[7] With such sporadic coaching changes, the Oregon track and field team struggled with inconsistencies,[8] although the university did win six of seven meets in 1895.

[13] After his service in World War II, Bowerman was hired by Oregon to replace the retiring Hayward after John Warren's single year as interim head coach.

[14] He stressed schoolwork over athletics and urged his pupils to apply the values they learned participating in track and field to everyday life.

The award is given annually as the highest honor for the best collegiate track and field athlete of the year, one each for men and for women.

[19][20] Prefontaine had never lost a race longer than a mile during his collegiate career and won a total of seven NCAA championships in track and field and cross country.

[27] After earning his MBA from Stanford, he returned to the University of Oregon where he and Bowerman struck a handshake deal in 1964, each with a $500 investment into a company called Blue Ribbon Sports to import Japanese running shoes.

[31] The Bill Dellinger Invitational is an annual cross country race held by the University of Oregon in honor of the coach.

[32] Hired as a physical education graduate student in 1975, Tom Heinonen, was promoted to the head coach for the women's cross country and track and field team in 1977.

[34] He retired in 2003, after which the University of Oregon Athletic Department decided to combine the men's and women's programs under one head coach.

[35] In 2005, Vin Lananna was hired to become the track and field head coach, replacing Martin Smith who resigned after the previous season.

[4] Robert Johnson was Vin Lanana's first hire, originally to lead throws, hurdles, and sprints, then in 2009, was named the associate head coach for women's track.

[37] By 2011, the year before Johnson took over as head coach, every women's sprint school record for distances still actively run, for both outdoor and indoor track and field, had been broken.

[39] Several months later, the Oregon's women's program entered the NCAA Outdoor National Championship meet as favorites to win the title.

Johnson defended the use of certain technologies such as DEXA scans, that monitor bone density and body fat, saying they take human bias out of the equation.

[42] In 2022, a few weeks before the World Athletics Championships, held at Hayward Field, it was announced that the University of Oregon would not renew Johnson's contract, but there were no specific reasons given for doing so.

[44] The people involved in the Oregon track and field program have led changes that benefited professional athletes and coaches, as well as running enthusiasts.

He also discovered similarities in running posture between sprinters and top level distance runners, two disciplines previously thought to be exceedingly different.

Instilling some of these methods into American runners, he was able to coach Kara Goucher to a third-place finish in the Boston Marathon in 2009, an event that East Africans typically dominate.

[61][62] Mo Farah and alumnus Galen Rupp were training partners under Salazar and finished first and second respectively in the 2012 Summer Olympics in the 10k.

[69] Following the announcement of hosting the World Championships, plans began to renovate Hayward Field to meet the specifications of the IAAF.

In a highly controversial decision, Hayward Field was completely redesigned, including knocking down the iconic east grandstand.

A tower on the northeast corner evokes an Olympic torch, clad with the images of five Oregon track legends Bill Bowerman, Steve Prefontaine, Raevyn Rogers, Ashton Eaton, and Otis Davis.

[74] However, due to budgetary concerns, Oregon State University dropped the track and field program in 1988 and the rivalry ended.

The UCLA Bruins became an Oregon rival in track and field as the two powerhouse programs battled each other in a series of dual meets.

[83] It wasn't until 1978 that Oregon earned its first victory in the series, which ended UCLA's 34 dual meet winning streak.

Prior to Bill Hayward in 1904, four coaches led the Oregon track and field teams for just one year including Joseph W. Wetherbee (1895), J.C. Higgins (1897), C.A.

Mel Renfro is primarily known for being inducted into the Professional Football Hall of Fame[90] but he also achieved a world record in the 440 yard relay in 1962 while running in the track and field program for Oregon.

This includes the 1980 Summer Olympics which the United States boycotted, when Chris Braithwaite competed for Trinidad, his native country.

In 2022, the World Athletics Championship, delayed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was hosted at Hayward Field, the first time the meet was held on American soil.

The Oregon track and field team members and alumni sent 15 athletes to the meet, but only two athletes, Jenna Prandini and Kemba Nelson, received medals, both in the Women's 4x100m event,[92] although Devon Allen, one of the favorites to medal was disqualified in the 110-meter hurdles in a highly controversial incident where he started 0.099 seconds after the gun, just shy of the allowable 0.1 seconds of the reaction time.