importance of building sub-businesses,” says Sandy Bodecker, VP of Nike Skate.

Part of that wisdom comes from years of blundering. In the mid-’80s, Nike ordered a bowling shoe with nonslip soles–perfect for flinging your body, along with the ball, into the gutter. When the company entered the women’s apparel market, its first commercial featured triathlete Joanne Ernst telling women, “It wouldn’t hurt to stop eating like a pig.” (The joke didn’t go over well.) Forays into the golf and skateboarding worlds in the mid-’90s similarly misfired. Its first golf product, basically leather shoes with spikes drilled in, was so uncomfortable that embarrassed Nike staffers dubbed it “Air-blister.” Mark Parker, copresident, says that within Nike’s informal, entrepreneurial culture, starting new ventures used to be as easy as pitching an idea and devoting a little time to it each day. “We didn’t make official commitments, and that was a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he says.

During tough times in the late ’90s, when Nike got bogged down by sluggish sales in the United States, top execs decided they needed a more serious approach to wooing new customers. Bodecker, a 51-year-old ski-racing coach, cancer survivor and former head of Nike’s upstart soccer division, was called out of retirement to reach into the skate world and connect with its kids. The division was set up as an independent unit whose 11 employees, all skaters themselves, were drawn from elsewhere in the industry. To learn more about the business and establish a permanent presence, Nike also bought up the surf- and skateboard-apparel brand Hurley in 2002. Today the offices of Nike Skate, tucked in a corner on the second floor of the Mia Hamm building, are filled with employees jamming with headphones at their computers, reading skate magazines or drinking Jolt Cola.

Another element of Nike’s game plan for new sports is patience–introducing new product lines slowly, so the swoosh-wary don’t get spooked. “We don’t want to overwhelm anyone,” says Bodecker. The Nike Skate team spent two years talking to consumers and recruiting athletes to its promotional team before introducing its first products, the generously padded E-Cue and URL shoes. Skate shops, worried that Nike would sell its sneakers in cheaper general stores and draw away their customers, prepared to boycott. Nike wanted credibility more than short-term sales, so it offered its wares exclusively to the skate shops, along with the classic Dunk, much sought after by collectors and fashionistas. According to Parker, the co-president, Nike currently earns only about $25 million from the $1.4 billion skateboarding industry, but it’s growing fast, and Parker says it’s a good way to connect with young athletes.

Nike also had to rewrite its playbook for the golf business. After signing Tiger Woods to a $40 million endorsement deal in 1996, many industry observers and competitors treated Nike like an invading army–“Nike is coming, Nike is coming!” one golf industry newsletter blared. After a few years of lackluster shoe and apparel sales, Nike realized that hyperfinicky golf shoppers play by different rules from regular consumers. It formally separated the golf unit from the rest of the company on its balance sheet, and brought in Nike vet and 12-handicap golfer Bob Wood to head the division. It also hired execs from elsewhere in the industry, including former PGA Tour player Kel Devlin. Nike currently controls less than 5 percent of most categories in the golf business. It wants more, of course, but its targets are long term and intentionally vague. “Our goal is that in 10 years, no one under 30 can remember when Nike wasn’t one of the top golf companies,” says Mike Kelly, Nike’s golf-club director.

The next frontier for Nike is to move even deeper into the subcultures by making the actual equipment. It already makes clubs for advanced players, and last fall expanded with the new Slingshot for the duffers who couldn’t hit a tree with Tiger’s customized nine iron. It has also considered the possibility of a line of skateboards. But already the new, measured approach is winning rave reviews from Nike watchers. “They are the only company that does really well across as many categories as they do,” says Goldman Sachs analyst Margaret Mager. Former Nike advertising VP Scott Bedbury, author of “A New Brand World,” says the key to the company’s success is its willingness to embrace “a culture of screw-ups. It does learn from its mistakes.” That, incidentally, is the measure of a good athlete–knowing how to adjust your game after a few losses.