May 5, 2022
I saw the brief note of Kenny Moore's death in Walt Murphy's This Day in Track and Field yesterday. It struck hard, because the world is now without one of it's really wonderful individuals. Kenny Moore was a star in so many ways both as an athlete and a writer, as a human being, even a film star who might have been. After his role in Personal Best, Kenny was offered the male lead in the upcoming Flashdance, but he turned it down.
An average runner in high school in Eugene, he became a teammate of Pre, a disciple of Bowerman, a national champion and a world class runner. While strolling through Bill Dellinger's home several years ago, I remember seeing a picture on the wall of Bill finishing a race at Hayward Field and Kenny, a high school student with flattop, watching intently from the infield.
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| Bill asking us , Guess who? The high school kid on the sideline? Kenny Moore |
Roy and George at Bill's place
My blog partner Roy Mason and I were in Eugene one weekend for the Prefontaine meet in late May and went to two special invites through Rick Lower, my grad school friend who has been with Nike since it was a startup called Blue Ribbon Sports. First he took us to Dellinger's house where Bill showed us the picture seen above.
Later that day we went to the pub where Pre had once worked as a bartender and found ourselves in a gathering of the old Men of Oregon, former UO distance runners. We met Kenny that afternoon and had a brief conversation with him. By then Kenny was experiencing the debilitating effects of Parkinson's Disease and his speech was not easy to understand, but boy did he have a sense of humor and willingness to share thoughts with us. Roy, in his ubiquitous nonchalance paid him a compliment about his acting in Personal Best which Kenny co-wrote. It went something like when the lead female was manipulating Kenny's private parts, that it was the greatest piece of acting that Roy had ever seen on film. Kenny started laughing and almost fell off the stool. When I asked him to sign my copy of his book "Men of Oregon", he signed it "Thanks for understanding. Kenny Moore" No doubt a reference to the speech difficulties he was having at the time.
The last anecdote we have about Kenny as told by Rick Lower was when Rick drove me up north of Eugene to the town of Coburg and showed me the spot where Kenny broke down one Sunday on a training run. It was a filling station now called Blingy Barn Antiques about 5km from Eugene. He had just come back from winning a couple of events at the Pac 8 Conference meet and was really fired up. Bowerman told him to either take Sunday off or just jog a very short way. Kenny went north on a hard ten and got injured no more than three miles out. He called his mom from the gas station, but she wasn't available to pick him up, so he called Bowerman who was really pissed at Kenny's reluctance to following orders. After lifting him off his feet, by the collar, Bowerman then asked him about the shoes he was wearing. When he saw them, he didn't like them and tore them in half on the spot. That may have been what led Bowerman to design the Oregon Waffle Trainer or a precursor. He just said, "These shoes are shit." and drove Kenny back to campus.
Where the Dream Began
Kenny on the left with Canadian Andy Boychuck at the
Springbank Road Races in London, Ontario mid 1970's
So much has been said already about Kenny Moore that we can add very little except these few short events in his life.
May you have found peace and a great route to run like the wind, Kenny.
Roger Robinson has written an excellent review of Kenny Moore's life which we encourage you to read at the link below.
So sad to hear about Kenny Moore. I saw him run at Springbank, probably the day of the picture you posted. I also talked with him in Eugene at a booth for T&F books at the Trials in 2008. He was having trouble speaking at that time and I was thinking it might be dementia but evidently Parkinson's. He was a self-made runner or probably a Bowerman-made runner who wrote extensively, mostly about other people. I remember reading one of his articles, I believe in Sports Illustrated, about standout runners in their youth who could not beat runners who started later in life. It was his and others' opinion that they had not used up their ability to run as much as their ability to compete.
Bill Schnier
Hi George,
Thank you for this post about Kenny Moore; sorry to hear of his passing, but it sounds like he lived a very full life.
Although I did not get to meet Kenny Moore, I did get to know his writing fairly early in my athletic journey. Back in 1988, I was fully hooked on track & field; I was soon to be a freshman in HS, and duking it out on the summer track circuit with some guys I’d compete with for years to come.
The Summer of 1988 was an exciting time for a T&F fan, especially for a youngster. Steve Cram was young and fast, and was in a back-and-forth with Said Aouita of Morocco in the mile/1500 as they both tried to beat each other and set world records in the process. Dad had found some books about HS training in Europe, and Steve Cram was mentioned, and had run some amazing times, even as a young teenager. So I considered myself a big Steve Cram fan.
So we were on vacation in Summer 1988, and I brought along a copy of Dad’s Sports Illustrated. I got to the above article, and read it very intently. Pretty sure I read it word-for-word to Dad; I was really hoping Steve Cram would be in top form for the Olympics - the above article sounded like Cram might be rounding into form at the right time.
After I finished reading, Dad said “did Kenny Moore write that article?”
Dad explained that Kenny Moore was a great writer; years later I learned he was a great runner, too.
Thanks for all the background in the blog. I watched Without Limits years ago and thought it was a great movie; I didn’t realize Kenny Moore was behind that movie until yesterday’s post.
We hope you and your family are well.
John Mizell
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