Track and Field is Oregon’s most dominate and popular sport other than football and basketball.
Bill Bowerman was a nationally respected track and field coach at the University of Oregon, who was constantly seeking ways to give his athletes a competitive advantage. He experimented with different track surfaces. Phil Knight was a talented middle-distance runner from Portland, who enrolled at Oregon in the fall of 1955 and competed for Bowerman’s track program. Upon graduating from Oregon, Knight earned his MBA in finance from Stanford University, where he wrote a paper that proposed quality running shoes could be manufactured in Japan that would compete with more established German brands.
Steve Prefontaine was one of the most dominant runnings to every run track at the University of Oreogn. When he ran he wore the waffle shoe that Bill Boweman had created with his wifes waffle iron. That shoe was so light and he was winning so many races that that’s when Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman created Blue Ribbon Sports and it eventually changed to Nike. Bill Bowerman passed away a few years ago and Steve Prefontaine died in his early twenties ending a large track carreer ahead of him. Phil Knight is still currently the CEO and president of Nike in Portland, Oregon.
Football
Oregon football is another of the Universities most popular sports. It’s popular right now for it’s uniforms and how dominant their team is right now. If they win tonight they will play in the rose bowl in Pasadena, California on New Year’s Day.
Oregon Football Uniforms
University of Oregon football team is finishing its biggest-ever uniform makeover. One that will give it a dizzying 384 combinations this season. Oregon is in its fourth full uniform redesign since the 1996 Cotton Bowl, giving the team almost as much renown for its garish collection of ever-changing attire as for its success on the field. Ducks have been called “Team Nike” because of the largess of the Beaverton, Ore.-based athletic giant and its co-founder Phil Knight. He graduated from Oregon and has given tens of millions to the school and its athletic department.
“This changes the notion of what’s a uniform,” he says. “They’re not very uniform.”
Or good-looking, he adds: “There’s good design, and there’s bad design. This is bad design.”
I think that Oregen has the sickest unifroms out of any division one college football team. Three hundred and eighty four combinations is a lot. It’s cool how much Nike donates to their football program and all the equipment they get. My dad went to Oregon and he has done some business with Nike. Our family is huge Oregon fans and my dad and I plan on attending the Rose Bowl in Southern California on New Year’s Day against the Ohio State Buckeyes.
