Crews added a crown atop the Hayward Field tower on Feb. 1, according to the Hayward Field Renovation website. Now, the University of Oregon said steel panels will be added with images that will honor UO track and field icons.
The only image currently displayed on the crown shows former Olympic and UO track and field head coach and innovator Bill Bowerman speaking to an unnamed Oregon athlete. The remaining two-foot by eight-foot panels will depict Steve Prefontaine, Raevyn Rogers, Ashton Eaton and Otis Davis, the renovation website stated.
The tower is 10 stories tall and will include a lobby with interpretive exhibits, an observation deck below the crown and office space reserved for UO track and field coaching staff. The renovation website said the tower will also display “tributes to many athletes and special moments” in addition to the UO athletic figures displayed on the outside.
From 1948 to 1972, Bowerman was the UO head coach and led Oregon to four NCAA team titles, and he went on to co-found Nike with Phil Knight, the renovation website stated. He passed away in 1999.
Prefontaine won seven NCAA titles and broke 14 national records before he was killed in a car crash at 24 years old, according to the renovation website.
Rogers, a six-time NCAA champion, won the 2017 Bowerman award. The U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association gives the award, named after UO’s Bill Bowerman, annually “to the most outstanding male and female NCAA track & field athletes in the nation,” the award’s website stated.
Eaton, who also won The Bowerman Award in 2010, was a two-time Olympic gold medalist and five-time NCAA champion, according to the renovation website.
Davis won two gold medals at the 1960 Olympics, breaking world records in both the 400 meters and 4×400-meter relay, the renovation website stated
The 2020 Pac-12 Championships for Track and Field on May 16-17 will be the first event held at Hayward Field since summer of 2018, when the construction began, according to a press release from UO’s Athletic Department.
