Social Worker Meets Race Walker and a Wonderful Partnership is Born By Joey Blum Maureen Pollock and Goetz Klopfer are not sit-around types. I was lucky to catch up with them before they left for Las Vegas for the Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament. Conversation with these two ranges widely from Goetz’s birth in Germany, to Maureen’s career in oncological social work; to Lebanese food (Maureen’s heritage), and to Goetz’s experience competing in two memorable Olympic Games charged with protest and tragic violence. The 1968 and 1972 Olympics have historical significance beyond the games themselves, and Goetz has memories and thoughts about both that will be better appreciated if you speak with him in person. At age 77, Goetz is training for the World Masters Championships in Toronto, Canada. Maureen is a The busy Track Town couple, Goetz ubiquitous face at all Oregon Track Club functions, from Klopfer and Maureen Pollock gatherings, to track and field meets, to board meetings. Maureen does whatever is needed. With an aptitude for math and science, Maureen might have become an engineer like Goetz, but she says the technical professions were not welcoming to women in her career-forming years. Instead, she became a social worker specializing in children with cancer. She had a varied career working in this challenging field and used her skills helping others deal with health challenges, mortality, and its impact on patients, family members, and health care workers. Maureen developed training for health care workers in health support environments. She is rightly proud of building a supportive community for her colleagues. Goetz was born in 1942 in Merseburg, Germany. As a child, he moved with his family to Michigan. He started his competition career in the crowded world of distance runners and then discovered he had a talent for race-walking. Goetz knows how to walk: walk fast and walk long. Goetz represented the United States at two Summer Olympics; Mexico City in 1968, finishing tenth in the 50K racewalk, and then Munich in 1972. He also won the 20km event at the 1971 Pan American Games. A lifetime engineer, Goetz worked for Boeing in Seattle on the Super Sonic Transport Jet (S.S.T.) in the early seventies until the program was defunded. He and thousands of other engineers received pink slips in 1971. A billboard in Seattle read, “Will the last person to leave please turn out the lights.” Goetz decided he would never work for a big company again. He remained an engineer and distinguished himself in the field. The couple, who both lived in Michigan as children, then in California, finally met each other in the Bay Area while helping to organize a walking marathon. Goetz, always one to measure his pace, says he waited six months before making any overtures to Maureen. continued Partnership The couple moved to Eugene in 2012 where Maureen quickly became a fixture at Hayward Field and in the Oregon Track Club. With the move, she retired from social work and filled the void by translating her skills into her love of track and field. She has worn many and varied hats while serving the OTC and others. Pollock was recently presented the Arlene Noviello Award for her outstanding OTC volunteer work. In her role as a Certified Track and Field Official, she had planned to move into weights and measures this year at Hayward Field. The couple shares a love of women’s sports. You can find them in their season seats for track and field, women’s softball, and basketball games. Goetz said it took some persuasion by Maureen to get him interested in spectating. “I was always a competitor, so had little interest in sitting around watching others instead of doing something myself.” After an hour with Maureen and Goetz, I asked that we continue with more conversation in the future. An hour was simply not enough time with these two interesting members of our Oregon Track Club community.