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Editor in chief: Laura Cadiz
Sports Editor: Tim Pyle
Best Bet
World Cup Rugby
Tournament, quarterfinals
1:00 p.m., FoxSports
Senior Andrew Bliss is running for his first All-American award to close out his career.
Scott Barnett Emerald
5-0 Stanford can clinch
share of the Pac-10 title
Pac-10 Notes
■ If the Cardinal wins at Washington
and Oregon beats Arizona State,
Stanford is assured a tie
By Mirjam Swanson
Oregon Daily Emerald
Everything is so messed up this season.
Two preseason football publications —
incredibly reliable as they are — predicted
that Stanford would finish eighth in the Pa
cific-10 Conference.
The Sporting News picked the Cardinal
last.
Were they ever wrong.
Stanford (5-2 overall, 5-0 Pac-10) is in
first place. The only team left undefeated in
conference play. The only Pac-10 team
that’s nationally ranked, at No. 25 in the
ESPN/USA Today Poll.
And finally, if Stanford and the Ducks
both win this weekend, the Cardinal is en
sured at least a share of the Pac-10 crown.
Still, that’s easier written than done be
cause Stanford hasn’t won at Husky Stadi
um in 24 years.
Those same prognosticators agreed that
UCLA (3-5,1-4) would finish among the top
three.
Wrong again.
The Bruins are where the Cardinal are
supposed to be — dead last in the stand
ings.
So unless head coach Bob Toledo can
coax his team into an abrupt turnaround,
the Bruins will be the second straight team
to finish with a losing record the season af
Turn to Pac-10, Page 12
Running
dowrij^
DREAM
After coming to Oregon without a scholarship,
Andrew Bliss has worked his way from walk-on
to co-captain and potential All-American
By Jeff Smith
Oregon Daily Emerald
The term “walk-on” is de
fined in Webster’s Dictionary
as “a bit role in which an actor
has few if any words to speak.”
Somebody forgot to tell An
drew Bliss exactly what that
means.
Bliss, a senior co-captain on
the Oregon men’s cross coun
try team, walked-on to the
team back in 1995-96, and this
is the story of his remarkable
climb up the cross country
ranks that has him playing
anything but “a bit role.”
Bliss is one of only two
Ducks that returned this sea
son with national champi
onship experience, the other
being All-American senior
Steve Fein. He has already
helped lead his team in strong
performances at the Pre
NCAAs on Oct. 16 and the Roy
Griak Invitational on Sept. 25,
finishing second among Ore
gon runners in both races.
“To have a senior with An
drew’s experience on a team
that’s relatively inexperienced
is very important,” head coach
Martin Smith said. “Andrew
has a number of athletic gifts,
and I think his strongest skill
is his ability to compete pa
tiently and truly understand
the sport.”
His patience has helped put
him in position to secure his
first All-American berth, an
honor that eluded him a sea
son ago at the national cham
pionships where he fell six
seconds short of qualifying for
the award.
But hearing how Bliss got to
where he is today is what
makes him truly special.
Looking back to the fall of
1995, Bliss can still remember
his emotions being one of the
many new faces in the crowd
trying to impress legendary
coach Bill Dellinger, who
headed Oregon cross country
for 32 years before retiring af
ter last season.
“The whole walk-on experi
ence was really crazy,” Bliss
said. “It was really hard to get
your foot in the door because
there were 15 of us freshman,
and we were all pretty equal,
talent-wise. Dellinger is the
type where you have to prove
yourself before he even talks to
you.”
Bliss could have gone else
where after graduating from Je
suit High School in Portland,
where he finished fifth at the
4A state cross country meet.
He had scholarship offers to
run at many other schools, but
he wanted to run for the
Ducks, scholarship or not.
“I was set on Oregon be
cause of the history of the pro
gram and because of Coach
Dellinger,” Bliss said. “I’m
from Oregon. I love Oregon,
and I could never see myself
going out of state. I knew I was
going to run four years here,
no matter if I sucked or not.”
After a redshirt season, Bliss
was ready to prove that he did
n’t “suck,” but he wound up
watching some more as he
Turn to Bliss, Page 12
Tailback Juan-Carlos
Lacey and his Stanford
teammates could clinch
a tie for the Pac-10 title
with a win against the
Huskies on Saturday.
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