The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.
– Michelangelo
Only the mediocre are always at their best.
– Jean Giraudoux
While Ducks fans work off the well-deserved collective hangover, I thought a little dose of perspective might provide an interesting exercise. Before we settle into becoming complacent, demanding, and impatient, it might do us some good to be reminded just how far the Ducks have come. Believe it or not, there was a time not so very long ago when Oregon football was the punch line to a long-running joke.
Come with me, if you’d be so kind, as we step into the Wayback Machine. We’re about to travel to a time and place when Oregon didn’t have 500 different uniform combinations and a BCS bowl bid every year. Hard to imagine, I know….
It was November 19, 1983. I’d moved to Oregon a few months earlier, a Minnesota boy captivated by the mountains, the ocean, and the tall trees. I was looking forward to a winter that didn’t involve the words “wind chill” and “ice fishing.” Having grown up on the frozen tundra of northern Minnesota, I’d grown accustomed to football futility. The University of Minnesota, never a football factory during the best of times, usually had to look up to see the bottom of the Big Ten. As far as most Minnesotans knew, the Gophers’ primary function was to serve as tackling dummies for Michigan and Ohio State. One or the other invariably made an annual appearance in the Rose Bowl, and they needed to play someone to get ready for their January 1st date with destiny. Unfortunately, since winning a national championship in 1960, Minnesota had been banished to the realm of mediocrity, never to be heard from again.
(If you think I’m kidding, try this one for size. September 17, 1983: Nebraska 84, Minnesota 13. Even worse, the Gophers lost to North Dakota St. (an FCS team) at home in 2010 AND 2011. I rest my case).
My own alma mater, Macalester College (in St. Paul, MN), once set the NCAA all-division record for consecutive football losses (54- and thank God for Prairie View A&M, who took our record and ran it to 88). Yes, I know ugly football, so it was no surprise that I’d moved to a state with TWO less-than-mediocre Division I teams.
Even with my background, there was nothing that could have prepared me for 1983’s Civil War game, which has (deservedly) gained renown as the Toilet Bowl. Played in a cold, driving rain before 33,176 soggy fans at Autzen Stadium, the 2-8 Beavers and 4-6 Ducks put on a show of futility and ineptitude (not exactly) for the ages. The 0-0 final score remains the last scoreless tie in Division I/FCS football (With the advent of overtime, it’s likely to remain that).
(Bonus question: Who were the two starting quarterbacks in the Toilet Bowl?)
The Toilet Bowl featured 11 fumbles, six for turnovers, five interceptions, and four missed field goals. If there’d been a partridge in a pear tree, someone likely would have dropped it like a greased pig.
How bad was it? Well, if the game had been a horse, the poor, hapless thing would have been shot at halftime to put an end to its suffering.
Never have fans of the battle for the coveted Platypus Trophy (don’t ask) been subjected to such prolonged and consistent futility. Midway through the second half, cries of “BORING!!” rang throughout Autzen. Fans were reduced to sarcastically cheering “accomplishments” like first downs and time-outs.
After the game, participants struggled to understand and explain what happened. Words failed and the ones found seemed inadequate to the task. Oregon Coach Rich Brooks summed it up best when he said, “It was almost like neither team wanted to win.”
Neither team wanted to win. I imagine that sentiment was shared by the 33,176 unfortunate souls who bought tickets and made the drive to Eugene (yes, people actually paid to see the game). Thankfully, I wasn’t one of them, though I did watch it on television. I honestly don’t remember what I was thinking at the time, but it couldn’t have been good. No one who sat through the Toilet Bowl or watched it on television could have imagined what the future held for the Ducks. Most of us probably feared for the future.
I do remember the point at which I knew that things had turned around for the Ducks, though: Kenny Wheaton’s 1994 pick-six interception against Washington. It was the break that sent the Ducks to the 1995 Rose Bowl.
“KENNY WHEATON’S GONNA SCORE!!!”
OK, so the Ducks were thumped in that Rose Bowl (38-20) by Penn State, but it was the first step, and the program’s national profile has grown steadily since. After experiencing a bit of success, players, coaches, and fans discovered that it felt pretty good. Slowly, Eugene has come to be seen as less of a lonely outpost; no longer is it roundly ridiculed as college football’s Siberia. The Ducks became an overnight success (about 100 years in the making). Oregon now attracts talented football players from California and Texas. During the ‘70s and ‘80s, I doubt many football players from either state could have found Oregon on a map. Even fewer would have considered playing for the Ducks. Now players like De’Anthony Thomas (California) and LaMichael James (Texas) WANT to play in Eugene.
As if to prove the Duck’s street cred, ESPN’s GameDay comes to Eugene and films commercials on the Oregon campus. The times, they surely are a-changin’….
The past 17 years have mostly seen the Ducks on the ascent. It’s been long enough now that someone who moved to Oregon after 1995 probably assumes that Oregon football has always been a national power. Some may view the Ducks as Team Nike, but there’s little doubt that the team’s success and its relationship with Nike has been mutually beneficial. Nike uses Oregon football as a test laboratory, and the Ducks have become renowned for their innovative (OK, sometimes ugly) uniform and helmet combinations. You can do that sort of thing when you’ve achieved success on the field (and when your wealthiest fan happens to be Phil Knight). Not surprisingly, the unique uniform combinations help with recruiting. It’s about appealing to 18-year-old kids, not adults with more conservative fashion sense.
I hope the history lesson helps in some small way. Human nature being what it is, expectations will naturally rise and the success the Ducks currently enjoy will become the baseline. Anything less than Pac 12 championships and BCS bowl game victories will be considered failures…and in some ways that’s a good thing. High expectations and pressure can be effective motivators. Coach Chip Kelly and his staff understand that success raises the bar, and they’ve become expert at keeping their team focused. Win the Day may seem like just another silly coach-speak slogan, but that focus on the task at hand is most likely what will keep Oregon football at the level it currently enjoys.
There’s a good chance that Oregon will be considered a legitimate contender for the BCS championship this fall. Here’s to hoping that Oregon State can find a way to travel a similar path. If LSU and Alabama can play for a BCS championship, why couldn’t Oregon and Oregon State someday do the same? Hey, a boy can dream…right??
Things have certainly changed since the Toilet Bowl. Now if we could only help SEC teams locate Eugene on a map and convince them to come to Autzen Stadium for a game once in a while….
(Answer to the bonus question: Chris Miller- starting for the injured Mike Jorgensen- was Oregon’s QB. Ladd McKittrick was OSU’s starting QB. If you knew the answer, you really need to get out more).
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