"Equality isn't a game. But achieving it will be the greatest victory. That's why we're committed to fighting for change until we all win."

-- Nike "Equality" February 2017

It was a typical Nike/Wieden and Kennedy ad campaign -- beautiful images of athletes coupled with a challenging, eloquent message prompted in part by the renewed surge of racial tension across the country. Trade magazine AdWeek called it "gorgeous and powerful."

What few outsiders knew was that Nike has its own "equality" issues. The catch phrase "Until we all win" rang hypocritical and hollow to group of employees, many of them women, who felt unappreciated, under-recognized and shut out of power. For all of the shiny, state-of-the-art marketing and the unmatched run of business success, some had become convinced there was something toxic about the culture behind the berm.

At least six executives and senior managers have been forced out since March as tales have surfaced of Nike's bullying "bro" culture.

The problems began to bubble up to the surface early last month when a group of dissident women plopped the results of a secret survey of female employees on the desk of Mark Parker, Nike's respected chief executive officer and board chair.

Some of the biggest media outlets in the world have pounced on the story of the suddenly troubled Swoosh. The Wall Street Journal broke several early stories of the first executive departures. The New York Times joined the growing chorus on Saturday with a major, 3,000-word effort penned by three reporters.

The Times story includes harrowing accounts of a workplace demeaning to women and how management allowed the problem to fester. One woman told the Times that her male manager threw his car keys at her in a rage. Others said their male bosses routinely used a vulgar term for a woman's anatomy to describe rivals in and out of the company.

Parker has vowed to continue the housecleaning as long as it takes. "It has pained me to hear that there are pockets of our company where behaviors inconsistent with our values have prevented some employees from feeling respected and doing their best work."

Nike spokesman Greg Rossiter said the company "is determined to take the insights we have gained to build a culture that is truly inclusive and representative of diverse thoughts, backgrounds and experiences."

Nike can be a difficult place for a woman. As the New York Times story illustrates, even as Nike continually crafted new marketing initiatives to appeal to women, many of its own female managers felt marginalized or worse.

But Nike's management challenges transcend gender. For some employees it simply became a toxic environment.

The brand inspires intense loyalty. "I ate and slept the brand," recalls one former employee. "I didn't get much sleep. It was self-imposed. I was surrounded by a lot of type-A people who were never satisfied."

Only after leaving Nike did the employee realize he'd been living with a constant anxiety that he didn't measure up.

Some employees blame the company's management and personnel issues in part on Nike's wholesale move toward the use of contract employees. Using temps saves Nike money. But the resulting two-tiered system of employment and compensation hurt morale and tweaked the corporate culture in ways that were not good, they say.

Nike is certainly not the only company beset with difficult management and gender-equity issues in the #MeToo era. Some of the biggest names in Hollywood and the media have seen their careers crater after revelations they sexually harassed women.

Over the last five years, 24 Nike employees or former employees felt strongly enough to file formal complaints of unfair treatment with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. In the same period, the bureau has received one complaint against both Adidas and Under Armour, Nike's rivals, which have considerably smaller workforces here.

In early April, the company sent a memo to all employees saying the company intends to "create a culture of true inclusion." But Monique Matheson, Nike's top human resources executive, admitted the company has "failed to gain traction" in hiring and promoting women.

So far, the senior-most executive to get pushed out has been Trevor Edwards, former president of the Nike brand. Edwards was seen by many to be a likely successor to Parker. Edwards will leave the company in August.

Will more managers follow Edwards and the five others out the door?

Is Parker safe? Does the board and Phil and Travis Knight have confidence he can lead the company through this wrenching cultural mess at the same time the company encounters challenges on the business front?

Critics generally view Parker as more a cerebral design wonk as opposed to the sharp-tongued, sharp-elbowed intimidators who have terrorized Nike underlings."He's one of the nicest, most genuine people I've ever met," said one former employee who left after near two decades with the company. "To have him as this figurehead for this is so unfortunate. He's so not one of the bros."

Company co-founder Phil Knight stepped down as Nike chair and left the Nike board in 2016. He's come out of retirement before to assist Nike through difficult times. Could that happen again?

The New York Times story includes an anecdote about an expensive, controversial ad for Nike's VaporMax shoe for women. With Edwards' approval, Nike hired FKA Twigs, a British singer, to shoot the spot. The finished product was edgy, showing images of male athletes in sports bras and women dancing around what appeared to be a strippers' pole. Nike never ran the ad.

There is talk within Nike that it was Knight who killed the spot, though that could not be confirmed. At the presentation of the ad, there were several graphical representations of Nike consumers on a whiteboard, one of them labeled "athlete."

"Phil supposedly crossed them all out except for the athlete and said, we have ONE consumer," one employee said. "And things progressed from there."

-- Jeff Manning