Many former Oregon State track and field athletes were understandably angry when the university scuttled the program in 1988.

So when the school decided to rekindle the program and eventually build a new on-campus track facility in Corvallis, which will host its first meet in March, it worked hard to soothe any bitterness and generate support from its alumni.

That is where Redmond resident Gerry Church was of so much help, says Doug Oxsen, OSU’s director of development for athletics and the person in charge of the fundraising effort to build the track facility.

“Without Gerry really stepping up … maybe we wouldn’t be sitting here looking at one of the nicest tracks in America,” says Oxsen, who credits Church with making the first significant donation to the $7.5 million Whyte Track and Field Center (named after lead donor and former OSU track runner Jim Whyte), back in 2007.

Oxsen is clear that Central Oregon is not home to the largest group of contributors, a group that includes Whyte, on the Whyte project’s first phase — which includes a nine-lane track with a state-of-the-art surface and synthetic turf infield. But Church did help get the ball rolling, and he is but one of several Central Oregonians who have pitched in to get Oregon State back on track, Oxsen says.

Former OSU track and field athletes such as Church, La Pine’s Tim Fox, Sunriver’s John Salzer and Bend’s Mike Jackson offered some financial and other support. For instance, Fox, a Bend High graduate who was an All-America discus thrower for the Beavers in 1979 and 1980, helped organize other track alumni through email, Oxsen says. Bend’s Denfeld family — daughter Lauren, a Mountain View High graduate, helped spark the women’s track team in 2004 by becoming OSU’s first-ever runner in the 3,000-meter steeplechase — contributed money to the building of the facility.

Strong ties

What is the motivation for the Central Oregonians?

“It’s been a very strong and proud tradition for a long time and it’s given many the opportunity to pursue intercollegiate athletic dreams at (the NCAA) Division I level, as well as good academics,” writes Fox, a quadriplegic after a 2001 accident on a beach in Hawaii who communicates best via email. “And it gives many, especially in-state athletes, a chance to continue competing at a high level.”

A national power in the late 1960s and 1970s that produced revolutionary Olympic high-jumper Dick Fosbury, creator of the “Fosbury flop” who has been instrumental in spurring the Whyte Center, Oregon State’s program was discontinued in 1988. But when OSU began reviving the track program, something that began in 2004 with the start of a women’s team, at least some of the supporters of the restoration decided to leave any hard feelings behind.

“(Track) got me through college, otherwise I would have never made it,” says Church, an 80-year-old retired Miller Brewing Co. executive who threw the javelin for OSU in the mid-1950s.

“I just wanted to give back,” Church adds. “It is important to me because it helped me and maybe I can help somebody else.”

For the Denfelds, who own Denfeld Paints in Bend, contributing to the program is a way of helping an extended family.

“To watch what Kelly (OSU coach Kelly Sullivan) has done with that program has been really, really exciting,” says Shari Denfeld, an OSU graduate who continues to support the university’s track team years after her daughter graduated in 2009. “It’s like taking baby steps … but with that comes a certain appreciation.”

The school is still raising funds for the facility’s second phase, which will include grandstands, a press box, a scoreboard and a hammer throw area. Oxsen says he hopes the second phase will be in place by 2015. The final phase of OSU’s track and field push will establish a $5 million endowment to support a men’s team.

But track and field at Oregon State has already come a long way since the OSU women began competing in 2004.

A future power?

Salzer, of Sunriver, has given considerable financial support to help get the Whyte project off the ground. And he has already volunteered to be an official when OSU hosts in-state schools Portland and Willamette on March 23 in what will be the first track and field event held at OSU since 1988.

He thinks with a new home and the state of Oregon’s track and field talent, the Beavers could eventually return to being a national force competing with the likes of intrastate rival and longtime NCAA powerhouse Oregon.

“(The University of) Oregon can’t provide enough scholarships to take ALL the best that the state produces, and we produce some really good talent,” says Salzer, 69. “This is going to be healthy for Central Oregon, because it doubles the opportunities right now for the women, but also will improve (opportunities) for the men, down the road.”

Whether it is producing athletes (Kira Kelly, a graduate of Bend’s Summit High and a true freshman at OSU, finished fourth last week in the 3,000 meters at the University of Washington Invitational in Seattle) or providing donations, Oxsen says Central Oregon’s track backers have been crucial to the cause.

“As a cross section, those people signify all the things that make a campaign successful,” says Oxsen. “That speaks volumes about the folks out there in Central Oregon.”

Fox, a former La Pine High School teacher and track coach whose paralysis has confined him to a wheelchair, was reminded last September why he lent his support when he traveled to Corvallis for the facility’s ribbon-cutting ceremony. Seeing the new field on the southeastern corner of the OSU campus, near the school’s softball complex, was a sight he had been waiting to see for nearly 25 years.

“When I first saw it, I thought, ‘What a thing of beauty,’ he recalls.

Then another thought reoccurred to him — the one that had been driving him and his fellow Oregon State alumni to get the Beavers’ track and field program going again.

“It’s been too long,” he remembers thinking. “We’re finally back!”