I think it may be time for my grand blogging adventure here at FoxSports to come to a close. Without getting into specifics, life tends to give natural stopping and starting points for things, and this seems like one of those instances. It’s been a fun ride, to be sure. However, all rides must end, and this seems like a good time for that to happen to this one.
Certainly, I’d like to thank one and all who have offered their feedback on my posts. The kind words were greatly appreciated, even the occasional barb was duly noted. Mostly, it was the exchange of ideas and insight that I found most rewarding. I’ll certainly miss that.
So, I leave you with the enclosed post which I originally wrote last February and is probably representative of my best offering here. It’s just a reminder that, with all that seems wrong and corrupt about sports at times, there are still moments when the human spirit lifts sport above the tumult and reinforces the idea that the games people play can still merit our time and devotion, even when the distance between those moments seems greater and greater, all the time.
Aloha and mahalo, brahs. Good luck and good fortune to you all.
The Will to Finish
There are few athletic events that require as much sheer physical versatility as the decathlon. It demands speed, strength, and endurance in relentless portions. It stretches over ten events in two days and calls for some measure of Sergei Bubka, Willie Davenport, Al Oerter, Javier Sotomayor, Jim Ryun, and Carl Lewis to appear in the same person. And few ever find that combination in high enough quantities to compete among the elite in the sport.
So, the men who compete for the Olympic gold medal in the decathlon share a remarkable kinship. It is an exclusive club that draws its membership from all over the world. In that sense, the decathlon tends to shrink the planet while cementing the ties formed between the competitors. And it is the level of respect, the knowledge that few others truly understand the competitive will required to do what they do that forms this unique bond.
Perhaps, the strength of that connection was never made clearer than in two sweltering days during an Italian summer in 1960.
Houston-born Rafer Johnson was a remarkable athlete. At 6’3”, 200 pounds, he had enough speed and strength on the football field and enough agility and technique on the basketball court to attract the attention of UCLA. However, this unique combination of talent also drew attention of UCLA’s renowned track coach, Elvin “Ducky” Drake. He knew Johnson could be an elite decathlon competitor, because the ten events that make up the decathlon (100-meter dash, long jump, shot put, high jump, 400-meter run, 110-meter high hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin, and 1,500-meter run) all fit Johnson’s athletic skills, except one. The 1,500-meter run was a bad fit. The muscle needed for many of the other events was just unwanted weight in an endurance test like the 1,500 meters, and, by being at the end of the grueling two-day competition, the race was made even more difficult by the utter level of fatigue that inevitably set in by then. However, Johnson was so skilled at the other nine events that the 1,500 loomed as a factor only if someone could keep up with him up to that point. And Drake was confident that few ever would.
Taiwanese native C.K. Yang had no such similar athletic pedigree. Yang was skinny and quick but seemed to lack the strength required for the decathlon. His only real chance was to use his speed to build up enough points on the track so that he could afford to give many of them back in the strength events like the shot put and discus. Unlike Johnson, Yang needed the 1,500. He needed that one last back-breaking endurance test to outlast the others. Yang was relentless in his training and knew that if it came down to fatigue factors and mental toughness few others would be able to match him.
Although the two men could not have appeared more different, they both wound up on the same track in California preparing for the 1960 Olympics. Whereas Johnson had been sought by Drake, Yang was the one who sought the legendary UCLA coach. Whatever the circumstances, as soon as Johnson and Yang started to train together, each found benefit in the constant competition. The constant drive to keep up with and try to surpass one another not only fueled their collective competitive spirit but also formed a solid friendship.
And they would each need to lean on that competitive spirit and friendship, because the road to Rome and the Olympic decathlon title promised pain. It would be a single linear path directly through athletic exhaustion and sacrifice. If there was any let-up in preparing for those two days of competition or during any of the ten events themselves, those gold medal aspirations would simply evaporate.
Rafer Johnson knew all about that. He had suffered an injury prior to the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne but still competed. Without his full athletic arsenal, he finished second to fellow American Milt Campbell. The Rome Olympics offered redemption, but C.K. Yang was now in the picture and promised as much competition as he could handle.
Once the 1960 Olympic decathlon began, Yang did not disappoint. He used his speed and versatility to better Johnson in four of the first five events. However, Johnson stayed close enough to his UCLA teammate in those four events that his single win in the shot put gave him the overall lead by 55 points at the end of the first day.
On the second day, Yang didn’t let up. He kept digging at Johnson’s lead, but Johnson kept answering. By the time the 1,500 loomed, Yang still trailed by 67 points and needed to beat Johnson’s time in the race by 10 seconds to capture the gold. However, the 1,500 was Johnson’s worst event and the event that Ducky Drake feared the most with a gold medal hanging in the balance. Conversely, Yang was right where he wanted to be. The gold was within reach and the most difficult event of the competition challenged an exhausted field, an event in which the lightest and fastest competitors held a huge advantage.
In the fading Italian afternoon, Yang sprinted off, determined to make history. He set a blistering pace with the clear intention of burning off what was left of Johnson’s fading energy quickly and then simply running away from Johnson, who Yang hoped, by then, wouldn’t have anything left to try to catch him.
Into the final lap, the strategy seemed to be working. Johnson was fading. Yang could see the gold medal taking shape. If he could just hold out a little longer, just push himself to go a little faster, he could put Johnson away for good. However, Yang’s body was screaming with fatigue. He needed one last push, one last burst to carry him forward.
And then it happened.
Johnson found the reserve some people can tap into when there should be none. Magic fuel at the bottom of an empty tank. Whether it is a champion’s heart or simply the sheer force of will, the will to finish what one starts, Johnson found it in the twilight that day when he most needed it. Yang seemed to find something extra as well. However, Johnson had found it first and closed quickly on Yang. As the two men raced down the stretch for the gold medal, Yang broke the tape first, but Johnson finished right on his heels, just 1.2 seconds behind.
Rafer Johnson won the gold medal in one of the Olympics’ most grueling events, an event that spreads out over two days and ten events, by 8.8 seconds. C.K. Yang took the silver but won the lasting respect of his good friend and chief rival as well as that of the sporting world of the day for his gutty, tireless performance in Rome.
Chuan-kwang “C.K.” Yang, the relentless decathlon competitor, can finally rest. He passed away on January 27. He was 74.
If we are to remember anything about C.K. Yang, I think it would be fitting to remember that one moment in the early evening in Rome when he gave as much of himself as he possibly could in a race that cost him a gold medal but earned him a lifetime of respect.
Like any good Thanksgiving dinner, memories of Thanksgiving football games over the years tend to blur together, a hazy collection of seemingly random images running into one another. And a dinner plate at Thanksgiving is precisely like that - turkey on top of mashed potatoes with a heap of stuffing and a few slices of sweet potatoes overlapping the turkey, gravy wandering aimlessly across the plate, splashing starch and sweets without distinction.
There is one memory, though, that cuts through that tryptophan-induced haze.
In 1974, an eager rookie, nicknamed "The Mad Bomber", threw the one perfect pass of his brief NFL career - a 50-yard game-winning strike from the heavens to lift Dallas over their fierce rivals from Washington, 24-23. Howard Clinton Longley Jr. played three seasons in the NFL, threw 68 regular-season passes, completing fewer than half of them, and was out of the league by the time he was 24. However, it was the one TD pass he threw on Thanksgiving Day that was probably the best and worst thing ever to happen to him in his brief pro football life.
Clint Longley had a big arm. And a wild streak. The one always seemed to prevent the other from finding its way. Of course, the game has always had its share of gunslingers. However, the wild, frenetic play of QB's like Kenny Stabler or Brett Favre have always been tempered by moments of precision when they are most needed. Sure, there are wild off-balanced throws into triple coverage, but there are also steely pinpoint passes right between the numbers. The bluster and bravado, ultimately, gets tempered by calm and cool.
With Longley, however, there was nothing to temper the wild side. He would just load up his shotgun of an arm and fire away. Occasionally, he would find the mark, but more often he would just send buckshot spraying across the turf.
A brash rookie from Abilene Christian University, he was a fifth-round draft choice of the Bengals in 1974 before being traded to his home state Cowboys. Whether Dallas head coach Tom Landry saw something in Longley that he thought he could refine or whether he just wanted someone around to push the incumbent QB, Roger Staubach, harder than veteran back-up Craig Morton (who was eventually traded at the start of the season), he brought the Central Texas wild child into camp and likely had no idea of what he was getting himself into.
True to form, Longley could throw the ball a mile but often missed his receivers by as much or more. He was as raw as an uncooked porterhouse, but he had ability. And the siren's call of arm strength seems to delude so many in the game into thinking that everything else can be made to fit around it.
Longley's opposite number, Staubach, had the "everything else". In 1974, Staubach was halfway through an eventual Hall of Fame career and seemed not to do anything wrong on a football field. He could scramble when protection broke down or receivers failed to get open. He could throw short and long. He could read defenses. And most importantly, as a graduate of Navy, he could lead his teammates into just about anything.
So, on Thanksgiving Day, in a nationally televised game against the rival Washington Redskins, Staubach lead his team into Texas Stadium as he always did with little expectation that it would be the wild rookie who would eventually lead them back out with victory in hand. However, that's exactly how things played out.
The Redskins, who were vying for a playoff berth, played brilliantly for two-and-a-half quarters. They had manhandled the Cowboys and, when Staubach was knocked out of the game halfway through the third quarter, it seemed over. Longley's erratic play couldn't possibly bring Dallas back. Except it did. In little more than a quarter-and-a-half, he found time to fire 20 passes, completing 11 of them. Those eleven passes also netted 203 yards.
Longley was simply doing what he did best, throwing long. Only this time, the shotgun was finding its mark more than not. However, many on the field and sidelines - the opposing defense, his own teammates, the Dallas coaching staff, chief among them - likely kept waiting for the erratic rookie's inevitable spiral out of control. The seams that were holding the Cowboys' improbable comeback together had to give. The laws of probability practically demanded it.
However, Longley had led Dallas to within six at 23-17, and the Cowboys had the ball with less than two minutes to go. With no timeouts, a long field, and a touchdown as the only useful outcome, if something were to give, this was when the rookie QB was the most vulnerable. The two-minute drill is the most precise team exercise in football, and precision was a strangling concept to a player like Longley. Befitting that struggle, Dallas was still 50 yards away from the end zone with less than a minute to go. With nothing left to lose, Longley had Washington right he wanted them. He now had to throw long again, and even with the defense knowing it, he sent this great, big looping pass the entire length of the remaining field, and Drew Pearson snagged it for the miracle victory.
However, the dramatic win only fueled his desire to leapfrog Staubach for playing time, and his wild side never really let him settle for backup time. And when a a spring is wound too tightly, it will sprung. It's just the nature of kinetic energy. So, when Longley sprung, it ended his career with Dallas instantly.
In 1976, he threw the now infamous "sucker punch" during training camp, blindsiding Staubach and sending him reeling into a set of scales. And as Jim Croce once said, "You don't tug on Superman's cape." Or hit the Cowboys' most revered player in the face when he isn't looking. At least, not without repercussions. Before the salve on Staubach's wounds had even set, Longley was gone. He'd been traded to the Chargers almost immediately, and a year later, was out of the NFL.
However, in the one moment of Clint Longley's NFL career where high risk and long odds actually gave way to improbably glory, maybe we can all find something to be thankful in that. At some point in our lives, there is a longshot in all of us. And Longley's game-winning pass that seemed to fall miraculously out of the Texas Stadium sky proved that, every once and a while, longshots do come in.
Happy Thanksgiving, fellow Fox bloggers! Be good to your friends and family and keep on bringing insight and perspective to the wild world of sports.
Oregon’s star QB took the field for a nationally televised game last Thursday night knowing something just wasn’t right. What had appeared to be just a scare two weeks before in a game against Arizona State was, regrettably, far worse. What fans, and perhaps many of his own teammates, didn’t realize was that Dixon had torn his ACL in that game. All subsequent assurances about the severity, or lack thereof, of the apparent injury were just a smokescreen, at Dixon’s behest, to buy the young man some time to make the most important decision of his playing career.
Although doctors had cleared him to play, there was an ominous caveat involved. He could play on the damaged knee, but the injury left him vulnerable to much more serious damage. And given the violent nature of the game, that vulnerability represented a huge amount of risk. As a senior, Dixon’s pro prospects had sky rocketed this season as he dazzled the football world with his frenetic, dizzying style of play. When defenses pressured the line, he could step back and launch darts downfield, hitting his receivers in stride. His 85-yard strike to Brian Paysinger that broke the game open against Michigan was as perfectly thrown a pass as could be made on such a play. When defenses took his receivers away, he could simply outrun the pursuit and slash upfield for back-breaking gains. And his decision making on when to throw and when to run had been superb. He’d made so few mistakes that it was easy to see why NFL teams were starting to buzz louder and louder about his game.
So, his weakened knee not only put his current season at risk, it put his professional future at risk as well.
Yet, there he was – laughing with teammates during pre-game warm-ups Thursday night, running all of his offensive drills, and taking the field on Oregon’s opening possession. And all the while, he knew there was a time bomb ticking in his damaged knee.
However, his team was playing for the Holy Grail of college football – the BCS Title. Oregon had climbed all the way to #2 in the BCS rankings and really controlled their own destiny for a title opportunity. In fact, they were in one of the spots for a title game showdown at the moment of their match-up with Arizona on Thursday, and Dennis Dixon knew it. He also had to know that his team wasn’t going to get the rest of the way there without him. So, he stepped onto the field, assuming huge personal risk, mostly because his team’s dream season simply could not go on without him.
And on Oregon’s first drive of the game, things worked out beautifully. Facing a 4th-and-3, Dixon further showcased his lethal ability. Faking a pitch to Jonathan Stewart, he took the ball himself on a QB draw and raced 39 yards right through the heart of the Arizona defense for a score. It was an emphatic statement – you just don’t have enough to stop me.
But the time bomb never stopped ticking. No matter how much danger he showed to the opposition, more danger lurked in that knee. And on Oregon’s third series of the game, the time bomb finally went off. Planting on the weakened knee, he crumbled to the turf. The risk suddenly became horribly real.
Still, Dixon likely assumed that risk, because the dynamics of a locker room are far more complex than putting on the same uniforms and executing plays on the field. There is a unity, a loyalty among teammates, that supersedes the box score. With college football’s crown jewel to be had and with so much already invested in the chase, how could Dennis Dixon just walk away from all of that?
It is a heartbreaking tale. Yet, it is also a tremendously heartening story of honoring what it means to be a part of a team – what it means to sacrifice for something bigger than your own immediate desires.
In fact, it is reminiscent of another story about another athlete who gave his sporting life to help his team.
In 2002, the San Francisco Giants were in a desperate struggle to reach the MLB post-season. The team’s closer, Robb Nen, was one of the National League’s most feared gunslingers. He regularly kicked open the bullpen door with a 98-mph fastball and a logic-defying 96-mph slider in his holster, and that slider seemed to contradict physics. A pitch with that much break was simply not supposed to be thrown with that much velocity. Yet, Nen could, and MLB hitters seemed helpless against it.
However, down the stretch of the 2002 season, something wasn’t quite right. Nen’s fastball slowed, and his nuclear slider suddenly became human. With the Giants surging, Nen also had a secret.
His rotator cuff was in tatters, and the more he threw, the worse the pain got. However, his teammates kept turning to him every time a close game inched towards the ninth inning, and he simply refused to let them down.
So, he kept taking the ball, and he kept destroying his injured shoulder.
He still walked out to the mound with the same stoic demeanor, the same cool confidence of having toxic stuff that he could use at a moment’s notice to humiliate hitters, but it was false bravado. He was clinging to reputation and sheer guts to get hitters out, and they were starting to figure it out.
He helped the Giants get into the 2002 playoffs and kept closing games for them in the NLDS and the NLCS. Somehow, someway, he was practically willing his way through those final tense innings. And the pain was excruciating. With a World Series title just six outs away, things finally gave way. In Game 6 of the 2002 World Series, Robb Nen gave up the tying and, ultimately, game-winning runs on Troy Glaus’ 2-run double, vaulting the Los Angeles-Anaheim Angels past the Giants, 6-5.
That was the final inning Robb Nen ever pitched in the big leagues. It was later discovered that he’d destroyed his arm in trying to deliver a championship to his team.
As with Dennis Dixon, the tidal pull of loyalty to teammates, the honor of unity of the team, must have held sway with Robb Nen. How else could you possibly explain willingly tearing your body to pieces?
Perhaps, the even more remarkable thing in Dixon’s case is that he made such a sacrifice without the benefit o####uaranteed pro contract. In any event, I can only hope that such sacrifices don’t go unnoticed. In the rush to celebrate the transitory nature of scoreboard results, we shouldn’t forget to value the people over the games they play.
It doesn’t matter who you are or who your favorite team is. At some point, your rooting spirit will get crushed. Sure, there may well be championship glory to celebrate. However, no team wins a championship every year. Eventually, there will be a moment when hope vanishes and championship dreams turn to dust. For the second-ranked Oregon Ducks, that moment happened the instant Oregon’s all-everything QB Dennis Dixon limped off the field last night in Tucson, taking the team’s national championship hopes with him during the first quarter of Oregon’s 34-24 loss to Arizona.
Dixon, the Heisman Trophy favorite and the multi-threat trigger man for Oregon’s lethal spread offense, had already stunned the Wildcats with a 39-yard TD bolt straight up the middle of the field on a 4th-and-3 to start the game. He then drove the team back into the red zone on the Ducks’ next series before a pass bouncing out of WR Derrick Jones’ hands was intercepted in the end zone. While Arizona capitalized on the mistake with a score of their own, a 34-yard TD strike from Willie Tuitama to Mike Thomas, it was what happened on Oregon’s next drive that ultimately determined the game, dashed the Ducks’ dream season, and caused yet another shake-up to the BCS picture.
Driving Oregon into the red zone yet again, Dixon ran an option play, but something went horribly wrong. His knee buckled, and he fell to the turf in a heap. Where a similar sight two weeks before against Arizona State only turned out to be a sizable scare, this time the injury was very real. And Oregon’s high-powered offense came to screeching, ear-splitting halt.
Enter backup QB Brady Leaf. Exit any and all chance for the Ducks to win the game.
Because you cannot take a Ferrari off the racetrack, replace it with a Prius, and expect to win the race. Almost as if on cue, Leaf threw a back-breaking interception on Oregon’s very next series. Arizona’s star CB Antoine Cason jumped a route on a short third-down pass and took the ball 42 yards for a TD and the first lead of the game for the Wildcats, 17-11. Momentum was in full force for Arizona, and the Ducks looked dizzy from how quickly their fortunes had spun on them.
And they simply didn’t stop spinning.
Tuitama burned the Oregon secondary again. This time, on a third-and-long, he again found Mike Thomas, who split the coverage and caught a brilliantly thrown pass from Tuitama in the seam before streaking past flailing defenders 46 yards for a score. Thomas finished the game with 6 catches for a game-high 125 yards and the two big TD’s, and he wasn’t alone in making big plays for the Wildcats.
Just 10 minutes after he stunned Oregon with an interception return for a TD, Antoine Cason stunned the Ducks a second time. He took an Oregon punt 56 yards to the house to give Arizona a commanding 31-11 lead. Just like that, the Wildcats had dropped 24 straight points on the Ducks. Knowing that Oregon was wounded and reeling without their superstar QB, Arizona had swarmed in to take advantage.
Down 20 and left with a single weapon in the backfield, star RB Jonathan Stewart, Oregon gamely attempted a second half comeback. Stewart, who finished with 131 yards on 28 carries, just kept churning upfield. However, the Arizona defense, led by senior LB Spencer Larsen, knew that, besides Stewart, Oregon’s offensive cupboard was bare. So, they turned up the heat on the Oregon star.
With Stewart reasonably contained, the Wildcats openly challenged Leaf to make plays. And he couldn’t. Where Dixon had been able to run circles around defenses to buy time or burst into the open field, the cement-footed Leaf could only try to get the ball downfield with his arm and a depleted receiving corps. Arizona’s secondary, playing with house money and a 20-point lead, refused to yield the big plays Leaf and the rest of the Ducks needed to get back into the game.
Though Oregon did close to within 31-24 late in the fourth quarter, the long, painstaking drives that were required for those closing points drained too much off the clock. Without the ability to strike quickly, as they had done for much of the season under Dixon’s scary precision, Oregon just had too little to make up too much.
As Arizona students mobbed the field and the Ducks’ BCS title dreams evaporated, there was little solace to be found in what might have been. While no team ever wants to lose, they can only hope that such losses occur with their best. The added bitterness in Oregon’s meltdown in Tucson was that their best was in street clothes for three-and-a-half quarters
However, give Arizona credit. They took down the #2-ranked team in the nation by knowing exactly where the Ducks were vulnerable and keeping their foot on the wound until Oregon simply could not get back up. That the dream season in Eugene is gone is heartbreaking, for sure. The wild ride that was Oregon’s exhilarating dash to the cusp of college football’s apex still had its moments, and there is gratitude in that. It’s just a shame that the one moment still fresh in everyone’s mind is the sight of the team’s best player not being able to finish what he had worked so tirelessly to help create.
Greatness isn’t something that has come easily or often to the University of Oregon’s football program. So, this year’s thrilling high-speed chase all the way up to #2 in the BCS rankings has been all the more dizzying, because of its freshness and the crisp, clean smell of championship hope. It is new and exciting and, with every passing week, closer to being a reality.
However, while the reality of team greatness may have made only spotty appearances in Eugene over the years, individual football greatness has been painted across the school’s history for decades in wide, rich strokes. So, as this year’s team continues to chase the collective glory of a national title, perhaps, they can draw some inspiration from the proud lineage of great players who have lined up in the green and yellow of the University of Oregon in years past.
QB – Dan Fouts (1970-1972)
A future Hall of Fame NFL QB, Fouts threw for 5,995 yards and 37 TD’s in his career at Oregon. Along the way, the skinny kid from San Francisco who slipped through the recruiting nets of every school except one, set 19 records for that school and became the first QB in the program’s history to pass for more than 2,000 yards in a season. As a pro, Fouts spent his entire 15-year career with the San Diego Chargers - starting as a rookie apprentice to the great Johnny Unitas and finishing with 43,040 career passing yards, 254 TD’s, six Pro Bowl appearances, and a bronze bust in Canton.
DE/OG – Dave Wilcox (1962-1963)
A rangy, athletic end on defense and bruising guard on offense, Wilcox was relentless in his desire to excel at his job. And the native of Vale, Oregon with the lunch pail mentality was definitely good at his job. Invited to the Hula Bowl after his senior year, he became the first defensive player to earn outstanding lineman honors in the game’s history. As a pro, Wilcox moved to linebacker and carved out an eventual Hall of Fame NFL career. He was named to seven Pro Bowls and, true to his tough Eastern Oregon background, only missed one game in his 11 years as a pro, spending his entire career with the San Francisco 49ers.
RB – Mel Renfro (1961-1963)
Mel Renfro was fast. So fast, in fact, that he was an All-American track star at one of the nation’s preeminent track schools. However, unlike many track stars who tried but failed to translate that speed to success on the football field, Renfro was able to make that transition spectacularly. An electrifying running back, Renfro climbed to third on Oregon’s all-time points list (141) and seventh on the all-time rushing list (1,532) during his career with the Ducks. Moved to cornerback in the NFL, he spent his entire 14-year pro career with Dallas, making 10 Pro Bowls and finishing with 52 career interceptions (3 for TD’s). He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1996.
QB – Norm Van Brocklin (1947-1948)
No one could ever accuse Norm Van Brocklin of not trying. In fact, were anyone ever to even have made the suggestion, the fiery QB nicknamed the “Dutchman” would likely have punched his lights out, because that’s the way Van Brocklin handled things on the football field. He fought for every yard he gained, for every pass he completed, and for every score he put on the board. At the end of his two-year Oregon career, that fight yielded 1,949 passing yards, 18 TD’s, and a berth in the 1948 Cotton Bowl. In the NFL, he never stopped fighting. In a 12-year pro career, he threw for 23,611 yards and 173 TD’s with Rams and Eagles. And that competitive fire led him all the way to Canton.
WR/RB – Bobby Moore (1969-1971)
Long before he married Mrs. Huxtable, the benign sports personality now known as Ahmad Rashad was plain old Bobby Moore. However, there was nothing plain about his game on a football field. During a spectacular college career, Moore set 14 school records at Oregon, including the single-game rushing (249), season rushing (1,211), and career rushing (2,306) marks. He also set the single-season records for pass receptions (54) and career catches (131). And in excelling as both a running back and wide receiver, Moore led the Pac-8 in scoring in 1969 and 1970 from two different positions, the first conference player ever to do that. As a pro, he made four Pro Bowls in 10 NFL seasons, finishing his productive career with 495 catches for 6,831 yards and 44 TD’s.
TE – Russ Francis (1972-1974)
The Hawaiian-born Francis was such a gifted athlete that he was drafted by both the NFL and MLB. However, the playmaking TE was also an enigma. A free spirit who somehow balanced the easy-going attitude of the Islands with the white-knuckle intensity of the gridiron, Francis missed his entire sophomore season with an ankle injury, came back as a junior and earned All-conference and honorable mention All-American honors with 31 catches for 485 yards, and then elected not to play during his senior year. Despite missing his final season, he still held enough promise to be a first-round selection by the New England Patriots. In a 14-year pro career with New England and San Francisco, Francis made 3 Pro Bowls, missed the playoffs one season because of a motorcycle accident, retired and un-retired, made a cameo as a pro wrestler, and finished his quirky but occasionally brilliant NFL career with 393 catches, 5,262 yards, and 40 TD’s.
OT – Gary Zimmerman (1980-1983)
Gary Zimmerman was probably the school’s greatest offensive lineman. At 6’6”, 294 pounds, Zimmerman was a hulking figure who used his size and speed to frustrate opponents. However, his height also mandated exceptional technique, because tall linemen have a higher tipping point. Few knocked Zimmerman over, though. Through technique and sheer toughness, he simply wouldn’t allow it. He ended up parlaying his exceptional college career into a brilliant 12-year NFL stint with Minnesota and Denver that included seven Pro Bowls.
In later years, each decade had its moments and star players with each seemingly leading to bigger and better things.
The 80's brought Chris Miller throwing deep to Lew Barnes, Bill Musgrave pitching the ball to Derek Loville, and Doug Judge knocking the snot out of the people in the secondary. The decade also brought increasing respectability to the program with successive winning records and mid-level bowl bids.
The 90's brought even more success, culminating in the school's first Rose Bowl berth in 37 years following the 1994 season. Though the Ducks fell 38-20 to that year's co-National Champion Penn State Nittany Lions, Oregon QB Danny O'Neill set Rose Bowl records for pass attempts (61), completions (41), and passing yards (456). And 11 of those completions were made by TE Josh Wilcox, Dave's son, carrying on the family name on the Oregon gridiron. However, that Rose Bowl appearance would not have possible in the first place had it not been for a stunning defensive play by a freshman DB. Now simply know as "The Pick", cornerback Kenny Wheaton intercepted a Damon Huard pass near the Oregon goal line and streaked 98 yards for a game-sealing TD against the highly-ranked Washington Huskies.
Aside from the team's magical Rose Bowl run, the decade also brought higher expectations. Bowl bids were now expected, and the level of bowl game became the focus rather than just the invite itself. Greater visibility also brought a higher level of talent to the program. Ricky Whittle, Saladin McCullough, and Rueben Droughns were all 1,000-yard runners for the Ducks in the 90's. Akili Smith and A.J. Feeley starred at QB, and it was Smith who first opened up the Oregon offense to a legitimate pass-run QB. Defensively, Chad Cota and Alex Molden roamed the secondary, and Peter Sirmon, Jeremy Asher, and Rich Rule swept the middle of the field.
In the new millennium, "Captain Comeback" Joey Harrington, whose father John had been an Oregon QB under legendary coach Len Casanova in the 60's, did something his father or few others ever had for the school's program - he openly entered the Ducks into the National Championship conversation. In 2001, Harrington led Oregon to an 11-1 record and a 38-16 win over Colorado in the Fiesta Bowl and an eventual #2 national ranking. WR Keenan Howry, RB Maurice Morris, RB Onterrio Smith (Mr. Wizzinator himself), and DB Steve Smith (who snared a Fiesta Bowl-record three interceptions) all helped to make the Ducks one of the most dangerous teams in the country.
Kellen Clemens followed Harrington at QB, Terence Whitehead inherited the RB job, Demetrius Williams claimed the WR spot, and Haloti Ngata, JD Nelson, and Blair Phillips were the new defensive stalwarts.
However, 2007 has been another thing entirely. QB Dennis Dixon and RB Jonathan Stewart have brought the team as close to a National Championship opportunity as the school has had in years. And Dixon is the current frontrunner to bring home Oregon’s first Heisman trophy. Stewart hasn’t been too shabby, either, running for a school-record 251 yards earlier in the year and climbing to 5th on Oregon’s all-time rushing list.
It is rarified air that is circulating around Eugene these days. Though, with three conference games left on the schedule including the bitter Civil War game remaining with Oregon State, there is so much more to be done before anyone in Eugene can take a deep breath of that air.
However, the current team needs to look no further than the program’s four Hall of Famers – Fouts, Wilcox, Renfro, and Van Brocklin – to know that greatness has visited the Oregon campus before. They just have three weeks to bring it back.
The University of Oregon Men’s basketball team was one of the last eight teams left standing in last year’s NCAA Basketball Tournament. Though they fell to the eventual tournament champion, the Florida Gators, in the Elite 8, they did show the college basketball world that heart can matter just as much as height and that the relentlessly quick team from Eugene with the fearless perimeter game should not be taken lightly.
However, after a 29-8 record, a Pac-10 conference tournament crown, and three wins in the Big Dance in 2006-2007, being overlooked by opponents is not likely anything they’ll have to worry about this season. What they do need to worry about is how to replace the one player who simply would not allow them to fail last year, Aaron Brooks.
Oregon’s fiery senior point guard defined the team’s season a year ago with two monumental game-winning shots. The first, a buzzer-beater at home against then top-ranked UCLA last January, sky rocketed the team’s confidence and national credibility. The second, a dagger on the road at Arizona a week later, silenced any remaining doubts.
However, Brooks, who led the Ducks in points (17.7 ppg), assists (4.4 apg), and cool, parlayed his magical season into an NBA roster spot with Houston Rockets. And, without doubt, it was Brooks who made Oregon go last season. He played over 36 minutes a game for the Ducks, shooting over 40% from 3-point range and over 80% from the line, and his assist-to-turnover ratio was nearly 2:1. Not only did he know how to protect the basketball, he knew how put it into the basket or set-up his teammates to do so with impressive efficiency, and he was on the floor for over 90% of each game to make sure that happened.
The good news for Oregon in 2007-2008 is that they will have three seniors in the starting lineup ready to help fill that leadership void – G/F Malik Hairston, G/F Bryce Taylor, and F Maarty Leunen. Of the three, Hairston is the most dynamic. While a heel injury dampened his 2006-2007 season and caused him to miss 10 games, he bounced back enough down the stretch to give a glimpse of his impressive overall game. At 6’6”, he has enough speed and lift to do a lot of different things on the floor. He averaged six boards a game to highlight his ability to play inside and hit over 42% of 3-point shots to showcase his perimeter game. In fact, his 52% overall shooting from the floor led the team and reinforced his ever-improving court sense and shot selection. Fully healthy, Hairston will be the one his teammates look to as a team leader on the stat sheet and in the locker room.
For a game, Bryce Taylor was perfect. Literally. In the Pac-10 conference tournament final against USC, Taylor hit all 11 of his shots from the field, including an astonishing 7-for-7 from 3-point range, and was perfect in his three attempts from the free throw line. His 32-point demolition of the Trojans gave Oregon a convincing 81-57 win en route the conference tournament title. While Taylor’s career-night didn’t necessarily translate to those kind of superstar numbers night-in, night-out (how could they?), his improvement from his sophomore to junior seasons was remarkable, nonetheless. The 6’5” swingman improved his scoring average by nearly five points a game (from 9.3 to 14.1 ppg), raised his overall shooting percentage by over 10% (from 40.6% to 51.7%), and improved his 3-point accuracy by nearly 16% (from 26.7% to 42.2%). As it is, Taylor has transformed into a dangerous scorer with a versatile arsenal. If he continues to improve, he could really be lethal in teaming with Hairston to give the Ducks a deadly 1-2 scoring punch.
Maarty Leunen was really given an impossible task last season. The 6’9”, 215-pound forward was asked to carry Oregon’s front court all by himself. While he was out-jumped and out-muscled in nearly every game he played, he was never outplayed. He simply outlasted taller, stronger opponents. Tireless and fearless, he would slowly wear them down – minute after minute, game after game. And when they weren’t looking, he would sneak out to the perimeter and knock down a three. Like Taylor, Leunen’s improvement as a player exploded from his sophomore to his junior season. In achieving career-highs in scoring average (10.8), rebounds per game (8.2), assists per game (2.1), and steals per game (1.4), he fully demonstrated his remarkable versatility. Perhaps, most surprising was his improvement as a long-range shooter. As a sophomore, he made a pedestrian 28% of his tries from beyond the arc. As a junior, he dropped over 41% of those shots on opponents, and most never even knew what hit them.
In fact, Oregon’s perimeter game was their trademark last season, and befitting a team from Oregon, they made it rain buckets. Dropping shots from the rafters like it was monsoon season in Singapore, everyone who touched the ball for the Ducks could hit a 3-pointer. All five starters made better than 40% of their treys, and they needed each one. With an undersized lineup that relied on speed to create open looks, they couldn’t allow a game to be decided on the glass. Missed shots meant rebounds, and the Ducks knew they how little chance they had to win that way. So, they ran and shot. And made.
And few people on the floor ran faster or shot quicker than the smallest player out there, 5’6” freshman Tajuan Porter. Porter needed that quickness because his window for an open look closed faster than anyone else’s. Although he started the year with little more expectation on him than to be a safety valve for Aaron Brooks to catch his breath for a few minutes a game, his deadly shooting touch earned him significant playing time. He averaged 14.6 points a game, shooting better than 41% from long distance and better than 90% from the line. When open, there was little question how good the little man with the big jumper was. His crowning moment was a 33-point barrage (on 8-of-12 shooting from 3-point range) against UNLV in Oregon’s Sweet 16 win over the Rebs in the NCAA Tournament.
This year, however, Porter will not only be expected to pick up where he left off shooting the rock but also to assume the team’s point guard duties. Can he make the transition from a shoot-only player to a pass-and-shoot player? He needs to, because the only other point guard on the roster is true freshman Kamyron Brown. While Brown has loads of potential with great court vision and a deft passing touch, asking him to run the team if Porter is slow to make the transition from off-guard to the point would be asking a bit much too soon. However, Brown certainly has the ability to play his way into more minutes at the point (shifting Porter and his deadly outside game to the 2) as the season progresses.
In addition to Brown, the Ducks’ bench looks to be much stronger this year.
The Invisible Man is finally visible. JC transfer Frantz Dorsainvil looked like a perfect fit for the Ducks last season. At 6’8”, 270 pounds, the athletic Dorsainvil would have given Maarty Leunen the front court help the team so desperately needed. Unfortunately, a funny thing happened on the way to Mac Court. The prized JC transfer, a native of Haiti who grew up in Montreal, got tangled up in Visa-related red tape and never made it to Eugene. Luckily, all of that crimson adhesive was somehow detangled in the off-season, and the Ducks finally have their highly coveted athletic big man on the roster.
Another transfer, 6’6” swingman Churchill Odia, may also see some significant playing time. Odia, who transferred from Xavier in 2005, played limited minutes last year, averaging just 1.8 points per game in just over nine minutes a contest. However, in his second season in head coach Ernie Kent’s system, he may find his way into the rotation more often, especially in light of the transfer of Chamberlain Oguchi. Oguchi, the very definition of a streak shooter, never found his touch last season. After establishing himself as a dangerous 3-point threat in 2005-2006, he hit just 26% of his long-range shots in 2006-2007 and then transferred to Illinois State in the off-season. So, Odia, recruited as a point guard by Xavier, may be the one who picks up Oguchi’s minutes this year or help in the point guard rotation, but he’ll have plenty of competition for those minutes.
Another swingman, 6’5” redshirt freshman LeKendric Longmire, is also in the running for guard minutes. His athleticism and defense may win him some time, and defense became a surprising strength for the undersized Ducks late in the season. The team’s ability to shut down some of the Pac-10’s top scorers in the conference tournament jump started their NCAA tourney run. So, Longmire’s defensive potential may help to continue that trend. Early season games will likely sort out the minutes, but Longmire will have a chance to claim some of them.
With so many wing players, Ernie Kent’s squad might as well be playing in Buffalo, because they have yet another “tweener”, highly-touted freshman Drew Viney, whose impressive perimeter game fits in perfectly with Oregon’s high-powered long-range offense. With so much riding on getting outside shots to fall, the Ducks always need marksmen, and Viney is definitely that. It will just be a matter of how quickly he finds his range that determines his role on the team.
Along with Dorsainvil, sophomore forward Joevan Catron will get quality minutes in the front court. Last season, as a freshman, Catron saw his playing time increase as he showed his ability to defend in the paint and fight for rebounds. Although just 6’6”, he played bigger than that and wasn’t bashful about the physical nature of the interior.
Besides sitting at the end of Ernie Kent’s bench last year, 6’10” Mitch Platt and 7’0” Ray Schafer seemed to offer little more than 10 fouls and traffic in the post. The nature of Oregon’s high-octane offense didn’t help them get any closer to the scorer’s table, either. However, Platt’s a somewhat intriguing player. The fifth-year senior has had some productive minutes for the team but missed all of the 2005-2006 season with injury. As a freshman, he did play enough to average five points and four boards a game.
Of course, head coach Ernie Kent’s philosophy in recent years has been all about speed, and, frankly, tall players just tend to slow things down. And the methodology to Kent’s basketball madness can be traced directly back to his own playing days. In the mid-70’s, Kent was a player at Oregon. His team at the time was nicknamed the “Kamikaze Kids” for their aggressive, all-out style and their knack for sacrificing their bodies (via taking charges) on the floor. They were a frenetic, relentless bunch led by their all-everything guard Ron Lee. Forwards Greg Ballard and Stu Jackson were Lee’s top lieutenants, and Kent joined the fray off the bench.
The experience must have resonated, because Kent’s teams play with that same kind of fury. Although this year’s team is lacking their Ron Lee, Houston-bound Aaron Brooks, they haven’t lost their speed or intensity. With three senior leaders returning and Tajuan Porter with a full year of experience on his resume, they have enough to overcome the loss of Brooks. It is the addition of Dorsainvil and the high-ceiling potential of Kamyron Brown and Drew Viney that may be the keys for an even deeper run into March Madness.
So, there’s no sneaking up on anyone for the Ducks this season. However, that’s ok, because they can always just run past them on their way to another 3-point shot. And it all starts this Saturday night at the Pit against Pepperdine. Mac Court will be rocking, and, I suspect, it will, like the team itself, continue to rock all the way into March.
Playing a team with a mascot sporting horns and a pitchfork just three days after Halloween, the Oregon football team had to know they were going to get a scare in their big Pac-10 showdown with the undefeated Arizona State Sun Devils on Saturday. They probably just didn't realize how big that scare would be.
Early in the fourth quarter, Oregon's star QB and Heisman candidate Dennis Dixon darted from the pocket and ran for 11 yards and a first down. At the end of the play, Dixon's leg twisted awkwardly and he immediately clutched at his knee. For Oregon players, coaches, and fans, few Halloween horrors could rival the sight of Dennis Dixon grabbing his knee in pain. Rollicking Autzen Stadium, one of the loudest venues in the country, went instantly silent.
With the Ducks leading comfortably 35-16 at the time, few in the sold-out stadium were in the mood for celebrating as Dixon hobbled off the field. Oregon's senior QB has been an unquestioned team leader this season, and his lethal pass-run threat has fueled the offense to nearly unprecedented heights. As further proof of that, Dixon had thrown for 189 yards and 4 TD's without an interception and rushed for another 57 yards at that point in the game. The vaunted ASU defense simply had not been able to contain him, and he had directed Oregon to five scores and a 19-point lead against the #4 team in the country. To say that the Ducks would be a far less dangerous team without him in the lineup is one of the more massive understatements in college football.
So, when Dixon limped off the field, nearly all of Oregon’s lofty hopes went with him and rested squarely on how badly Dixon's knee had been hurt. Luckily, Oregon's star QB was seen strolling the sidelines without visible pain shortly after and even jogged off the field in the closing seconds of the game as his backup, Brady Leaf, handled things for the Ducks in the final clock-killing drives of the contest. And it's a good thing Dixon's knee injury appears to be only a minor mishap, because Oregon's offense goes from high-octane to garden variety unleaded without him.
As for Oregon's big 35-23 win over the previously undefeated Sun Devils, the tone for the game may have been set on the Ducks' very first play from scrimmage. Boxing legend Roberto Duran had the nickname "Hands of Stone" as a testament to his punishing punching power. Oregon's star-crossed WR Jaison Williams has earned a similar nickname but with a far less positive connotation. Williams has dropped so many passes in his career with the Ducks that his unreliability has nearly become the stuff of legend. However, on the first play from scrimmage against the stout Sun Devils' defense, Dixon found Williams for 43 yards.
Later in the same drive, Dixon found his big WR for a 26-yard score. Just like that, Oregon took a 7-0 lead and established Jaison Williams as a legitimate scoring threat. By the stretching the field early, they also created running space, and on their next drive, they took advantage of that running room by giving the ball to Jonathan Stewart and allowed the big RB to push forward. Between Stewart and Dixon, they ran the ball seven times for 41 yards and set-up a 3rd-and-5 at the ASU 13. And it was Stewart who finished the drive by taking a beautifully executed screen pass and powered his way into the end zone.
With the huge home crowd roaring, Oregon’s defense stopped the Sun Devils on their next drive and forced a punt. However, DB Patrick Chung knocked down the punter for an apparent 15-yard penalty and an ASU first down. It would have been a huge momentum shift, except the Sun Devils were called for an illegal formation as well, and the infraction offset the bigger Oregon penalty. So, the Ducks got the ball back and wasted little time in cashing in on their good fortune.
This time it was all Dennis Dixon. The dual-threat QB ran for 19 yards on three carries and completed all four of his passes on the drive for the other 56 yards, and it was much-maligned Jaison Williams again finding the end zone on a 27-yard strike right down the middle of the field. On the play, Dixon pulled two ASU defenders forward with a terrific pump fake, and Williams ran right by them, wide open. Williams, who finished with five catches for 106 yards and the two big TD’s, was found money for Oregon. So little was expected of him coming into the game that his profound early impact put an exclamation point on just how much was going right for Mike Bellotti’s team in the biggest game of the year.
Just over a minute into the second quarter, the Ducks were up 21-3 and were firing on all cylinders. Conversely, the Sun Devils were in trouble and knew that if they fell behind any further the game was likely over. However, ASU had been on the wrong side of the score at some point in nearly all of their games this year and never withered. Their und
