Bill Bowerman papers

The William J. Bowerman papers contain correspondence, notes, drawings, photographs, journals and publications. These items are divided into eleven different series. The strength of the collection is in the correspondence.

The Personal series is strong on general correspondence. This correspondence is usually not related to track and field. Most of the family correspondence is between Bill and his brother Dan. This series also contains Bill’s military records, from his time in the Army’s 10th Mountain Division. Bill’s philanthropic endeavors are also documented strongly in this series. The journals and notes contained within this series may also be of particular interest. Typically each page contains a variety of notes about a variety of subjects. Notes about a single subject are filed under that particular subject.

The Coaching and Teaching series contains documents related to the time that Bill coached and taught classes at the University of Oregon. This series is focused on the athletes and the events, administrative and meet related materials are in other series. This series’ strength is in correspondence. Under the Athlete Information subseries, the correspondence is arranged by the athlete’s name, and then chronologically, workout notes are included with the correspondence when an athlete is named on the workout forms. The athlete portion is particularly strong on athletes prior to 1968. Among these athletes are: Dyrol Burleson, Bill Dellinger, Phil Knight, Kenny Moore, Jim Bailey, Harry Jerome, Wade Bell and Steve Prefontaine. This series is adequate on workout information, but the majority of the workout sheets do not have a particular athlete attached to them. The remaining correspondence in this series is sorted chronologically. The Football section is not particularly strong, yet Bill only coached football for a limited number of years, so it is adequate.

The Track and Field Meets series consists of information directly related to track and field meets. Correspondence between Bill and other track coaches and meet organizers is included here. Correspondence related to meet budgets and trip rosters are also included here. The strongest portion of this series is in regards to the Hayward Relays, this includes results, news articles and correspondence related to the meet. Also strong are the subseries related to the NCAA meets and results from a variety of meets. The entirety of this series is arranged chronologically.

The Committees series includes papers related to Bill’s service on various local and national committees. This series is strong on correspondence related to his service with the Amateur Athletes Union, NCAA, the National Collegiate Track Coaches Association and on the board of the Prefontaine Foundation. The AAU subseries also contains correspondence about Bill’s fights in regards to athletes’ rights with the AAU. The entire series is heavy on correspondence, which is arranged chronologically.

The Innovations series contains correspondence and notes related to Bill’s work with different track surfaces, and indoor tracks. It also contains correspondence that Bill had with various people and shoe manufacturers about their shoes, and how he thought that they could be improved. Bill also developed and produced a practice hurdle for a few years, correspondence and promotion of this hurdle is included here. The strongest portion of this series is in the correspondence related to the different track surfaces that Bill was experimenting with.

The University of Oregon Administrative series is especially strong on correspondence. This series is related to Bill’s employment at the UO. The correspondence is generally requests for tickets, congratulations on wins, or individuals seeking information on how they should train (non-recruits). Of particular interest might be correspondence related to Bill’s coaching trip to Pakistan.

The Hayward Field Restoration series covers the many restorations and updates made to Hayward Field from the 1960’s through the 1980’s. These changes included new track surfaces, track resurfacings, widening the track, and replacement and moving of the grandstands. This series contains several architectural drawings of the proposed changes to Hayward Field. The strength of this series is the documents related to the 1972 replacement of the grandstands so that the UO could host the Olympic Trials for that year.

The Olympics series contains correspondence, notes, and ephemera. The ephemera consist of programs and tickets for several different Olympic games. The strength of this series is with the correspondence and notes related to the High Altitude training program that Bill instituted at Lake Tahoe in preparation for the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. Bill’s success with this training program led to his selection as the head U.S. Olympic Coach for track and field for the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. The bulk of the material in this series is from the 1960 Games up to the 1980 boycotted Olympic Games. Other Olympic Games are represented, but with only limited documentation.

The Writings series consists of correspondence, manuscripts and notes related to Bill’s prolific writing career. The particular strength of this series is the manuscript of Coaching Track and Field (with notes), the manuscripts and correspondence related to his article in Guideposts magazine “The Kitchen Table Shoemaker,” and correspondence, manuscripts and research related to the several different publications of Jogging.

The Nike series is relatively small. The main highlights of this series are early correspondence that Bill had with Phil Knight about Blue Ribbon Shoes, patents that Bill applied for with regards to his various shoe designs and other correspondence Bill had with a variety of people about his shoe designs. Of particular interest in this series might be the many outlines of people’s feet that Bill saved. This series also contains journals and notes that are related to his work at Nike, both meeting notes and shoe design notes.

The final series contains documents related to the Rajneesh’s time in Eastern Oregon, covering 1981-1988. Bill’s ranch, as well as his son Jon’s ranch, bordered the land held by the Rajneesh community. The strengths of this series are copies of the many court cases related to the Rajneesh in Eastern Oregon. Bill also helped to fund 1000 Friends of Oregon’s fight against the Rajneesh. Documents and correspondence with 1000 Friends are included here. The major strength of this series is the number of local and worldwide news articles that Bill saved about the Rajneesh.