PULLMAN, Wash.–William H. “Bill” Moos received Washington State University’s Alumni Achievement Award Saturday, Feb. 14, at halftime of the WSU-Oregon basketball game on Friel Court.
Since he was hired as athletic director at the University of Oregon in 1995, the former WSU football standout has initiated more than $140 million in improvements to the UO athletic complex. A $90 million renovation of Autzen Stadium was completed in 2002, adding a new press box and 12,000 seats (capacity is now 53,000) and 23 VIP suites. In recent years, the UO has built the Ed Moshofsky Sports Center, the Casanova Center and adjacent playing fields, and outfitted Autzen with a $4 million scoreboard in 1998.
Moo serves on a number of Pac-10 Conference, Rose Bowl and NCAA committees.
Raised on an eastern Washington wheat and cattle ranch at Edwall, he chose to enroll at WSU over West Point and the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he had received appointments. He graduated from high school in Olympia, where his father, Donald W. Moos, a 1947 WSU graduate in animal science, was state director of agriculture and later the state director of fisheries. The senior Moos received the WSU alumni award in 1976.
Moos was captain of the1972 Cougar football team, earned first-team All-Pac-8 and All-Coast honors as an offensive lineman and played in the East-West Shrine Football Game.
After completing a degree in history in 1974, he worked briefly in Washington, D.C., as director of community and congressional relations for the Civil Aeronautics Board. He went on to own and manage private businesses in Washington and Oregon.
In 1982, Moos began his career in athletic administration at WSU. He was director of athletic development for 5 1/2 years and associate athletic director for nearly two years. Under his watch, WSU Athletics generated its first $1 million year in annual giving in 1984 and improved each succeeding year.
In 1990, the University of Montana hired Moos, then 39, as one of the youngest Division I athletic directors in the country. During 5 1/2 years in Missoula, more than $4 million in improvements were made to athletic facilities, and private and corporate gifts to athletics increased 300 percent.
