A 50th Year Anniversary

Whoever first observed that "time flies" nailed it. Yes it does on bumblebee wings.

The year, 2019, we now see in our rearview mirror, marks the time 50 years ago when I received a call from newly appointed University of Oregon Athletic Director Norv Ritchey.  "Let's have lunch," he said. We did and he offered me the job of public relations director for the athletic department. I asked him to give me three seconds to think it over.  He would later promote me to Assistant Director.

Goodbye Bon Marche feather merchant, hello player in the big time intercollegiate athletics game.  Plus, I would get paid to work there.  The next six years were the most fun I ever had in any work environment.  Who's to say what we accomplished 50 years ago did not lay the foundation for Oregon's current dominance in the Pac-12 star-lit universe? Some things just take time to kick in:

Football Conference Champion/Rose Bowl Champion

Basketball Champion-Men/ Payton Pritchard, Player of the Year

Basketball Champion-Women/Sabrina Ionescu, Player of the Year
Both men's and women's teams given #1 seed in March Madness regional brackets

(March Madness will play without spectators but still have bracket pools)

The friendships I developed in those years give me a basket full of name for dropping in conversations with fellow inmates in my current commune.  Let anyone bring up any sport and I have my list ready (c'mon memory, don't fail me now)..  And every name is attached to a half-dozen stories, while every story has a half-dozen variations.  That is, the protocol of sports stories dictates that you never let facts screw up a good yarn.

So get comfortable in your chair.  I'm going to tell you about that blazing hot Spring day in Husky Stadium where the Ducks were in a dual track meet with U-Dub. Wunderkind Steve Prefontaine would compete in the 5,000 meters on the artificial track surface that looped around the football field. The track had been heating up for hours and was at grilling temperature by the start of the race. After Pre won the event, he took off his shoes to reveal how his feet had been fried to a mass of bloody, burst blisters served up medium rare. His time for the win was excellent.