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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 25, 2000)
The Oregon bandwagon gets bigger as it rolls THE HOME STRETCH ROBBIE McCALLUM If you live in Eugene very long, you tend to get cut off from the rest of the world. Underneath the clouds and rain, and in between the hills and trees of the Willamette Valley, you get disconnected. The rest of the world forgets about us, too. For years, college football ig nored the Oregon football team. The perennial underdogs, the ever mediocre, they just didn’t get any respect. Even a breakthrough year in 1994, when the Ducks won the Pa cific-10 conference title and made it to the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1958, didn’t convince the guru’s of college football that Ore gon was a worthy team. Five straight winning season’s and four bowl appearances con vinced some, but not the preseason pollsters, who left the Ducks out of their top-25 polls. One publication even picked Oregon to finish sixth in the Pac-10, behind USC, Wash ington and UCLA. Being snubbed by the rest of the country has become standard at Oregon. And it is a motivator for Oregon players. “Not too many people know what we've got going on up here,” Sophomore wide receiver Keenan Howry said. “It's sad when you don't get recognition, but it does motivate us,” Before the Oregon-Wisconsin game Sept. 23, ESPN GameDay’s Lee Corso made a snipe at Eugene, stating that “nobody knew where Eugene even was.” Two weeks later, to Corso’s sur prise, ESPN GameDay made its first trip ever to the northwest for the much-anticipated UCLA-Oregon matchup. A big Oregon upset over then-No. 6 UCLA put the Ducks in the spot light in front of a national audience. The following week’s upset over No. 6 Washington was even bigger for the program. Yet another nation al audience watched as the Ducks used their awesome defense and equally impressive offense to em barrass their Pac-10 rivals. Even Kunge against new Pac-10 tourney ■ Women s basketball coach said it may muddle season By Scott Pesznecker Oregon Daily Emerald Not everyone involved with Ore gon basketball was ecstatic about having a Pacific-10 Conference post season tournament for the 2000-01 season. Duck head coach Jody Runge wasn’t happy to hear the news, de spite all the indications that Oregon would be the leading contender to host the first-ever women’s postsea son tournament in Pac-10 history. With the exception of the Ivy League, every NCAA conference has or plans to have a men’s postseason conference tournament. Such is not the case in women’s hoops. “I was pretty much strong-armed into going along with it,” Runge told The Register-Guard. “The Atlantic Coast Conference is the only other league in the country that has a dou ble round-robin schedule and then a league tournament. It backs up the start of league play (into December) and leaves us a very small window to help our RPI rating. “Then we have almost two weeks off before we go into the [NCAA] tournament, and if you do well in the conference it’s very hard to beat another team three times.” Runge advocated keeping the cur rent double round-robin schedule, in which each team plays each other twice, when the planners were dis cussing the tournament in August. “I think there are a lot of unan I was pretty much strong-armed into going along with it Jody Runge Basketball coach swered questions,” Runge told the Emerald in an August interview. “Conceptually, yeah, it’s easy to jump on the bandwagon and say ‘Let’s go for it.’ But the logistics still need to be worked out.” The women’s tournament will feature all 10 Pac-10 teams, unlike the men’s tournament, which fea tures the top eight. The women’s tournament will be played a week earlier than the men’s so both can be televised. Peter DeFazio Democrat for Congress A Different Kind of Congressman. ■ “While others play politics with the environment, Rep. DeFazio votes to protect it.” “We could use more coura geous leaders like him in Congress, legislators who put the health and well-being of our families, our communities and our future first.” —Jonathan Poisner, OR League of Conservation Voters ■ “It would be difficult to find someone to represent District 4 with even half of Peter DeFazio’s energy, brain power and integrity. We particularly applaud his leadership in fighting trade policies and fast-track legislation that are, at the core, anti-labor and anti-environment.” —Eugene Weekly, 10/22/98 ■ “Unlike many politicans, [DeFazio] has produced far more substance than show.” —Register-Guard, 10/7/00 Turning Down Payraises to Fund Scholarships Peter DeFazio has voted against every congressional payraise since he was elected to Congress. He turns back the money from the payraises to fund a Presidential Scholar ship at the University of Oregon and eight scholarships at community colleges through out southwest Oregon each year. In all, he has funded more than 90 scholarships. more importantly though, the Ducks cracked the top-10 in the AP polls for the first time since 1995. The 28-17 win over Southern California Oct. 14 was the kicker. What followed was a media frenzy. Everywhere you looked that week in the college football world, they are talking about the Ducks and their undefeated Pac-10 record. You might even think that people have heard of Eugene, Oregon (pro nounced you* jean ory*gun). Headlining both the espn.com and cnnsi.com college football websites this past week was Ore gon’s victory over No. 21 Arizona, leaving the Ducks alone in the con ference lead. Said CNNSI.com before last Sat urday’s game: “The ferocious at mosphere of Autzen Stadium, where the host Oregon Ducks have won 18 straight games, has emerged from obscurity to gain na tional attention this season. The lat est to try to conquer Eugene is Ari zona, and as if the Wildcats offense won't have it hard enough trying to hear... the Oregon defense is sec ond-to-none in the Pac-10.” USA Today Sports had a crew on hand for the Arizona game, its first trip to Eugene ever. And whether or not you jumped on the Oregon bandwagon this sea son, or six years ago, move over be cause the national media is spread ing the news: Oregon is a team to watch out for. Robbie McCallum is a sports reporter for the Emerald. He can be reached at coach_robbie@lycos.com. Oregon head coach Jody Runge can’t stand the sight of a Pacific-10 tournament. You are cordially invited to attend your NEW Career Center's ./IO<US£ Thursday, October 26, 2000 Second Floor, Hendricks Hall We wish to welcome you into the 2000-01 school year in our newly remodeled office. Please feel free to visit us between the hours of 10:30 a.nu - 4:30p.m. for this special occasion. Refreshments.
