Jeff Johnson:
Well I was very briefly in Eugene. I lived in Portland and I only came down for the weekend track meets and stayed for the meet and drove home. I was just a casual visitor, but clearly Eugene was a place unlike anywhere I had ever been for a track meet with the possible exception, and the notable exception, of the 1962 U.S.A./ U.S.S.R meet (in the Stanford stadium). That was just unbelievable for a meet. But, other than that, just an average meet in Eugene was exciting. Of course those were the days when Pre was the show and Bowerman’s presence was still strong. Although Bowerman had already handed the reins over to Bill Dellinger, there was the memory of all the great runners that he had coached and now leading into Pre, whom Dellinger was actually coaching, the fan base was still very strong. The excitement that Pre had generated was reinvigorating.
It [Hayward Field] was a unique place and I think a lot of it is the nature of the place itself. The mere fact that the stands have a roof on them makes it a sound chamber on that track. I don’t think that the fans are unaware of that because when things went on on the track and they wanted to make a noise, they did. It was just an exciting place to watch a track meet. I think it is an enormously exciting place to be an athlete participating in a track meet.
I knew a gentleman who ran sprints for the Air Force Academy who competed in Eugene in those days. He was just staggered by the experience. He had never been to a track meet like that. He learned something from the starter at that meet which he thought was a cut above any starter he had ever run in front of. He had since become a coach on his own and started high school meets. I complimented him once on what a great job he was doing with these young kids and he said he learned it all in Eugene in this one day of competition. He said the officials, everybody, just treated the athletes so well and the energy was so high. It was just a unique place.
I was there for the 76 and 80 trials and clearly I think, I saw athletes do things in those trials that I have never seen before or since. There was one steeplechase title in 1976. I remember one athlete [Mike Roche] was storming into second place at the last hurdle and he caught the hurdle and pitched forward – the way you just do when you are surprised at the last hurdle by actually snagging it. You think you are over it and all of the sudden you are not. You don’t have any time to catch yourself because you just can’t react any faster because you are exhausted and you have already begun your final sprint. You misjudged it. You didn’t have what it took. You go on the track.
He just hit the track like a ton of bricks and third place, the guy that was in third, swept by him at that precise moment and was just headed to the finish. But this guy picked himself off the track! He had a broken jaw and a dislocated knee as it turned out. From that fall, between there and the finish, he regained third place and made the Olympic Team. It was just unbelievable. He had zero momentum. But somehow he picked his shattered body up, closed and got it back. He was completely wrecked and he made the Olympic team. It was a super human effort and I don’t think (although I don’t know) that would have taken place in Los Angeles or in Indianapolis or anywhere else. It was Eugene and the Olympic Trials.
Then there was another one, also a steeplechase, different year, 1980. This guy [Ron Addison] was hanging on to the final position [3rd place for the last Olympic slot] after the last hurdle down the home stretch and he got challenged and caught by a guy [John Gregorek]. He tried moving to the outer lanes to drive this guy wide and it was clear that wasn’t going to be enough so he started hitting him! He beamed on the guy because he was taking his dream away from him. He just reached his hand over and whacked him and whacked him. I have never seen that before in a track meet – just sheer desperation - he was fighting for his life. Gregorek took that spot away from Addison in the home stretch, but not without a fight. Poor John he just was so surprised. He kind of veered to the right and away from the fence and Addison had nothing left except just to hit at the guy. You saw athletes just spend themselves in those days (at least I did) in front of that crowd and in that manner like I have never seen them spend themselves anywhere else. They were there to do what they came there to do, to realize their dreams. It is a place of dreams. It is a place where dreams come true, it is place where dreams are broken. [Addison ended up breaking his collarbone diving to a fourth place finish and subsequent disqualification. Gregorek secured the third and final Olympic slot].
I also remember this - I think it was the 76 trials where the two top 400 meter hurdlers in the nation came to Eugene, both undefeated and one was world record holder. It was just a matter of who was going to be second. They went out so fast and they went so hard at each other that neither one of them made the Olympic team. They died a horrible death in the home stretch opening the way for three unknown hurdlers one of whom was a young Edwin Moses. The second was Mike Shine –whom nobody ever heard of, from Penn State and another kid from San Diego State named Quentin Wheeler. And here the two favorites of the race ended up going down in flames in front of that crowd trying to snag the world record and dominate each other. It turned out Moses and Shine went 1 and 2 two in Montreal [76 Olympics] and I think Wheeler got in the final. They represented their country very well but the best hurdlers in the world never got out of Eugene. Again I don’t know that they would have been so reckless anyplace but Eugene. The energy is like a drug that comes out of the atmosphere. It is just an amazing place.