Saturday, June 14, 2008

A preview...

Here are what I consider to be a few of the many intriguing paragraphs in Kenny Moore's Bowerman and The Men of Oregon book.

Before the war, that thoughtful teacher Lizzie Bowerman had sent a letter to Hayward. "I have asked my son which of his instructors he considered had done the most for him," she wrote, "and without a moment's hesitation he named you. I am sure there are many boys who feel the same as Bill does, and I hope they have told you so. You are a teacher who is a friend and who imparts a spiritual development and inspiration."

Bill had done as his mother had hoped. He'd told Hayward what he meant to him several times, in several contexts. So that week, as eulogy followed eulogy and masses of men that Hayward had escoreted from boyhood returned to voice their gratitutde, Bowerman was content that he had spoken while the man was alive to hear it.

He took from his scrapbook a photograph of Hayward, in shirtsleeves and suspenders, leaning on a hurdle. He had it framed behind glass, to preserve what Hayward had written on it: "Live each day so you can look a man square in the eye and tell him to go to hell!! ' Bill' Hayward." Then he hung it in a little alcove outside his office door, where he would see it at the beginning and end of the day. And where anyone waiting to speak with him might pause and reconsider.

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