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