Will Drinkwater, 9+ years later

Will Drinkwater with (left) Venuste Niyongabo in 2004 and (right) at Stanford in 2013.

I randomly caught up with Danny Drinkwater at the Prefontaine Classic and he gave me an update on his son Will.  On a Nike Heritage trip to Eugene in 2004 we met Will.  He was thrilled to have his picture taken with Venuste Niyongabo, a Nike employee and the 1996 Olympic gold medalist at 5000 meters.  Today I found out that Will was inspired by our chance encounter and he is currently a runner at Stanford ... which means that he is both fast, and smart!  I plan to follow Will's career at Stanford and post what I hear..

Memories of Steve Prefontaine

I took a group to Pre's Rock the day before the 2013 Prefontaine Classic.  Rhoda Krause, a reporter for KMTR at the time, had a camera and asked to do a quick interview.  The story aired that evening and Rhoda wrote the following article.

1974: Europe Competition

An Oregon workout.  Left to Right ..
Steve Prefontaine, Knut Kvalheim,
Steve Bence,  Mark Feig, Lars Kaupang

In 2001 I was asked to share my 1974 amateur racing experience in Europe.  This past week I was asked again.

I have a lot of content from that summer of 1974.  Pictures.  Diary.  News articles.

I'll see if I can organize what I have and present it in an interesting way.  It was a great adventure.

First, some context.

Pre's Rock: The Story of the Accident

Pre's overturned car.  May 30, 1975.

I went to Eugene today with Nike's Product Costing team.  Our last stop was Pre's Rock where I tell the story of Pre's death.

As I was speaking, a man who was cleaning the shrubbery along Skyline stopped his work, leaned against his rake, and listened.  As I lead up to the point of the actual accident he raised his hand.  I stopped and asked if he had a question.

He asked me, "Do you want to know what really happened?" .......

Feb 6: Geoff Hollister passes

Left picture:  Me "modeling" the Cortez
Right picture clockwise:  Geoff Hollister, John Woodman,
Tinker Hatfield, Steve Bence, Bill Dellinger

Rembering Geoff Hollister

For me, Geoff has always embodied the Nike passion for sport. Serve the athlete. Product excellence.

Feb 3: Geoff Hollister's Birthday

The Oregon Track team and OTC elite team dedicate their February 3rd workout to Geoff Hollister.

Blog by Paul Merca

RICHMOND, British Columbia--While preparing my notes to announce Saturday's Harry Jerome Indoor track meet at the Richmond Olympic Oval, I saw several tweets and Facebook posts noting that February 3rd is Geoff Hollister's birthday.

Ellen Devlin: We Grew Wings

We Grew Wings teaser

Ellen emailed: "Today's Oregonian / OregonLive linked our teaser and website"

The full OregonLive article is copy-pasted below:

Kara Goucher: Change is Hard

Kara Goucher made a difficult change last fall after the 2011 World Championships.  More on that below.

But first, Oregon-based training partners Kara Goucher and Shalane Flanagan just finished 1st and 3rd in the Olympic Trials to make the 2012 US Olympic marathon team.

Our 2012 Olympians:

Women: 1-Shalane Flanagan 2-Desi Davila (Arizona St) 3-Kara Goucher (Col)

Men:  1-Meb Keflezighi (UCLA) 2-Ryan Hall (Stanford) 3-Abdi Abdirahman (Arizona)

Back to Kara.

Bob Welch: Get ready for a year to remember

Bob Welch, a Eugene Register Guard columnist, wrote about the upcoming year. Included was mention of Bill Bowerman and the upcoming Olympic Trials.

Here is a portion of Bob's article ...