1924 Olympic Tryouts Held in Eugene
The University of Oregon hosted the 1924 Pacific Coast Olympic Track and Field Tryouts just three years after the installation of the six-lane cinder track at Hayward Field. The trials were held in conjunction with the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference meet and drew more than 130 athletes. The national Olympic tryouts followed two weeks later in Cambridge, Massachusetts. By combining the conference meet with the Olympic tryouts, athletes were able to conserve their training schedules.
Hosting the combined meet required the university to add several events not typically contested at the collegiate level in the 1920s, including the metric distance races (5,000 meters and 10,000 meters), the 3,000-meter walk, and the 3,000-meter steeplechase. To officially accommodate the steeplechase, the university dug out two water jump pits at Hayward Field.
Photo provided by UO Libraries and Special Archives.
“In bringing the conference track meet and the Olympic tryouts to Eugene at the same time, the University of Oregon is staging the biggest meet, perhaps, in the track and field history of the Pacific Coast. It will be a long time before such a galaxy of stars will be gathered together for one meet.”
— Morning Register, April 20, 1924
In November 1923, UO men’s track and field head coach Bill Hayward submitted a bid to host the tryouts in a two-page letter to the president of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU). Hayward emphasized Eugene’s convenient location, the coordination with the collegiate meet, and the region’s favorable weather. He opened the letter with a confident assertion: “Our track, in fact, is considered, by all the athletes who have used it since its recent construction, to be the fastest one on the coast.”
Photo provided by UO Libraries and Special Archives.
Photo provided by UO Libraries and Special Archives.
Members of the Olympic team—including UO pole vaulter Ralph Spearow—later traveled to the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris aboard the S.S. America, accompanied by Bill Hayward (selected as track and field coach for the United States of America).