This morning I sent you some things on Wade Bell and afterward remembered I had another source, Kenny Moore's book "Bowerman and the Men of Oregon". Here are a few excerpts. Kenny was such a wonderful writer and had such great material to work with. These are sections referring to Wade Bell. There are a few others, but these are the most immediate, that describe events in Wade Bell's life and his sentiments.
p. 186
Bill (Bowerman) didn't try to capitalize on his leadership in the rubber asphalt field, at least financially, but he was always proud of his research. He kept his mixer around for years, generating, when runways needed fixing, a few jobs for the daring. This was because rain would seep into the mixer. When it was turned on and its heater fired up , the trapped water would flash to steam and spatter its scalding contents far and wide, leaving lasting scars on anyone within range.
Bowerman had a few himself. In 1963 Charles Wade Bell of Ogden, Utah had won the prestigious Golden West high school mile in 4:17.1. In July, he visited the Oregon campus. Keith Forman brought him to the track.
"There was a man at the end of the long-jump runway with a cement mixer full of rubber asphalt, " Belll would remember. "We got closer and saw he had holes burned in his overalls and his boots were smoking. Keith introduced us and Bill crushed my hand and left it covered with hot tar."
Bell savored the aroma. He'd saved a newspaper clipping about Burleson's 3:58.6 mile in 1960 (paced by Ernie Cunliffe of Stanford. ed.) and had been reading about Bowerman's oddities ever since. "I'd concluded that Bill had coached more sub-four-minute milers than anyone," Bell would say, "and since that was what I wanted to be, Oregon was where I should go. But he exceeded my every expectation. He looked like he'd come through a disaster in a steel mill."
pp. 195-196
In the spring of 1966 Oregon long jumper Bob Woodell was injured and rendered paraplegic. Bowerman organized a special race to raise funds to help Woodell. This is where Wade Bell broke 4:00. ed.
On May 6, 8000 of the faithful showed up at twilight and paid a dollar to witness the varsity go against selected alums. Paramedics wheeled Woodell onto the field on a stretcher, green blankets and white sheet cinched over his chest. Given an ovation, he worked his arms free and waved and shook hands with the athletes, giving them the strength that only comes upon us when we are running for a larger good. It was in that atmosphere that Roscoe Divine, Wade Bell, Jim Grelle, and Dyrol Burleson stepped to the line in the mile.
Bell would recall Bowerman's prerace instructions: "We've done a lot of work to make you ready," Bill aid, "and you are, so here's how we're going to do this. Take over the lead on the second lap and keep the pace up all th e way in." Half miler Dn Scott led early reaching the quarter in 59.0. Mike Crunican brought them by the 880 mark in 1:59. Bell, following his orders, surged into the lead.
Everyone's supercharged nerves mad for a tightly jostling pack. On the next turn, as they disappeared behind the stands, Grelle was kicked i the ankle so hard he lost the use of it and had to drop out. Down the backstretch of the third lap, Divine moved to second behind Bell. Burleson went with him.
From then on, historians agree, the noise of the crowd exceeded any previous sound heard at Hayward Field. "Wade made the race," Divine would say. "He took the whole third lap." The time at three-quarters was 2:59.0.
"I led all the way to the last backstretch, " Bell would say, "when Burley took off around me, and then Roscoe." Burleson won going away in 3:57.3, Divine maintained form and finished in 3:59.1, becoming the second college freshman ever to break 4:00, after Ryun.
Bell, coming off the turn, felt, "I'm not going to make it." Panic drove him in in 3:59.8......
"At the end Bill gave my family $10,000, and that went a long way," Woodell would say later. "But the energy that came from being there so far overshadowed the money that I simply can't encompass it. It let me deal with all the issues that lay ahead."
What happened in Mexico City?
p. 231
...."I am convinced, " Bowerman would say some years later, "that it would have been thirteen wins and another world record had not Wade Bell come down with Montezuma's revenge before the heats in the 800." Bell had lost seven pounds between the team's arrival in Mexico and when he ran.
"His workouts had been amazing, " Bill would recall. "only two men in the world had a chance against him, and their tactics in the final would have set him up perfectly. Wilson Kiprugat of Kenya went out hard, and Ralph Doubell of Australia sat on him. Wade would have gone by Ralph just as Ralph went by Kiprugat. Doubell won in a world record 1:44.3. Wade would have been the first man to crack 1:44."
As it was, Bell walked the streets of Mexico until dawn, trying to reconcile himself to the fact that microbes on a random piece of bacon had so destroyed his world.
As a CPA Wade Bell helped Bowerman with his finances after Nike went big time. Bowerman liked to donate to multiple charities.
p. 394....
Bowerman referred all appeals to Bell, who would carry all the worthy ones to Bill and the board. Barbara Bowerman is on record that Bell saved "untold millions" by reining n Bill's first impulses. Bell, for his part , is justly proud of never, on his own, suggesting a single gift that Bill might want to make. Neither di he ever own a share of Nike stock. "I was not going to have a shadow of conflict of interest," he once said.
And so this brings us to conclude and admire the life of a man I met once and who gave me an autograph. A man I could not more recently have picked out in a crowd, but who has provided all of us some remarkable tales of times past, times forgotten. R.I.P. , Wade Bell.
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