STICKING AROUND OSAA TRACK AND FIELD
For Oregon Track and Field, in-state talent has been a boon. The process runs through the OSAA Championships. Read on page 7
THURSDAY, MAY 29, 2025
The Daily Emerald’s new track publication
By Brady Ruth Sports Editor
Welcome to Hayward Field in beautiful Eugene, Oregon! We at The Daily Emerald are excited to greet you into one of the most iconic track and field locations in the world. TrackTown, USA, is bustling with life, energy and, of course, track! We hope you are able to get around Eugene and see some of the historic sights and highlights of town’s track history. Hopefully, it gives you a feel for why we love TrackTown, USA, so much and why we’re so honored to cover track and field in Eugene!
Being a student journalist is a privilege in itself. This year the Emerald has produced incredible content covering a wide range of collegiate athletics, but now we have an opportunity to report on the sport that truly has put Eugene on the map in our very own historic Hayward Field.
The Daily Emerald is proud to provide coverage of this year’s Oregon School Activities Association 2025 Championships. Enjoy reading the history of this iconic stadium, the present Oregon dominance in track and field, and what the future has in store for Hayward Field and the Ducks! On behalf of the Sports Desk, the editing and design teams, our photographers and everyone else at The Daily Emerald, enjoy your time in TrackTown, USA and thank you for supporting student journalism!
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Table of Contents
PG. 5
PG. 7
Bill Bowerman: A titan on and off the track
Fifty years of magic
Oregon coaches and athletes sound off on OSAA stage, opportunity
PG. 9
Over the river and through the woods to Hayward Field
How high school mascots would fare in different track and field events
PG. 11
Hayward magic at Big Ten Outdoor Championships
BILL BOWERMAN: A TITAN ON AND OFF THE TRACK
How one man changed running forever
By Beck Parsons Sports Reporter
William “Bill” Bowerman was born Feb. 11, 1911 to former Oregon Governor Jay Bowerman and his wife, Elizabeth. Instead of politics, Bowerman dedicated his life to running and built two empires in the process.
Bowerman grew up with his mother in Fossil, Oregon. He enrolled at the University of Oregon in 1929, where he played football and basketball. As a junior, legendary coach Bill Hayward convinced Bowerman to join the track team.
After college, Bowerman became a schoolteacher and served in World War II following the Pearl Harbor attack. He achieved the rank of major and returned to UO to coach track in 1948.
There, Bowerman became a legend. Across 24 years in Eugene, Bowerman won four national titles and coached 33 Olympians. He also developed the now-commonsense “hard-easy” training method, which stressed that athletes not overwork themselves. In 1964, three weeks of ‘hard-easy’ training shaved 27 seconds off Olympian Kenny Moore’s best two-mile time.
It was as Oregon’s track coach that Bowerman met Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight, who walked onto the Oregon track team as a middle-distance runner in 1955.
“It was Bowerman who’d first made me think, really think, about what people put on their feet,” Knight wrote in his 2016 memoir “Shoe Dog.”
“Bowerman was a genius coach, a master motivator, a natural leader of men, and there was one piece of gear he deemed crucial to their development,” Knight continued. “Shoes. He was obsessed with the way human beings are shod.”
According to Knight, Bowerman was notorious for stealing his runners’ shoes. He’d then return them days later “with some minor modification, which made us either run like deer or bleed.”
Bowerman tinkered with every aspect of these shoes, but he prioritized weight above all else. He calculated that removing an ounce of weight from a shoe would translate (the male average of 880 steps per mile multiplied by one ounce per step) to 55 pounds less lift required over a distance of one mile. By Knight’s senior year in 1959, Bowerman was making Knight’s shoes himself.
In 1964, while still coaching the Ducks, Bowerman again partnered up with Knight, this time in distributing Japanese Onitsuka
Tigers under the name Blue Ribbon Sports. While Knight handled the expansion of the company that would one day become Nike, Inc., Bowerman continued to fuel his passion for footwear, combining the best elements of existing Onitsuka shoes into what would eventually become the world-famous Nike Cortez training shoe.
Released in 1972, the Cortez was Nike’s first track shoe. The company’s popularity immediately skyrocketed when the American athletes Bowerman was coaching at the 1972 Summer Olympics were seen wearing Cortezes.
Bowerman’s subsequent development of the “moon shoe” and “waffle trainer” outsoles drove Nike’s continued ascension, paving the way for the Jordan Brand and the billions of dollars that followed.
Bowerman retired as Oregon’s head track coach in March of 1973, but stayed on Nike’s board of directors until June of 1999. He died in Fossil on Christmas Eve of 1999 at 88 years old.
However, 25 years later, Bowerman’s legacy remains. Nike has been a Fortune 500 company since 1995. Meanwhile, Oregon’s track and field team has won six outdoor national titles since his retirement, and another 13 in indoor competition since 2009.
Eugene’s Hayward Field bears several
tributes to Bowerman. A statue of Bowerman — installed in 2000 and preserved in Hayward’s 2018 to 2020 renovations — stands in the northeast corner, facing the track with a stopwatch in hand. Bowerman is also depicted atop Hayward Field’s 10-story tower, offering his legendary coaching to an unnamed Oregon runner.
The history behind one of track and field’s most beloved meets
By Lily Crane Sports Reporter
The fans at Hayward Field slowly got up for a standing ovation as Kenyan distance runner Beatrice Chebet began her final lap around the track.
Chebet trailed the favorite to win, Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay, for most of the 2024 Prefontaine Classic 10,000 meters. Chebet lapped several runners coming off the belt, then crossed the finish line at 28 minutes and 54.14 seconds — a new world record.
History-making performances like Chebet’s — the only world record from the 2024 edition — are what the track and field world has come to expect from the Prefontaine Classic.
The meet honors Steve Prefontaine, a former University of Oregon and Olympic dis-
tance runner. The start of the meet can be traced back to 1973, but it operated under the name the Hayward Restoration Meet.
Bill Bowerman, the legendary Ducks track and field coach and Nike co-founder, and the Oregon Track Club started the meet to raise money for the renovation of the West Grandstands at the old Hayward Field.
The inaugural event was highlighted by former Olympic gold medalist David Wottle defeating Prefontaine by 0:01.3 seconds in the mile. Wottle wowed the 12,000 fans in attendance as he recorded what was at the time the second fastest mile ever by an American man, doing so while running in his signature golf cap.
The Hayward Restoration Meet was renamed the Bowerman Classic, but eight days before the 1975 meet, the track and field world lost Prefontaine in a tragic car accident. Bowerman and the Oregon Track Club decided to rename it again to the Prefontaine Classic that year.
Since the first Prefontaine Classic, the world’s top track and field athletes put on a
show every year in Eugene, with world records broken on multiple occasions.
While this year’s meet is the 50th anniversary, one of its most prestigious events — the Bowerman Mile — is in its 25th year.
The Bowerman Mile began in 2000, shortly after the passing of the former UO coach.
Two-time Olympic gold medalist, Jakob Ingebrigsten, recorded the fastest Bowerman Mile in 2023 at 3:43.73. Almost every year, it has taken less than four minutes to win the event.
“Always excited to race at Hayward Field,” Ingebrigsten said to the media ahead of the 2022 Bowerman Mile, which he also competed in. “The Bowerman Mile has always been special, as everybody knows. That’s how I felt when I raced here the first time.”
Ingebrigsten will be joined by Cole Hocker and Yared Nuguse, the reigning Olympic gold and bronze medalists, respectively, in this year’s Bowerman Mile. Hocker himself left the UO track and field team in 2021 to go professional, signing with Nike and continuing to train under his former coach, Ben
Thomas.
Track and field athletes relish the opportunity to compete in the Prefontaine Classic. The 2023 100-meter World Champion, Sha’Carri Richardson, spoke about the thrill of competing at Hayward after her first-place finish at last year’s edition.
“It’s exciting that the stadium here has the magnitude, has the magic and embraces the sport and the love that we as track and field athletes deserve,” Richardson said. “It’s always magical running here.”
Every Prefontaine Classic has taken place at Hayward with the exception of 2019, when it was held at the Cobb Track at Stanford. Hayward Field once again underwent renovations ahead of the 2022 World Championships. In 2020, the meet was cancelled due to COVID-19.
The 2025 Prefontaine Classic is set to be held on July 5 at Hayward Field.
( BELOW ) This three-dimensional image of Bill Bowerman is displayed at the top of the Bowerman trophy. Hayward Hall is open to the public and is located at the base of the tower on the eastside of Hayward Field in Eugene.
(Julia Massa/Emerald)
Parents aren’t the only ones watching at Hayward Field this weekend. For college coaches, it’s a showcase that keeps paying off.
OREGON COACHES AND ATHLETES SOUND OFF ON OSAA STAGE, OPPORTUNITY
By Owen Murray Sports Reporter
Koby Kessler didn’t run the first time he stepped onto the track as an athlete at Hayward Field.
Back then, the now-collegiate freshman track and field decathlete was in high school; he’d come from Canby, 95 miles north of Eugene, for the 2021 OSAA Track and Field State Championships. He stepped on the surface and just walked — an entire lap, before the meet. He tried to soak in the moment.
“It’s definitely a surprising feeling,” Kessler said. “It’s a monumental feeling, I would say.”
Then, he had the dream of an Oregon-born athlete: to run in green. Both his parents earned degrees in Eugene. He isn’t dreaming
At May’s Big Ten Outdoor Track and Field Championships, Kessler stepped on the same track — this time in a new kit. After one day, he led the decathlon field. After another day, he finished with a personal-best 7,303 points and a fourth-place trophy. Next to his name, this time, there was an O. He’s in-state talent, which is exactly what Oregon head coach Jerry Schumacher values. More than a quarter of the Ducks’ rostered track and field athletes this year are in-state students. Oregon’s complete track and field program boasts the joint fourth-most in-state talent (28% Oregon-born athletes) of any varsity sport; men’s track
100-meter and long jump — in front of a home crowd.
“I’m from Oregon, so it definitely means a lot more to have this on my chest and represent this school,” he said after the first day of the Big Ten Championships. “That plays into the pressure as well.”
If there was pressure, he didn’t seem to feel it. Just before running a 10.69-second 100m race (another personal best), he shed a beanie to reveal dyed hair, with a twist: a green duck silhouette on a blonde canvas, applied by his teammates. Kessler grinned into the camera.
“I love the pressure,” he said. “I perform more under pressure.”
He’s an athlete that Schumacher said Oregon tracked for a while: “Seth (Henson), our multis coach, was talking about (Koby) for a couple of years,” he said. “Having in-state talent — that’s what we want to keep. We want to put a fence around our state.”
Kessler isn’t the only one who has paid off. Paris Olympian Jaida Ross is from Medford. Reigning Big Ten men’s 3000m steeplechase winner Benjamin Balazs is from Portland. Thirty of the 108 athletes rostered by Oregon Track and Field this year list their hometown as in-state — Schumacher sees that as a victory. The outdoor season is his chance to show it off (and the trophies are proof of concept). He plans on grabbing more.
This weekend, though, is about the future.
The 2025 OSAA Championships bring athletes from all six classifications, 1A through 6A, to Eugene for a three-day track and field showcase. They’ll run on the same track and jump in the same pit as legends. It’s an opportunity — for them and Schumacher’s Oregon program.
“Getting a chance to compete at Hayward Field is what this place is all about,” Schumacher, who plans on attending the event, said. “It’s special for the kids, and that’s good for us. It’s good for our program.”
It’s the very best of Oregon — all of it, all in one place. The
(BELOW)
(Julia Massa/Emerald)
OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOODS TO HAYWARD FIELD
What a hometown high school like Sheldon will bring to the state championships in TrackTown
By Max Koebel Sports Reporter
Across the Willamette River, just four miles from the University of Oregon campus, is Sheldon High School. Sheldon is one of four public high schools in Eugene and it is one that many schools throughout the Willamette Valley viewed as a threat in any athletic competition.
Sheldon is the alma mater of Justin and Patrick Herbert — two well-renowned alumni of the Ducks’ football program. Justin was the starting quarterback from 2016-2019. In his final season, he led Oregon to a Pac12 Championship and Rose Bowl victory before going to the Los Angeles Chargers in the first round of the NFL draft. Patrick just finished his final season in a Ducks uniform at tight end and signed with the Jacksonville Jaguars last month. The brothers serve as just two examples of the loaded athletic talent that goes through Sheldon. High schools throughout Oregon will once again have the opportunity to see how dangerously talented the Sheldon Fighting Irish can be this weekend when TrackTown, USA opens its doors to the OSAA State Track and Field Championships at Hayward Field. This will be an incredible opportunity for many high school athletes throughout the state to visit
such an iconic college venue and compete in a state championship. There is no doubt that the competition will be tight and that there will be standout performances from many schools, but there is a significant chance that one of those schools will be the one just up the road.
Sheldon has a long history of making its mark in the Top 10 all-time in these Track and Field Championship events. Dating back to 2003, senior Joel Hoff ran 800m with a time of 1:52.65, which is currently ranked No. 9 all time for the event. The following year, senior Jeff Erb ran the 800m with a time of 1:51.63, which puts him at No. 5 overall.
In the 4 x 400m relay, Tyrell Jagelski, Michael Hanks, Drew Stringfield and Anthony Yakovich finished in 3:20.02 in 2008, which ranks at No. 10 for the event. Eight years later, Damian Williams, Jenner Higgins, Dimitri Williams and Cade O’Connor relayed in 3:19.16, which is ranked No. 7.
Just two years ago in the 4 x 100m relay, Grafton Robinson, Owen Phillips, Zachery McEwen and Brock Thomas made it to the finish line in 41.90, which ranks No. 9 for the event. Ranked No. 1 in the 4 x 100m relay are 2014 Sheldon athletes Adam Starnes, Nathan Starnes, Tyus Kuykendall and Mitch Horning, who finished in 41.19.
Finally, last year, sophomore Malachi Schoenherr ran 3000m in 8:14.18, ranking No. 7 for the event. As a junior, he will be looking to put his name in the rankings once again.
The competition is always tight with over a dozen high schools fighting for state-wide attention, but no one should bet against Sheldon’s ability to stay in the mix and break records year after year.
RANKING HOW HIGH SCHOOL MASCOTS WOULD FARE IN DIFFERENT TRACK AND FIELD EVENTS
How would your high school's mascot fare?
By Joe Krasnowski Sports Reporter
Hundreds of the best high school athletes in the state will flock to Hayward Field this weekend to showcase their talents on one of the world’s most famous tracks. Although the focus will undoubtedly be on the stars performing, The Daily Emerald has comprised a very serious list of how we think most high school mascots would fare in each event.
The track merchants
Any jaguar, panther, lion or wildcat mascot will absolutely dominate this field. The track events were literally made for these guys to shine, and they certainly will. The jaguars (50–60 mph) and panthers (35–40 mph) are my best bet to win in any event they participate in. But this is sports and you certainly have to account for back-to-backs and flu games. My picks for a surprise finalist in any of these events would be the North Medford Black Tornado and the Oregon City Pioneers (who are certainly used to long-distance tracks).
The high flyers
High jump is perhaps the most one-sided type of event throughout this list, with eagles, hawks and any type of bird having a clear advantage over the rest of the field. Although eagles generally fly higher than hawks, I’d imagine the two tyrants of the sky would do their best to get as high as possible — literally soaring over the competition. It’s a shame too, because the Pleasant Hill Billies (billy goat) are known for their jumping and climbing abilities, but ultimately would not be able to compete with the birds.
Shot put
The strongest athletes at Hayward would have a significant advantage here, with the Grants Pass Cavemen and Tillamook Cheesemakers my top human mascot picks. On the animal side, any type of grizzly or viking mascot would be a good selection to rise to the top of the competition.
Javelin
The Sherwood Bowmen as well as the South Eugene Axe are my top two selections. Although the mechanics of javelin are a bit different from both of these mascot’s fortes, I’m betting on the potential of both being able to adjust their skill sets better than the rest of the field.
The wild cards
Although not a safe enough selection to beat any of the heavily favored mascots, the Sprague Olympians and Silverton Foxes feel like they could be a
significant player in any event they are in. On the Olympian’s side, the appeal is obvious, with Sprague able to be at least above average in any possible event. On the other hand, the Foxes might be quick and clever enough to beat any of the more strength-heavy finalists.. My podium (who would do the best if all mascots participated in every event):
North Medford Black Tornado — speed, strength and toughness, North Medford has it all and has a perfect blend of traits that enables it to be better than any other competitor.
Sprague Olympians — a good blend of strength, toughness and strategy. My money is on the Olympians being able to excel at most events and land a top spot on the podium.
Mazama Vikings — similar to Sprague, I’d bet on Mazama being able to excel at most events and finish near the top.
Emerald)
(Nate Barrett/Emerald)
(BELOW) The Oregon Duck crosses the finish line during the 2025 Oregon Twilight meet’s Hayward costume relay race.
(Saj Sundaram/
MAGIC AT BIG TEN OUTDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS
Oregon place first and second in the men’s and women’s conference championships, respectively, May 16-18 in Eugene
With multiple meet records, Oregon wins and overall Hayward magic, the Big Ten Outdoor Championships proved everything it cracked up to be. Going into the final event the Ducks’ women’s squad held a narrow, one point lead over USC, and their triple crown title was in jeopardy going into the 4x400 meter relay. The Women of Troy were just too much to keep quiet, and their dominant relay performance secured a Big Ten
The Ducks’ men’s team finished first in the conference with 110 points after entering the day with a three point
On day two of the meet, despite her 15th place finish in the final event, senior Annika Williams secured a 63 point victory in the heptathlon with a personal best 5914 cumu-
“Being that close to 6000 points is great, (but) I would love to get to 6000,” Williams said. “Like I said, I didn’t (personal best) in anything this weekend. Anything could have been a little bit better for me to get to that 6000.”
As the only sub-13 hurdler in the women’s 100m hurdles, junior Aaliyah McCormick dominated the competition all weekend and took home the conference championship with a season
“I haven’t gone under 13 until right now, so it definitely reassures me that I’m in the right position and it’s so exciting honestly. I love being under 13 seconds,” McCormick said. “This is our first year in this conference and it’s very important to all of us to win at home.”
Senior Klaudia Kazimierska eased to a win in the women’s 800-meter, and the Poland native beat the rest of the competition by almost two whole seconds with her 2:02.92. Kazimierska took an early lead which only grew as she continued running.
Going into the 5000m races, the Oregon men’s squad practically wrapped up the team title, but the Women of Oregon still hung behind the USC Women of Troy by 14 points.
Sophomore Simeon Birnbaum bounced back from a disappointing 1500m race where he placed third to win the 5000m with a meet record time of 13:31.87. Birnbaum hung back behind the top five most of the race and then sprung himself to victory in the final two laps to
“I got out-kicked in the 1500, so I got really fired up and ready to go for this race,” Birnbaum said. “I wanted to go out there and ice this meet for us.”
Junior Silan Ayyildiz raced a meet record 5000m with a 15:37.11, which gave her the win by less than half a second. Oregon freshman Diana Cherotich held a large lead going into the final few laps, and it looked like she would take an
“Simeon (Birnbaum) really inspired me,” Ayyildiz said. “I tried to go with (Cherotich), but it was kinda early and I waited a little bit. In the last 600(m), I was just counting the laps in my mind. I was just like ‘I can do just the last 200(m) or Ayyildiz did just that and carried her momentum into a phenomenal last stretch which pushed her to a massive win in the 5000m. That gave Oregon enough points to take a one point lead going into the 4x400m, which was the closing event of
The Women of Troy took first place in the relay, while Oregon placed eighth. The dream of a Big Ten triple crown was squashed in that final event.
The Oregon men’s squad took home the Big Ten crown, which added a silver lining as the Ducks head to Bryan-College Station, Texas for the NCAA Regionals.
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