PBS-TV Special Bowerman to Air This Week
EUGENE – A new Public Broadcasting Special from the Oregon Experience series will showcase the life of former University of Oregon track and field legend Bill Bowerman.
The former Olympic head coach and Hall of Fame honoree is featured in a half-hour special that will air locally on Mon., Feb. 12 at 9:00 p.m.
A half-hour rebroadcast will also air on Wed. Feb. 14 at 3:00 a.m., and again on Thu., Feb. 15 at 10:00 p.m.
To check your local listing for a more detailed schedule, visit the www.pbs.org website and click the TV SCHEDULES link at the top of the page.
The documentary was initially spurred by the recent Kenny-Moore-penned biography, “Bowerman and the Men of Oregon” and features interviews with countless friends and family members.
Bowerman was a man of many titles. Olympic head coach, Nike founder, army major, Oregon track and field head coach, inventor ... the list could go on and on. But the one recurring theme was his restless innovation and unchecked passion for sport.
Bowerman (born 2/19/11) began his coaching career as a football coach for one year at Franklin High School in Portland, then moved to Medford and coached track for nine years and football for seven years.
But the Duck football and track letterwinner made his biggest mark as a track coach as his ‘Track Men of Oregon’ won 24 NCAA individual titles (with wins in 15 of the 19 events contested) and four NCAA team crowns (1962-64-65-70), and posted 16 top-10 NCAA finishes in his 24 years as head coach. His teams also boasted 33 Olympians, 38 conference champions and 64 All-Americans. At the dual level, the Ducks posted a 114-20 record and went undefeated in 10 seasons.
At the Olympic level, he served as head coach of the U.S. team in 1972 and an assistant coach in 1968.
Bowerman the inventor was equally renowned for his waffle-iron shoe soles still popular today, as well as his method of recycling old athletic shoes into surfacing for tracks.
His love of coaching carried past his own athletes as he helped launch the U.S. running boom. After a 1962 trip to New Zealand he introduced the idea of jogging to the local masses, and even assigned his Duck athletes as mentors and coaches to local citizens. His 1967 book Jogging sold more than a million copies.
Bowerman’s legacy as an outspoken leader was also forged off the track. He was a combat major of the 10th Mountain Ski Troops against the Germans in the Italian Alps in World War II (and earned the bronze star), then sparred in the ‘70s with the Rajneeshees in Eastern Oregon. He even ran for state representative, following the lead of his father Jay who served as interim governor in 1910.
In retirement, Bowerman stayed true to his roots. The Fossil, Ore., native resided in his Eugene home in the Coburg Hills, and stayed in the news with occasional advice on how to keep the sport vibrant. When nominated for the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1981, he declined stating that until Bill Hayward was elected, he didn’t deserve to be included.
Before passing away on Christmas Eve, 1999, Bowerman returned with his wife Barbara to Fossil, the eastern Oregon town his great grandfather had founded in 1867, to close the last chapter of a legacy that will never be matched.
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