Picture Eugene-Springfield on a typical Saturday.

Now take away the joggers. Every one of them. All shapes and sizes.

Mentally remove every trail and path created to give them a place to run. While you’re at it, erase the sneakers from the feet of thousands of other area residents of all ages.

That should drive home just a few of the ways this community would be different had there been no Bill Bowerman.

Which, in turn, shows why Kenny Moore’s “Bowerman and the Men of Oregon” (432 pages, Rodale, $17.95) is the perfect Readin’ in the Rain pick as Eugene prepares to host the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials this summer.

The 2006 biography is a great way for locals never baptized by the roar of a Hayward Field crowd to get up to speed on the history of Track Town USA

***Nice little video down at the bottom***