NCAA TRACK AND FIELD

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 2025

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 2025
Matthew Erickson is chasing an NCAA men’s 800m sweep. Getting there has been powered by his routine.
Read on page 9
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 National Collegiate Athletic Association Track and Field 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!
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Tristin Hoffman
PRINT MANAGING EDITOR
Mathias Lehman-Winters
SPORTS EDITOR
Brady Ruth
SPORTS ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Jack Lazarus
PHOTO EDITOR
Molly McPherson
COPY CHIEF
Olivia Ellerbruch
DESIGN EDITOR
Sam Butler
SPORTS REPORTERS
Owen Murray
Lily Crane
Beck Parsons
Joe Krasnowski
DESIGNERS
Adaleah Carmen
Gabriela Martinez Contreras
Taylor Grace
Ella Kenan
PUBLISHER AND PRESIDENT
Eric Henry (X317) ehenry@dailyemerald.com
VP OPERATIONS
Kathy Carbone (X302) kcarbone@dailyemerald.com
DIRECTOR OF SALES & DIGITAL MARKETING
Shelly Rondestvedt (X303) srondestvedt@dailyemerald.com
CREATIVE & TECHNICAL DIRECTOR
Anna Smith (X327) creative@dailyemerald.com
STUDENT SALES MANAGER
Lola Tagwerker
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES
Cooper Gast
Elliot Byrne Ysai Hong
Nate Ghilarducci
Emerald Media Group 1395 University St.,#302 Eugene, Or 97403 (541)-346-5511
Bill Bowerman: A titan on and off the track
Fifty years of magic
Which conference is the best for collegiate track and field?
“a little bit meticulous” is just right for Matthew Erickson
What Oregon’s athletes have been saying about NCAA meets NCAA Track and Field Championships preview
How one man changed running forever.
By Beck Parsons Sports Reporter
William “Bill” Bowerman was born Feb. 11, 1911, to former Oregon Gov. 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 Bbrand 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.
As schools from around the country head for Hayward, we look to answer one topical question.
By Brady Ruth Sports Editor
Schools from far and wide compete throughout the season with one goal in mind: winning a national championship at Hayward Field. Athletes strive to compete in the most historic venue in the country. In fact, TrackTown, USA, is a place that people from all over the world come to marvel at, but does that mean that Oregon — and the Big Ten by association — is the best?
Best is a tricky word, especially when it comes to comparing conferences. But, we’re going to try and find out where the true talent lies as the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships take place.
Slamstox.com has a piece ranking the top 10 track and field programs in the nation. If we look at this list (unsurprisingly, Oregon tops it), we see half the teams hail from the Southeastern Conference (SEC), two from the Big Ten, two from the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and one from the Big 12.
By that logic, we could say it’s the SEC. Another source, BHE UNI, wrote a piece dedicated to helping track high school track and field athletes find their next home. The article also offers a list, and again, Oregon tops the list while the SEC makes up half the teams. The Big Ten has the same
two (Oregon and USC) while the ACC falls to one with the addition of Colorado School of Mines.
So again, it’s looking heavily SEC. But what about the schools that are producing Olympians? The NCAA released a report of where the 2024 Team USA track and field team attended college.
The University of Florida led the way with a whopping seven Olympians, while two former Pac-12 schools (more on that later), USC and Stanford, were close behind with six. The Universities of Arkansas and Kentucky boasted five Olympians and BYU and Texas A&M University had four.
The University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) had three and 11 schools — Oregon included — had two Olympians each. 43 other schools had one. Fear not, I did the math for you. Of the 120 total Olympians, 37 of them came from the SEC. In fact, only one of the conference’s 16 schools, Auburn, did not send an alumni to Paris. That’s insane.
20 different collegiate conferences produced at least one track and field Olympian while 11 of them saw multiple
athletes compete for American glory. The top Olympian-producing conferences for the 2024 games were the SEC (37), Big Ten (15), ACC (12), Big 12 (10), Ivy League (five) and the Mountain West Conference (three).
So, with the SEC making up over a third of the field, it’s clear that track and field is best down south. But here’s where it gets interesting. These games happened before the messy divorce of the Pac-12. So, if we move the schools that left back to the Pac-12 and add up their totals, the conference of champions was actually responsible for 17 Olympians, which would have been good for second-most.
Oregon, USC and Stanford were all in the top 10 on those previous lists as well. So, it’s clear that track and field talent can be found both in the south and out west. But those are only a few different ways to measure success. If only there was a way to watch all the conferences compete head-to-head. Oh, yeah. That’s why we’re all here!
Keep an eye out for those SEC and Big Ten athletes out there during the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, and see if they prove me wrong. After all, anything can happen with some Hayward magic in the air.
(ABOVE) The University of Oregon Track and Field team finishes out its regular season with the Oregon Twilight meet on Friday, May 9, 2025 at Hayward Field in Eugene. (Saj Sundaram/Emerald)
(LEFT) The final day of the NCAA Track & Field Championships was held on June 8, 2024 at Hayward Field in Eugene. (Molly Mcpherson/Emerald)
An execution-over-outcome mentality is pushing the Oregon senior to the top of the NCAA 800m game.
By Owen Murray Sports Reporter
qualifying time in NCAA history before winning the final with a kick at the bell. He took an 800m win at the Oregon Team Invite earlier this outdoor season before placing second in the Big Ten final at Hayward Field on May 18. Now, after qualifying sixth overall in the NCAA West Regional two weeks ago, he’s looking for an 800m title sweep — and
He’s not picky about the notebooks, for what it’s worth. He uses the same brand every time now, a small black logbook, but he doesn’t think it’s “a big deal.” What matters is
After winning the indoor title, he said that he’d struggled with internal pressure in the past. He placed value only in the outcome of his race, not in the running. To battle that, he planned to focus on execution during his final sea-
“It’s about making sure you perform the best you can on any given day,” he said before the outdoor season. “If you execute your plan and the outcome isn’t quite what you want, you take that as a win because you’re coming away
There’s a benefit to it, too, he said. You become better at planning when you think deeper about the process — better at tactical races, which he said are more important in outdoor competition than indoor because of the greater available space on the track. There’s more space for him to maneuver and speed past runners on nine lanes at Hayward Field than on the banked, six-lane indoor track where he won in Virginia Beach. It pays off, eventually.
“Then, you know that when the time is right, when the fitness is there, when it’s your moment, you’ll be able to step up and execute a plan that’s there for you,” he said.
Executing plans is nothing new. Erickson started running in fourth grade — before he began to keep the logs in seventh — at home in Canada. He starred there, where he became a 10-time provincial champion in British Columbia. Since records were last updated in 2024, he still owns the BC U-23 record in the outdoor 800m, which he set last year.
He then debuted as a freshman at Oregon with a third-place finish in the 2022 Pac-12 Outdoor Championships 800m race. The next year, he’d return and take the same place — this time, he advanced to the NCAA Outdoor Championships, where he finished 15th in the preliminary round.
As a junior, he’d expand his repertoire, setting new lifetime bests in both the 400m and 1500m races. He qualified for the NCAA West Regional again in the 800m, but was two places shy of advancing to Hayward Field for the champion-
This year, finally, he made it back.
At the Penn Relays in April, Erickson anchored Oregon’s 4x800m team. At the bell, he led a field that included Penn State, Michigan and Georgetown. He held the group on his shoulder through to the final straightaway, but was outpaced by Bulldogs anchor Abel Teffra down the stretch. Oregon finished second. Georgetown finished first. Some time after the race, Erickson grabbed his notebook and wrote what he’d just told Ducks head coach Jerry Schumacher: “I’m never getting out-
The last time Erickson ran at Hayward Field, there was a medal on the line: the 2025 Big Ten Outdoor Championships. There, he ran the fastest qualifying time of the 44-man field (1:46.99). Where he faltered, though, wasn’t with speed.
The final race instead became tactical. He had a plan, he said. It was to not get boxed in (that is, closed off from any potential forward move by other athletes). That wasn’t what happened.
On the second lap of the slower-than-usual 800m, Erickson was stuck behind and between competitors — pinned on the rail. He was boxed in. When the final straightaway arrived, he had to drop to the back of the field before swinging wide into the second and third lanes. He powered down the stretch. His effort was supreme.
It wasn’t, though, quite enough. Erickson’s final time, 1:47.922, was just one one-thousandth of a second slower than winner Allon Clay’s 1:47.921.
“You can’t get away with that sometimes,” Erickson said of his race. The race was lost. His confidence, though, wasn’t shaken.
“I felt like I had a better kick than everyone on the day,” he said afterward. “I think I still did today.”
He’d talked about never getting outkicked, but this wasn’t about that. He had the better burst, but his positioning was what failed him. He had the last 100m.
“Now, it’s about executing the first 700 meters,” he said. “If you can execute the first 700m, and then you have the best last 100m, you’re going to win the race.”
Sometimes, he’ll take the notebooks out at home and read them. Other times, he just remembers what he wrote, like from when he ran a 400m race at this year’s Oregon Twilight.
A year prior, he said, he finished the race and was “dead on the track,” according to his book. This year, he was up within the minute and taking his victory lap. He didn’t love his time, he said — he thought that he could’ve run faster than the 47.04 that won him the race.
But he wasn’t thinking about outcomes. Instead, what he talked about that day was how much better he felt than last year. Instead, what he said was that, “The effort was different this year, in a good way.”
There is, though, a time when outcomes become important. For Erickson, that time is now. There’s a medal on the line (should he qualify on Wednesday for the final on Friday evening) — recognition in what’s likely his last-ever collegiate race. Executing the plan matters, there, of course, but so does the podium.
After he won the 800m indoor title in March, Erickson said that he “never really goes into a season with time expectations.” It’s just not something he focuses on.
“Indoors breeds that, because the way you qualify is objectively on paper,” he said. It’s about the paper you see before. He’s outside now, and the only piece of paper he cares about now is in his log.
He’ll see that one after the race.
(LEFT) Oregon’s Matthew Erickson finishes at 1:48.68 during the men’s 800m race during the second day of the 2022 PAC-12 Track & Field Championships at Hayward Field on May 14, 2022.
(lan Enger/ Emerald)
(BELOW) University of Oregon’s Matthew Erickson signs fan’s posters after the men’s 400m race during the Oregon Twilight meet on Friday, May 9, 2025 at Hayward Field.
(Saj Sundaram/Emerald)
What’s next for the Ducks after a successful Big Ten Championship performance going into nationals at Hayward?
By Jack Lazarus Sports Associate Editor
The Ducks are on their way to NCAA regionals in Bryan-College Station, Texas, which means they are slowly nearing the NCAA Outdoor Championships at Hayward Field June 11-14.
Hayward also hosted the Big Ten Conference Outdoor Championships, and each of Oregon’s squads found success. The men’s team won the conference with ease and the women’s squad came second to USC, which was decided on the final event.
The Ducks will have to rest and recover in order to replicate that success the next time they run at Hayward. Oregon also stays motivated in the championship season and continues to live up to the big moments as it did for the conference championships.
“I really missed championship racing; it’s pretty much been two years since I’ve been in a national level type of race where I’m racing very good athletes and it’s all just about placing,” sophomore distance runner Simeon Birnbaum said. “So I was super excited to get out here and do it.”
“I always walk in there knowing that these ladies will definitely compete. I love competition in general, so going in there, what really motivated me was knowing that these athletes are really fast and that’s gonna push me to go faster,” junior hurdler Aaliyah McCormick said.
McCormick, who was the only hurdler in the Big Ten to achieve a time under 13 seconds, also recognizes the team’s capabilities to build on the success they had in this past month.
“We’re still a young team, but we still have so many amazing candidates that will contribute to a National Championship title in June,” McCormick said. “We’ve been
putting our heads together and we know that if we’re all cheering each other on and that we all feel the Hayward Magic, everything’s gonna work out just fine.”
Not all the Ducks had the same thoughts after the conference championships. After falling short in the 1500-meter race, junior Silan Ayyildiz mentioned she will need to adjust her strategy to ensure more success come Nationals.
Freshman Koby Kessler, a decathlete who placed fourth while fighting through a knee injury that whole weekend, looks forward to getting treatment and cheering on his teammates as the postseason continues.
“I definitely didn’t make nationals and I don’t think I made regionals. I just got bumped out for long jump, but it’s fine,” Kessler said. “I got some teammates going to regionals for long jump, so I’ll get to cheer them on. I might go to Texas A&M and still train there anyways and I’m pretty pumped about it.”
That team-first mindset will be a major benefit for Oregon coming into the final meets of the season, but Kessler also has a ton of recovery ahead of him.
“For the next few months, I need some treatment on my knee,” Kessler said. “I’ll definitely work a lot more pole vault over the summer as well as discus, throws, and a lot more strength training. A lot more recovery and working on the knee making sure we’re good for next year.”
While it’s a mixed bag for Oregon’s athletes on how the coming weeks will look, an NCAA team title is within the sights of each of the squads.
( PHOTOS) The final day of the NCAA Track & Field Championships was held on June 8, 2024 at Hayward Field in Eugene.
(Molly Mcpherson/Emerald)
By Joe Krasnowski Sports Reporter
It’s finally here.
What to look for as the best in the country flock to Eugene.
to claim its first championship title since 2012.
Once again, the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships will be held in TrackTown USA.
The events, held from June 11 to 14 at Hayward Field, will mark the 103rd men’s and 43rd women’s NCAA Outdoor Championships.
The competition will feature 42 events — 21 for men and 21 for women — spanning four days. Men’s events are scheduled for June 11 and 13, while women’s events will occur on June 12 and 14.
To make it to Eugene, the best athletes in the country earned their spots in the NCAA East and West first rounds, which were held at the University of North Florida and Texas A&M University, which served as host schools.
The heptathlon and decathlon events will be held throughout the weekend, with the two days of men’s events held on the opening pair of days of the tournaments and the women’s events held on the tournament’s final two days.
In 2024, Arkansas won the women’s NCAA Championship, scoring 63 points to grab the top selection. Florida finished in second with 59 points.
This will be the 12th time this decade that Oregon will host the NCAA Track Championships, by far the most out of any college. The Ducks most recently won on the women’s in 2017, scoring 64 points to best Georgia’s 62.2. Oregon last won
On the men’s track and field side, Florida has emerged as a genuine top dog in the field, entering play with three-straight championships under its belt under head coach Mike Holloway.
Last year, the Gators won by just one point with a smaller score of 41 after scoring 57 and 54 points to grab championships in years prior.
University of Albany’s Louis Gordon is one athlete to watch, with the fifth-year senior breaking his own record with a 7.83 meter long jump to make the field in Eugene, despite less-than-ideal conditions.
“That was special,” UAlbany coach Roberto Vives said to the Times Union. “He was injured. He had his rib cage, any movement and it hurts, so he couldn’t do much in terms of a warm-up. But I know he’s a competitor, so when the time comes, he’s going to compete.”
Conditions throughout the weekend will hopefully be perfect in Eugene, with attendance of 8,466, 8,451, 9,258, and 9,162 being finalized after last year’s events.
Arkansas (39 wins combined between men’s and women’s), LSU (32), USC (31) and UO (23) are the four schools with the clear advantage over time. However, 35 schools have won at least one NCAA track and field championship in both indoor and outdoor competitions.
USC won the 2025 Division I men’s indoor track and field title, breaking a 53year drought. On the women’s side, UO won the 2025 Division I women’s indoor track and field title.
“Top to bottom, from the administration to the staff to the athletes, I couldn’t be more proud of this team,” head coach Jerry Schumacher said to GoDucks. “They were fantastic. To overperform the form charts at the national championships is not easy to do, and they did that in every event. It was a special day for us,
Time will tell if the Ducks can earn another victory, or if another team will rise to the top of the competition.
Get ready for an all new student lifestyle at The Hayward.
New Ownership
New Name & Branding
Be the first to receive exclusive info for Fall 25-26 leasing. Check out our website and tap the "Join Now" button at the top of the page to join our VIP waitlist.
COMING FALL 25-26
• New! Study Lounges
• New! Gaming Area
• New! Resident Lounges
• New! Music Room
• New! Golf Simulator
• New! Podcast Room
• Refreshed Resort-Style Pool
Millions in Renovations 1180 Willamette St Eugene, OR 97401
*Finishes may vary
• Upgraded Fitness Center with Yoga Room & Rock-Climbing Wall