About Me
First off lets talk about AUTZEN STADIUM "Autzen's 59,000 strong make the Big House [Michigan] sound like a pathetic whimper. It's louder that 'The Swamp' at Florida, 'The Shoe' in Columbus and 'Death Valley' at Louisiana State. Autzen Stadium is where great teams go to die." That pretty much speaks for its self!The University of Oregon (UO) is a public university located in Eugene. The university was founded in 1876, graduating its first class (five students) two years later.The mascot of the University of Oregon is the duck; popular Disney character, Donald Duck has been the mascot for decades. UO is a member of the Pacific Ten Conference conference and Division I for athletics (Division I-A for football). Home football games are played in Autzen Stadium. The university intends to build a larger arena to replace McArthur Court, where basketball games are played.The University of Oregon has produced many world-class track and field and cross country athletes, including Steve Prefontaine. The Ducks have won five men's NCAA outdoor track and field championships, four men's cross country championships, and one women's outdoor track and field championship and two women's cross country championships. The university also maintains a relationship with shoe manufacturer Nike, who also provides uniforms and logo merchandise for the Ducks.The football team has enjoyed strong success over the past twenty years though the major turning point of the football program was a game in 1994 at Autzen Stadium against the perennial football power and border rival, the University of Washington Huskies. In that game, Oregon held on to a slim lead, but the favored Huskies looked to score late in the game resulting in yet another disappointing loss (Oregon had lost 17 of 20 and five straight to the Huskies prior to this game). Miraculously, freshman defensive back Kenny Wheaton intercepted the football and ran the ball back 97 yards for a touchdown to secure the upset victory. This play became affectionately known as "The Pick" among Duck fans. With this momentum, the team proceeded to win the rest of their conference games, won the Pac-10 title and played in the Rose Bowl Game and losing 38-20 to Penn State. In 1995, Mike Bellotti became the head football coach and took the football program to the next level. In 2001, under the leadership of Joey Harrington at quarterback, the team finished 11-1 including a 38-16 win over the University of Colorado in the Fiesta Bowl. The team finished ..2 in the college rankings that year, behind only the University of Miami, who finished the season undefeated; Oregon was the nation's only one-loss team.In 2005, Oregon had success behind senior quarterback Kellen Clemens and a new spread offense. Unfortunately, during a game at Arizona Clemens suffered a broken ankle. At that point Oregon was 8-1 (their only loss was to ..2 ranked USC 13-45), and still in the hunt for a BCS game. Oregon won their final three games and their success led them into contention for a bid to the Fiesta Bowl. However, due to NCAA clauses, they were relegated to play in a second tier game, the Holiday Bowl, where they played an Oklahoma team with only seven wins and four losses. Oregon subsequently lost to Oklahoma 17-14 to finish the season 10-2, tied for second best in school history.With the support of its boostersmost notably, Phil Knightthe Oregon football program has among the best facilities in the United States including a newly remodeled Autzen Stadium and a state of the art locker room replete with luxuries such as plasma displays and fingerprint biometric locks. The team has also benefited from the creative work of the University of Oregon's sports marketing department and Nike, with billboards promoting individual athletes, personalized comic books for prospective recruits, and high tech uniforms, logos and mascot.THE DUCK.......The University of Oregon mascot is a cartoon-like duck similar to Walt Disney's Donald Duck character, often referred to as "the duck", and may also be referred to as Donald or Puddles. The mascot wears a green and yellow costume, a green and yellow beanie cap with the word "Oregon" on it and originated from cartoons drawn of a white duck known as Puddles that frequented football games during the early 1900s. The cartoon duck became more similar to Donald Duck over time, and the University received permission from the Walt Disney company to use the likeness of the Donald Duck character as a symbol of the University. The mascot that appears in graphic art is more similar to Donald Duck than the actual mascot that appears at University functions, which has a rounder head and body than typical renditions of the Donald Duck character. A Nike-designed futuristic rubber-suit wearing duck, nicknamed "Duck Vader", "Mandrake", or "RoboDuck" by the student body, began appearing at athletic events in 2003.THE UNIVERSITY CAMPUS.........The University of Oregon has around 80 buildings and facilities, including athletics sites such as Hayward Field and McArthur Court, and off-campus sites such as nearby Autzen Stadium, the Westmoreland Housing area and the Riverfront Research Park.The university is known for being the site of a pioneering participatory planning experiment known as the Oregon Experiment (which is also the subject of a book of the same name). The two major principles of the project are that buildings should be designed, in part, by the people who will ultimately use them (usually with the help of an 'architect facilitator'), and that construction should occur over many small projects (as opposed to a few large ones).Deady Hall is the university's oldest building. Completed on October 16, 1876, it was the only building on campus and had an enrollment of 177 students. Deady Hall is now home to many classrooms, offices of mathematics faculty and graduate students, and the mathematics undergraduate lounge. In 1977, Deady Hall was designated a National Historic Landmark.Deschutes Hall was completed in 1989 as part of the university's science complex. It currently houses the university's Computer and Information Science department.
Oregon HallWillamette Hall is home to the university's hard sciences. The construction of the $45.3 million complex was completed in 1989.Lillis Business Complex is home to the Lundquist College of Business. The complex has a capacity of 196,500 square feet (18,000 m) and has the largest array of architectural solar glass installed in the Northwest. The Lillis Business Complex is the first university business building in the United States to achieve LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certification, and was certified LEED-Silver in May of 2005. The two attached building wings have been declared historic buildings, but they are scheduled to be internally renovated under LEED-EB (for Existing Building) standards in early 2007.Oregon Hall is the university's main administrative heart. This building includes the Registrar's Office and Office of Admissions.Villard Hall is home to Theatre Arts. Like its sister building Deady Hall, it was designated a National History Landmark in 1977.Johnson Hall is where offices for higher administration and trustee offices are found. The offices of the President of the university are in this building, and was one of main buildings used in the movie "Animal House".Knight Library was originally erected in 1937. There were additions to the building in 1950, 1966, and a renovation in 1994. By the time of the third addition, the library had increased in size by 132,000 square feet (12,000 m).Pioneer Statue was created by sculptor Alexander Proctor in 1919, and is located between Fenton and Friendly hall. It is rumored to have inspired the fictional statue of pioneer Jebediah Springfield in the television show The Simpsons. In 1932, the "Pioneer Mother" statue was dedicated in the Women's Memorial Quadrangle on the other side of Johnson Hall; the two statues are aligned so that they can 'see' one-another through the large windows of the hall's main floor.The university maintains the Riverfront Research Park, a small facility located across Franklin Blvd. from the main campus, next to the Willamette River. The Park is used for creating new technologies, such as research about artificial intelligence at the Computational Intelligence Research Lab and genetic engineering research on zebrafish.Prince Lucien Campbell Hall is an aberration on the campus, due to a mix-up of plans with another university in California. Students describe "PLC" as "a 9-level dungeon", or as "a monolith".NIKE......UO track and field coach Bill Bowerman revolutionized the athletic shoe by pouring melted rubber into a waffle iron, creating a prototype rubber sole. Bowerman went on to co-found Nike corporation with UO alumnus Phil Knight. Nike has maintained a close relationship with UO ever since, manufacturing all university logo clothing and uniforms for the football team, including research prototypes for high-tech "smart clothes", such as jerseys with cooling systems.Controversy surrounding Nike's labor practice precipitated protests in 2000 led by a group of students calling themselves The Human Rights Alliance. The protests included a 10-day tent city occupation of the lawns in front of Johnson Hall, the main administration building. Protesting students demanded and initially received independent oversight by the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC) of Nike's overseas factories. The University of Oregon joined the WRC but was quickly admonished by Phil Knight in a scathing letter resulting in the rescindence of a US$30 million dollar contribution to renovate Autzen Stadium, and a pledge for no more future donations should the University continue its membership in the WRC. The University eventually terminated the relationship with the WRC within a year of joining, citing "legal complications." Phil Knight later reinstated the donation and increased the money to over US$50 million dollars. [1]Further controversy ensued in March 2005 with the resignation of track coach Martin Smith. Smith was ousted by the Lame Ducks, a group of former Oregon track athletes employed at Nike that raises funds to support the Oregon track program, and by Phil Knight who stated that he would quit donating to the track team as long as Smith was coach. The primary point of contention was that Smith did not focus enough on long distance running events which was a traditional strength for Oregon and Nike shoe sales. This occurred despite Smiths success at re-building the Oregon track program back into national prominence after twenty five years of relative mediocrity. Smith was replaced by former Stanford coach Vin Lananna in July 2005. Additionally, former womens track coach, Sally Harmon sued the university with a US$1.1 million gender discrimination lawsuit which was settled in July 200
