She charged off the Bowerman Curve, running harder, as she had been taught, and here it came. Alex Kosinski had heard about it, but now she heard it, and felt it.

The noise. Rising as she arrived in the straightaway. Willing her ever faster toward the finish line.

Afterward, the precocious Oregon freshman credited the crowd with helping her to victory in the 1,500 meters. On a cold, soggy Saturday afternoon, Kosinski’s personal best of 4:19.88 just missed ranking among the top 10 times in school history.

She gushed: “I love it here. I love the crowd, when you’re finishing and everyone is cheering. ... I could hear it coming in.”

Oh, and there was one other thing.

“I watched myself in the ‘globo-tron,’ ” Kosinski said.

Old-school, meet new-school. Historic Hayward Field, meet the iPod generation.

Kosinski meant JumboTron, though that’s not the proper name for the new, $1.5 million video scoreboard. Looming five stories above the south end of the track, it proclaims “Historic Hayward Field.”

It also signals the evolution of the hallowed facility.

Saturday afternoon at the Pepsi Invitational, a dose of wintry weather didn’t dampen much. Oregon’s men handily won the four-team meet. Oregon’s women narrowly lost. Several Ducks set personal records. And there was plenty of fast-paced action in a meet designed to be, as UO associate director of track and field Dan Steele put it, “spectator-friendly.”

Here’s what else was.... READ MORE

by: George Schroeder - The Register Guard