Bowerman and the Men of Oregon
By Doug Kurtis
Free Press Columnist
12/20/2006

It's been seven years this Christmas since Bill Bowerman passed away. His success as a coach, Nike waffle soled shoe inventor and family man is chronicled in Kenny Moore's richly detailed book, Bill Bowerman and the Men of Oregon recently published by Rodale Press.
Moore was the ideal person to write Bowerman’s life story and Oregon’s famous track and Olympic history. Intimately acquainted with Bowerman as his coach both at Oregon and as an Olympic marathoner, Moore also has the writing credentials. For twenty five years, he covered athletics for Sports Illustrated. His efforts were noted by his induction into the National Distance Running Hall of Fame in 2001.
Moore’s commitment to writing Bowerman’s story was significant. Although he grew up in Oregon, Moore and Connie, his life partner and research assistant, left their place in Hawaii to spend four years on the third floor of a friend’s home just three blocks from the Oregon Duck’s track, Hayward Field.
While working on the book Moore noted, “The boxes of the Bowerman collection in the UO’s library are overwhelmingly many. When I visit, I almost can’t help spending a whole dreamy day going through one file of correspondence, say, because I know many of the writers, and so much nuance is brought back.”
Moore wrote the screenplay to Without Limits based on the life of legend Steve Prefontaine. Moore maintains that working with director Robert Towne enabled him to combine journalism with poetry. “You need to do the research to make a story real, and then mash it into short scenes that work on as many levels as possible. Towne and Without Limits taught me that kind of compression, and I know Bowerman’s book is better for it.”
Is this book and a movie too? Moore wanted to do Bowerman’s book before Pre’s movie but events conspired to reverse the order. Moore’s comment: “The whole life of Bowerman, from pioneer stock to athlete, to war hero, to teacher and coach, to jogging popularizer, to innovator and corporation builder, to articulator of the Olympic ideals, to his love of 75 years with Barbara, well it’s not a movie. It’s an HBO miniseries.”
A few highlights from the book:
· “Always a lover of stories, Bill had an ear for the ring and richness of language, from the barnyard to the chapel. He quickly grew eloquent before a group, becoming a weaver of narratives with riveting beginnings, hysterical middles and bewildering endings.”
· Bowerman became an advocate for jogging after taking part in club runs organized by renowned New Zealand coach Arthur Lydiard. (Bowerman coauthored a 20 page pamphlet called Jogging that sold over one million copies) For the rest of his life, Bowerman would utter his truism, “the hills will find you out” with genuine feeling."
· “Bowerman’s great strength and great weakness occasionally seemed like two sides of the same coin. Along with his dogged kind of genius and refusal to accept defeat came an equally dogged refusal to tolerate people who disappointed him in some important way. Once one lost his respect, one never regained it.”
· After coming up with the idea of soft top barriers for hurdlers he said, “You hit your horse on the nose ever day, pretty soon he’s going to remember and shy away. A hurdler will do the same if he hits a hurdle in practice and it hurts. Now if he hits it in a meet he doesn’t feel it because he’s got adrenaline working for him”
· For years, Nike had a list of eleven rules. Number eleven was simply, “Remember the man”. Co-founder Phil Knight kept Bowerman’s spirit alive. The running department created the Bowerman Collection focused on performance running shoes. Bowerman is famously known for taking his wife's waffle iron to create Nike's first shoe, a nubbie soled training flat called the Cortez.
· “The defining act of his life was preparation, not completion. There was no grand final victory. He was moved by the very evanescence of laurels. They were sacred because they withered, because they symbolized the brevity of triumph. “Winning is nice,” he said on the eve of the Munich Games, “but you savor that victory for an evening and you wake up in the morning and it is gone.”
Fact Box: Bowerman’s teams won 4 national titles, 24 athletes won individual NCAA titles, 13 set world records and 22 broke U.S. records. 10 of his milers broke 4 minutes. His dual meet record was an amazing 114 and 20 won lost record. He was the co-founder of Nike starting with $500. Also, instrumental in developing the rubberized asphalt track