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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 18, 2000)
With Moos, Oregon is now the hunter, not the game ■ Rebounding from its overall winningest year on record, the athletic department is gearing up to do it again in 2000-01. And director Bill Moos is leading the charge toward their goals By Jeff Smith Oregon Daily Emerald His office in the Casanova Center directly overlooks Pape and Kilken ny Fields, which were a part of the $14.6 million Ed Moshofsky Sports Center project that was completed in 1998 under his guidance. Inside his office there are team photos of Oregon sports from the past five years. There are commemorative foot balls from the Oregon Ducks’ signifi cant bowl games. There is a framed copy of the front page of The Oregonian sports sec tion that features a story on him from his first year on the job back in ‘95. Not to mention, there is a televi sion and a comfortable leather couch to give the office a rather homey feel to it. Despite all of that, however, what has Oregon athletic director Bill Moos smiling the most is a simple, yet gratifying oil panting that hangs on the wall directly across his office desk. It’s a beautifully colored oil panti ng of Moos and his father. But it’s not your typical portrait of a father and son posing for the cam era. It’s an action shot, of the two grown-up kids standing knee-deep in water, fly fishing amid the gor geous background that only Alaska can provide. “Man, I love that picture,” said Moos, recalling that summer day of ‘99. “We had fish on the line all the time. But there was this one 22 pound chum salmon that day, and boy, was it wild. It took me 45 min utes to catch it on my six weight fly rod. “It went up stream and created a rooster tail. And then, bam, it hit me so hard. It went up, in the air and just went right at me. He was going to take me out. “Went back and forth like that five times with it jumping all around be fore I finally hauled it in. Great fun.” Chum salmon are persistent fish that can perform great feats of physi cal effort. During the times of ocean migration, these salmon travel dis tances as great as 35 miles per day. Once they reach their destination, Oregon Athletic Director Bill Moos is the man when it comes to Oregon athletics. He has a major hand in fundraising efforts for the Autzen renovation project, which needs extra attention since the withdrawal of Nike CEO and President Phil Knight’s $30 donation. they don’t quit, swimming over 10 miles upstream per day. And with one flick of the tail, the chum salmon will explode from the water at 14 miles per hour. In direct comparison, there’s Moos and Oregon athletics. Moos came onto the scene in July of ‘95 and quickly helped Oregon become one of the most prominent athletic programs in the nation. Moos and his staff will travel any length and do whatever it takes to further along Oregon’s climb to national prestige. And once he succeeds — such as last year, when 14 of the 16 athletic teams at Oregon reached the post season — he continues working. Planning for the future. You give Moos and the Duck ath letic program one pat on the back, and they’ll turn around and work their collective tail off to succeed once again. Moos recently sat down with the Emerald to discuss this ever growing national presence of Oregon athlet ics, as well as other newsworthy items of the past few months. Q: Oregon Daily Emerald: When you look back to 1990, the signifi cant upward climb of Duck athlet ics over the past ten years is clearly evident, particularly in the past five years. How proud does that make you feel to be a part of that growth? A: I’m extremely proud of the suc cess we’re enjoying right now. We’ve built stability in our program and that’s probably best illustrated through the support we’ve been re ceiving through season ticket sales, attendance at all events and donor gifts to the program — all of which are at an all-time high. Overall, the community and the fans of Oregon athletics have really stood up and taken notice of our ac complishments and continue to support us in a great way. On top of that, we continue to enhance our fa cilities, to the tune of $40 million just in the five years that I’ve been here. Of course, that combined with our success in sports, has attracted some of the top talent in regards to student-athletes in all of our pro grams. But the challenge now, if you don’t mind me rambling on, is to re alize that we are in the upper tier of the Pac-10 and what once was hoped for is now expected. We have to realize that we are no longer the hunter. We are the hunted. Q: The obvious question then is how do you a top a year like last year with most of your athletic teams reaching postseason play? A We continue to strive to have all of our programs realistically com pete for a Pac-10 championship and we’ve got several that are in that po sition right now, and others that are moving towards it. Again, we’re talking about a conference that is the best intercollegiate conference in America. So if we can compete for a league title, then we’ll continue to be recognized across the country. I think this program has every oppor tunity to repeat what it did last year and maybe even better it. We were one of only four colleges in the country that had the men’s and women’s basketball teams in the NCAA Tournament and the football Turn to Bill Moos, page 6E
