In the small town of Fossil, Oregon had once lived a man; a man that forever changed the American view on running. The young men who attended the University of Oregon in the early 1960’s, who ran for the track and field team knew this man as Bill, for he was not fond of the title of coach; Bill’s own high school football coach who demanded that his players called him by such a title (Moore, Kenny). He raised his team to the top by coaching twenty-four NCAA championship runners and thirty-one Olympic runners, one of them being the famed 5k record breaking runner, Steve Prefontaine. Also, among those that he led to victory, he coached a record of sixteen sub-four minute milers, more than any other coach in history (NNDB: Tracking the Entire World). However, it was not just his accomplishments as a coach that had made him well known, but his cofounding of one of the largest athletic based companies in the world. His knowledge and passion for the sport of running would launch that company into becoming a multimillion dollar fortune. William J. Bowerman would be in every runner’s mind as one of the greatest track coaches in history.
The legendary story of this man’s claim to fame in the world of running began in 1948, when he joined the faculty of the University of Oregon, placed in Eugene, Oregon, as a professor and head track coach following his mentor, Bill Hayward, who retired the year before. As the coach of the UO track and field team, he taught his athletes discipline and how hard work could pay off in the long run. To help his team understand the meaning of hard work, he ensured each team member had a job at the local lumber mill in order to help them pay off their own room and board fees (Oregon Experience video). He held a strong, steady team that he had made into his pride and joy. Aptly naming his runners “The Men of Oregon,” he shaped each and every member of this group into a full grown man who could understand his intellect and mold it into their own.
Bill’s ideals as a coach were explained to these men at their annual team picnic, which was held at Bowerman’s house (Moore, Kenny). As described by former athlete Kenny Moore in his biographical tribute to Bowerman, he says, “A few upper classmen nodded. Bowerman didn’t have a central organizing principle. He had this, a central organizing parable.
“Farmer can’t get his mule to plow,” he said. “Can’t even get him out to eat or drink. Finally calls in a mule skinner. Guy comes out, doesn’t even look at the mule. Goes in the barn, gets a two-by-four and hits the mule as hard as he can between the ears. Mule goes to his knees. Mule skinner hits him again, between the eyes. Farmer drags him off. ‘That’s supposed to get him to plow? That’s supposed to get him to drink?’
‘I can see you don’t know a damn thing about mules,’ says the skinner. ‘First you have to get their attention.’”[1]
It was this very parable that had instilled the fervor that Bowerman had for the sport, in which would remain in the minds all of his athletes. Bill would be known in the town of Eugene as a tough coach to handle. However, he always got the job done right because for Bowerman, it was not just about the ability of the runners, but the technicalities that are put into shaping oneself into an athlete.
Bill tried to improve his athletes' performance in every way. This included monitoring their diets by experimenting with recipes for sports drinks and tailoring lighter-weight uniforms (OPB.org timeline of Bowerman). In the 1950’s, he began cobbling lighter-weight racing shoes and tested the prototypes on his runners. After trying to send his innovative track shoe designs to shoe companies across the United States, only to have them rejected, he decided to make his own shoes in his workshop[2]. He made custom fit shoes with his own two hands for each and every one of his runners. He tested all manners of materials, ranging from the lightest leathers, nylon, mesh, even rattlesnake’s skin[3]. His method was simplicity, thus his reasoning for using glue instead of stitching on the shoes. Unfortunately, his use of glue would suffer in his efforts to create a shoe weighing less than five ounces. He faced the challenge of soggy cinder tracks during rain storms, which boded no good for the shoes that he had work so hard to make. Bowerman took on this challenge and had gone to work on testing new types of track surfaces that could withstand the uneasy northwestern weather. He got to work, laying down mixtures of rubber and tar around his land to test his ideas out, giving way to his invention of the “all-weather” track surface (Oregon Experience). Bill’s attention to detail and the technicalities of the sport was all for the sake of gaining competitive edge on his team’s behalf. This careful attention to detail would show in 1962, when the UO track team had won its first NCAA championship, followed by more wins in 1964, 1965, and 1970.
In the same year that he had led his team to its first NCAA victory, he had traveled to New Zealand with his world-record-holding four-mile relay team, where he met fellow coach Arthur Lydiard (OPB.org timeline of Bowerman). It was Lydiard who would introduce Bowerman to a new, slow paced style of running called “jogging” (Gale Biography). Upon his return home, Bill had enlisted the help of his UO runners in hopes of putting the town of Eugene, Oregon on the map. With the help of the “Men of Oregon” and local cardiologist Waldo Harris, M.D, he would start the town’s first running club (OPB.org timeline of Bowerman). On the first day, over a thousand people flocked to Hayward field to run. Being overwhelmed by his own lack of physical fitness, he too began to jog. Several years later, after receiving many letters from across the country for fitness advice, Bowerman had begun writing his book “Jogging,” which became a best seller in 1967[4].
With having led such an incredible team throughout his years of coaching at UO, he had been given the privilege of coaching the 1972 US Olympic track team in Munich, Germany (NNDB: Tracking the Entire World article). That year, he would bring home five gold medals, seven silver, and five bronze. But what had come as a shock to the nation as it watched the Olympics from their television sets, was that one of those medals had not been awarded to the US in the 5k. This upset was brought on by Steve Prefontaine, the famous record breaking 5k runner who had become very close with Bowerman as his coach. Bowerman was not surprised by this upset, for on Sept. 5, the 11th day of the games, Palestinian terrorists destroyed the illusion of peace by raiding the Olympic Village, killing two Israelis and taking nine others hostage, placing grief on the shoulders of all of the athletes in attendance (HickokSports.com article). Despite the tragic events in Munich, Bowerman had not been shaken of his spirit. With these being the accomplishments that he had made over the years as a coach, they could not compare to that of which he had made as a business man in the athletic industry on the side.
On January 20th, 1964, Bowerman invested $500 with a former student-athlete, Phil Knight, to cofound Blue Ribbon Sports[5]. A quote from Bowerman’s wife as she recalls that day: “I always felt a very personal connection to the birth of Nike […] because our original five hundred dollars came from a small savings account I had accumulated.”[6]
The existence of this account she had hidden from Bill until then. On January 30th, Knight wrote to his coach with good news: “With a hearty ichi ban [Japanese] Blue Ribbon Sports got off the ground on Monday with an order for 300 pairs of shoes.” (Ch.17 cont.)
The name of this company would be changed to Nike [name inspired by the greek god of victory] in 1972. In that same year, Bowerman would retire from his position at the University of Oregon and would continue to consult and coach Olympic runners, including Steve Prefontaine, and design and consult for Nike. By the time Nike went public in 1980, Bowerman’s $500 investment was worth about $9M (NNDB: Tracking the Entire World article). In honor of Bowerman’s long reputation for the perfecting of a light-weight running flat, last year Nike's running division decided to launch a collection of running shoes called the Bowerman Series.
"When I think of Bill Bowerman, I think of integrity, honesty and innovation," says Kirk Richardson, head of Nike's running division, "and those qualities serve as the foundation of the Bowerman Series--the best running footwear Nike has ever made.”[7]
Later on in his career, he compiled a book filled with his notes and research that he had collected over the years as a coach. As a runner, I have personally been inspired by this man to want to exceed my own expectations within this sport. From his techniques, I had put myself into an experiment that strictly follows the teachings of his Track and Field guide entitled “High-performance Training for Track and Field.” In the book, he describes the three foundations of running; moderation, consistency, and rest. The next piece that I applied to my own running was his twelve principles of training; each person is an individual; set reasonable (but challenging) goals; have a master plan; base the plan on event-specific abilities; be flexible in the plan; develop good mechanics; “variety is the spice of life”; follow the hard-easy approach; “it is better to undertrain than over train”; observe the rules of good nutrition; use recreation for the “whole” person; get enough rest. I applied these methods to my own running in the past few months of my training before my track season had begun, and have notice serious improvement on my training and race times. Not only does my improvement in running prove that his methods work, but also show how his legacy lives on through runners in this day and age.
William Bowerman was a famed coach, mentor, and businessman; a true inspiration to all future coaches and athletes. His passion behind the sport of running gave him the drive to create a national appreciation towards track and field during his time and today. With the help of his team, Phil Knight, and his devoted wife Barbara, his dreams of perfecting the sport of running to Gold standards had become a great success. By inventing the first “all-weather” track, revolutionizing the concept of the running flat, and making his wise choice of becoming the cofounder of Nike, Bowerman was an exceptionally inspiring man of the 1960’s in the world of Track and Field. Having created so many new running techniques and holding strong to his personal style of coaching, Bowerman had set the stage for all future coaches and athletes, thus single handedly had changed the way America would view running forever.
WORKS CITED
· "BILL BOWERMAN 1911-1999." Runner's World Apr. 2000: 22. Gale Biography in Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2011.
· "Bill Bowerman." National Distance Running Hall of Fame. Web. 17 Feb. 2011. <http://www.distancerunning.com/inductees/2002/bowerman.html>.
· "Bill Bowerman." NNDB: Tracking the Entire World. Web. 14 Mar. 2011. <http://www.nndb.com/people/592/000207968/>.
· "Cross County Training." Hal Higdon. Web. 17 Feb. 2011. <http://www.halhigdon.com/crosscountry/cross.htm>.
· "HickokSports.com - Biography - Bill Bowerman." HickokSports.com Main Menu. Web. 17 Feb. 2011. <http://www.hickoksports.com/biograph/bowerman.shtml>.
· "Oregon Experience · Bill Bowerman · Home · OPB." Television, Radio, and News for Oregon and Southwest Washington · Oregon Public Broadcasting. Web. 17 Feb. 2011. <http://www.opb.org/programs/oregonexperiencearchive/billbowerman/>.
· Bowerman, William J., William Hardin Freeman. High-performance Training for Track and Field. Champaign, IL: Leisure, 1991. Print.
· Moore, Kenny. Bowerman and the Men of Oregon: the Story of Oregon's Legendary Coach and Nike's Cofounder. Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale, 2006. Print.
[2] &3 Oregon Experience · Bill Bowerman biography video
[4] "Bill Bowerman." NNDB: Tracking the Entire World
[6] Quote from Ch. 17 “Bowerman And the Men of Oregon; The story of Oregon’s Legendary Coach and Nike’s Cofounder” by Kenny Moore
[7] "BILL BOWERMAN 1911-1999." Runner's World Apr. 2000: 22. Gale Biography in Context.
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