Vaccaro, 83, was a key figure in Nike's push to sign Michael Jordan in 1984.
No one in his family went to college, Vaccaro said in an interview over a pancake breakfast in 2021.
Matt Damon plays Sonny Vaccaro in the new "Air" movie about how Nike signed Michael Jordan.
"The signing of Michael Jordan, yeah, success has a thousand fathers, and failure is an orphan," Knight told USA Today in 2015.
"A lot of people want to take credit for signing Michael Jordan, most obviously Sonny Vaccaro."