EUGENE, Ore. – Long before this Willamette Valley college town declared itself “Tracktown USA,” North Eugene High School vice principal Bob Newland and Bill Rau, like Newland an Oregon Track Club official, appeared before the U.S.
Olympic Committee on August 11, 1971, in New York. Newland and Rau had been invited by the USOC’s track and field committee to New York along with officials from Los Angeles to present their cities’ bids to host the 1972 Olympic Trials. Los Angeles pitched a two-day competition at the Coliseum to the USOC and insisted a meet any longer than that risked the “profitability” of the Trials.
Newland proposed holding the Trials in Eugene over 11 days to mirror the competition schedule of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. “Properly staged,” Newland said, “a track meet is a thing of beauty.” There was audible laughter from the Los Angeles delegation when Newland laid out the Oregon Track Club’s plan.
The USOC by a vote of 39-6 awarded Eugene the 1972 Trials. Those Trials were so successful that Eugene was later awarded the 1976 and 1980 Trials as well. It was the last time American track and field failed to take the persuasive powers of Eugene and its allies seriously.
An unprecedented fifth consecutive U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene open Friday at Hayward Field, extending and highlighting Tracktown’s grip on the sport that Newland and Rau could not have envisioned that day in New York more than a half-century ago.
Of this decade’.