Leo's 20 Year Crusade

The University of Oregon hired its first professional athletic director, Leo Harris, in 1947.  A successful administrator of a large school district in California, he had played football at Stanford and coached both football and basketball at Fresno State.

Leo Harris had the solid build of a football guard and his administrative style was a gruff, take no prisoners assault on roadblocks to his objectives.  He looked a bit like Jimmy Hoffa with a similar demeanor except Harris was open and honest.  There was never a doubt of what he meant in the decisions he made. The athletic program he took over in Eugene was in shambles. Financially depressed and faced with old facilities for the major sports of football and basketball, the challenge to the new administrator was daunting. Doing a triage audit of all the problems, he pinpointed the football stadium at Hayward Field as his number one priority.  It may have been historic but in the family of big time collegiate sports it was an embarrassment.

Harris created a secret piggy bank and no contribution to Porky was too insignificant to be dropped in the slot. Head coaches (much to their dismay) to save travel expenses, were required to call alumni and ask to surf their couch on recruiting trips.  He limited the football coach as to how many players he could take on away games (Leo loved the early years when the same players played both offense and defense). He scheduled football games with the major powerhouses in the country (Ohio State, Miami, Penn State, Nebraska and on and on) to get a piece of those huge stadium gates.  On those Saturdays it was always skinny David facing a giant Goliath and unlike the Biblical David, David's sling shot for Oregon rarely dropped the giant (at Ohio State players filled double rows of benches and their offense featured three enormous fullbacks taking turns crashing into Oregon's defensive line).  All elements of Leo Harris' conduct of Oregon athletic affairs were colored by the central focus of feeding Porky. 

And so it went, year after year, with Porky putting on weight until one fine day Leo Harris grabbed his sledge hammer and said,  "Thank you, Porky, for your years of loyal service but your work here is done." Leo had his $1,000,000 nest egg and now he sold 1,000 seats for $1,000 each (giving a 20 year licence to buy tickets for the best seats in the stadium.) The special section was filled with chair-back seats covered with a roof that held powerful electric heating units. Naming the stadium for alumnus Thomas J. Autzen brought in $250,000 (way too cheap) and the finished cost of the magnificent facility was $2.5 million. Unbelievable!

On September 23, 1967 the Colorado Buffaloes spoiled the opening of the stadium with a 17-13 win over the Ducks led by QB Eric Olson.  The years that followed buried that loss as Autzen earned its reputation as one of the premier football arenas in the nation.

For me it will always be LEO HARRIS STADIUM, Home of the Ducks.

Dealing With It-7 Where There's Smoke

                                          

Strauss Walker, John's cousin, lived in Los Angeles and rode a bus to Grants Pass to visit the Landers one summer.  In the course of their lives, he and John had developed an extremely close friendship.  At the end of his visit, John drove Strauss to the bus depot along with Eunice and Ella Maude.  There was much hugging and Strauss was tearing up a bit as he held Ella Maude and told her how he would miss her.  She too was shedding tears as she told him she also would miss him.  They all waved as the Greyhound pulled away and Ella Maude caught Eunice's sleeve and asked, "Who was that man?"

Our long term couch surfer had become a member of our family. Brought home like a stray cat by John, he seemed to fit our particular environment with his wit, his guitar playing of pub songs rendered with a nice "This ain't no good life, but it's my life" feeling. He had suffered infantile paralysis as a teen ager and it left him with a hump-back slonch-wise walk but after you knew Don and enjoyed his cheerful personality you never saw the disability. Don earned his keep by managing Ella Maude and he often said he marveled at how her mind worked. He would compliment her on her rock collection (Grandma picked up rocks from the fields around the house) which she kept in a corner of her room.  The rocks had no special features. They were just rocks.

One afternoon John was taking a walk and Don was reading on the couch when he thought he smelled smoke. When he investigated he found it was coming from Ella Maude's room but when he tried to open the door it wouldn't budge.  He put his shoulder to it and managed to get it open a few inches so he could look through the gap where he saw Ella Maude across the room with a maniacal look on her face. She had set fire to a wad of newspapers and it was a chest of drawers she had slid over to block the door.  Don was screaming at Ella Maude who selected one of her prize rocks and like Babe Ruth lobbing one in from deep center field, she drilled McDougal right between the eyes.  He dropped like a pole-axed ox but the day was saved by Eunice who had returned from the chicken house and with an adrenaline fueled lunge,  moved the door enough for her to get in and stomp out the fire.  

Don rallied and helped Eunice with Ella Maude while she cleaned up the mess.  The two of them removed the door from the middle bedroom. A close call.

Don moved on and a year or two later so did Ella Maude to the Granite Hill cemetery out River Road from Grants Pass. Many years later curiosity prompted me to visit the cemetery and I brushed the dirt and twigs from her stone marker.  I did notice the leaves on the tree overhanging her grave were kind of crinkled and strange looking. 

                                                              Roll the credits

                                                     Editor                      Jeffrey Landers

                                          Key Witness                       Bill Landers

                                                Catering                        Russellville Park

                                               Best Boy                         Methuselah

                William Tell Overture Music                       Lone Ranger

                                                   Drugs                         Grants Pass Pharmacy

                                                        

                                                            ############

                                                              

Dealing With It-6. Run, Grandma, Run

                                              

Eunice was the first to notice that she hadn't seen Ella Maude for awhile.  Not in her room. Not anywhere outside that she could see. "Have you seen your mother?," she asked John. He hadn't seen her and now Eunice was increasingly concerned. John said, "Let's give it a couple or three weeks and see if she shows up."  Eunice had just told him that they had better call the Sheriff's office when the phone rang.  It was the police station in Grants Pass and they had Ella Maude.  She had told them a disturbing story and the policeman asked Eunice and John to come into the station.

She had carefully timed her move when nobody saw her leave the house and she crossed the Redwood Highway, where she flagged down an eastbound car (she knew which direction to go) and told the driver she was fleeing from a threat to her life and needed to get to the police.  The story she told the police was that she had not been given food for three days. After the police established that the old lady was in no danger of being murdered (they probably understood why she might be) they sent her home.

From time to time Grandma would make another run for it and a policeman (who Eunice and John were now on a first-name basis with) would call and say, "Grandma's back."

At another placement in cosmic time Ella Maude might have won fame in Vegas as a standup comic because her timing was dead on. Dinner time became her favorite venue.  John was known for misplacing things (he was always losing his cane) but when his false teeth went missing from his night stand jar where he put them at bedtime, it became a three or four day mystery.  Then his mother made her appearance at dinner one evening with those choppers wedged in her mouth, sticking out in a bizzare face-mask from hell. Virginia almost went under the table laughing, as did Bill and Mary. John, of course, exploded with a lot of new words and Eunice lost it.  "Good God," she gasped as she sprung up and snatched the teeth out of Ella Maude's mouth.

Another dinner with a slow start and no dessert.  You think that's hard to top? Don't leave.

                                                     (To be continued)