Bill Bowerman

I have just finished a terrific book that is a must read for anyone who wants to be a better coach or a leader. The title of the book is Bowerman And The Men of Oregon by Kenny Moore. Bill Bowerman was the longtime track & field coach at the University of Oregon who is now probably better known as one of the founders of Nike. Bowerman is a person who had a profound effect on my coaching career so I had a strong connection to the book. He spoke at the first Track & Field coaching clinic I ever attended in February 1968 when I was a senior at Fresno State. I was thinking about going into coaching, but still a bit unsure, after sitting in on Bowerman’s talks there no doubt of what I wanted to do – I wanted to be a coach like him. He was passionate, very outspoken and strong in opinions. He made complicated things simple and easy to understand. Over the years I tried to attend anytime anywhere he was doing a clinic. He did not change his foundational beliefs. He was a great innovator. His ideas on training the middle distance and distance runner are still very relevant today, even though everybody seems to ignore them. He understood adaptation. He understood that his runners had had to do more than run. He was an innovator in shoe design in the 1950’s by making special shoes for his runners. He was a generalist in that coached other events and even coached football as an assistant at University of Oregon. His mantra was “Stress, recover, improve, that’s all training is.” If you want to learn about training and read some great stories read this book. When I finished I could not help but think what Bowerman would think of the state of the sport of Track & Field today – I think I know – he would not have been happy and he would have done something about it!