Bowerman and the Men of Oregon summary

One thing Bill Bowerman couldn’t tame was his appetite. Sitting on a table behind the equally eccentric Barbara Young at a dinner party for high school footballers, Bill would take a plate of ribs and baked potatoes from a waitress, place a plate on each knee, and then shoot an inviting smile at another waitress.

Bill ate his three meals before silently offering his hand to Barbara, confessing to his dance partner he’d actually eaten at home before coming to the party. Bill and Barbara would go on to have an on-and-off relationship. When they finally settled, they never parted.

As a kid, Bowerman had sustained a scar while playing mumblety-peg with pocket knives. The Army decided it was a significant injury and gave him only menial jobs. Luckily for him, an opening required two of Bowerman’s equally sporting skills. He was assigned to the Tenth Mountain Division as a skier and mule handler.

After a training camp in which Bowerman improved the way mules supplied soldiers by guiding them through shortcuts, he emerged a captain. He was promoted to major before deployment to the Italian Alps in 1944.

The University of Oregon had only two full scholarships for track and field when Bill Bowerman was appointed head coach in 1948. Bowerman fought till the scholarships were raised to ten, and then he found other creative means to grow his team.

He went about town convincing mill owners to hire his athletes. This helped the athletes fund their education and build resilience. To make sure athletes were showing up for work, Bowerman taped the job roster on his office wall.

Bill Bowerman was chosen to coach the US Olympic team at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.

Upon arrival, he complained about security at the hotel. This objection brought upon him the ire of the IOC and West German government trying to present a more friendly face after World War II.

In his quest to improve athletes, Bill Bowerman exploited every little advantage he believed would improve performance.

One impediment that kept nagging at the heels of his athletes was their running shoes. He visited a shoe shop, observed some shoes and asked the shoe seller how shoes were made. Then he learned as much as he could about cobbling and soon was molding his own shoes around shoe lasts he’d created.

An active correspondence with the coaches Bill Bowerman respected led to tournaments against some of the best teams abroad. Out on the country one Sunday morning with New Zealand head coach Arthur Lydiard, Bowerman was surprised to see men, women, and children of all ages jogging. Lydiard told Bowerman about the benefits of jogging to ordinary folk and recommended Bowerman, the athletic coach who seldom jogged, to go at his pace. The optimum workout, Lydiard advised, was one in which you could run and still hold a conversation.

Bowerman struggled at first but kept it up for the six weeks he stayed in New Zealand. When he returned home, Barbara said he looked ten years younger. The local newspaper published an article about jogging with a quote from Bowerman calling on everyone to turn out to the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field. The joggers increased to 50, and then over 2000 people showed up. Scared he might kill someone, Bowerman sent them home and organized a team of researchers, doctors, and coaches to lay down jogging principles for different ages and weights.