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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 18, 2000)
Bill Moos continued from page 2E team in a bowl game, with the others being Purdue, Tennessee and Stan ford. And we were the only one who won a bowl game, so that makes us a little bit more elite than them. This is significant because those are the kinds of schools we want to be asso ciated with. The real judge of the program will be to prove that you can do that year in-and year-out. Q: Along those same lines, what are your keys to keeping the Oregon program a success in the year 2010? Or is that too far to look forward to? A: Oh no, not at all. We certainly form a vision and a plan to keep our selves successful. The one thing that I believe is so important is to keep that continued vision among Presi dent Dave Frohnmayer, Vice Presi dent Dam Williams and many others that are pertinent to our cause. Just to get everybody realizing the im portance of a successful intercolle giate athletic program and what it can do for an entire institution. We feel that the expansion of Autzen Stadium is critical to our fu ture. When you look at the fact that we’ve discontinued football season ticket sales for the past two years and have led the Pac-10 in attendance in terms of percentage of capacity for four of the last five years, it goes to show you that we need more seats. Football creates over half of our en tire budget and in order for our coaches to have the resources to con tinue to recruit, to continue to oper ate their program successfully, we’re going to have to have a major rev enue strength and that is the signifi cance of the expansion. We’ll be able to realize between four to six million dollars a year in revenue that can be a direct benefit to our other sports as well as the institution as a whole. Q: It’s no secret that the expan sion has already been delayed a year, and a big topic on campus last year was Nike CEO and Oregon alum Phil Knight's decision to with draw his $30 million toward that expansion. What’s been the progress, if any, of the relationship between Oregon and Knight? A: It has occupied a lot of time and energy and I really think there has been progress. Phil Knight is a supporter of the U of O, has a pas sion for his alma mater and wants to be involved. He just feels very strongly about the issues at stake. President Frohnmayer continues to work hard on this matter and I feel we’re making progress in regards to the relationship that we have with the school’s largest benefactor. Ideally, we’d like to have Phil back, and a primary goal of mine is to just get him back here as a fan and let everything fall where it may. But at the same time, we need to explore alter nate ways to fund the Autzen Stadium project, which is what we’re doing now. That’s how critical I think it is that we go forward with this. I would love for Phil to be a part of this and en joy it all, but we can’t delay this any further. It’s that critical to our future. Q: Obviously, this topic has divid ed the campus in half. What mes sage would you send to the student body? A: I urge the students to study the issue. I know that many people, my self included, know a whole lot more about such things as the WRC (Worker Rights Consortium) and the FLA (Free Labor Association) than they did a few months ago, and I think that’s good. It’s brought aware ness to the campus. This university is about students, it’s about faculty, it’s about community and it’s about freedom of expression. To commu nicate and express feelings is very important, and if nothing else comes out of this all, at least the awareness and the lessons that we can learn from studying these issues will have benefited everyone in the Universi ty Q: Probably the biggest story of this past summer was Notre Dame’s highly publicized pursuit of Oregon basketball coach Ernie Kent. What does it mean to Oregon to have Kent turn down an offer at a major uni versity to remain a Duck? A: Ernie Kent is an outstanding basketball coach and a wonderful person and I’ll always take it as a compliment when other schools look at our coaches. But at the same time, 1 think we’ve moved into a po sition now where we can realistical ly say that we are destination and not a steppingstone. We are able to attract people from quote-unquote marquee programs. So when Ernie looked at that Notre Dame opportunity and com pared it with the one that he had, he felt that this here was a better job. Ernie’s plan for Oregon basketball is far from over. He sells Oregon with a sincere passion for a university, a community, Mac Court and that’s all contagious. We’re far from seeing what the end result to Ernie’s plan will be, but it’s going to be very pleasing when we get there. Q: You look at this UO sports sea son, you have a strong fall, a busy winter and then a spring where Oregon gets to host the 2001 NCAA Track Championships. That’s got to be pretty exciting as an athletic de partment to embark on such an ac tive year. A: We certainly have a lot of op portunities to bring positive expo sure to the university and its sur rounding community. Last year could arguably be one of the very best athletic years in the history of this school, and I'm excited to see how we respond this year, f always get excited when the school year starts. It’s great to see our student athletes back. They’re all in terrific shape and looking good and very fo cused on the tasks at hand. We’ve got a tremendous amount of respect from people around the country and that’s taken a lot of ef fort by a lot of people. We cherish that and want to work very hard to retain such a reputation. 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