Oregon State and Oregon, the 5th-oldest rivalry in College Football, the most contested rivaly in College Basketball (and the provider of OSU's NCAA record 184 wins over any single opponent); this rivalry is something special. Today's fans are at each other's throats, literally burning each others fields, and generally part of a very nasty rivalry. Knowing the bloody vibes between the two schools, it might come to your surprise that the two schools are actually much more intertwined than one would think!
Here is a short list of the schools' interactions. (Notice which school this seems to favor!) [note: In a very non-archivist form, I do not have citations today. This is soley out of the top of my head, however everything below I have personally verified. I may remedy my lack of citation later, but we'll see... I am, after all, a lazy college student.]
1. Mike Parker, the voice of the Beavers. Mike has helmed our audio ship since 1999. With the exception of Cunningham's "Kiss the Sky" award-winning dunk last year, Parker's voice can be heard on EVERY replay shown at OSU, but did you know that this staple in Beaver lore is... a duck??? It turns out Parker graduated from the U of O, though he is quick to point out that he has conformed from his evil ways and will always remain a Beaver. Fortunately, his status was cemented when the university bestowed an honorary degree a few years ago.
2. Don Essig, the voice of the Ducks. Essig is the PA at Autzen Stadium, which means I shudder every time I hear his excited voice. Every time its pitch rises in excitement, it means that evil has once again triumphed, and the ugly ducklings have prevailed over all. But, like Parker, it turns out Essig's gig is a betrayal of his alma mater; not only was Essig a Beaver, but he was even on the Rally Squad, no small feat back in the day! One can only hope he at least thinks of himself as a platypus and not the dreaded waterfoul down south.
3. Autzen. Sure, Autzen was a Duck... Autzen Jr. that is, but Autzen Sr. is the namesake of Nike U's stadium! I was first tipped off by the Autzen classroom at OSU's Valley Library; why would a famous Duck get his own room here? It turns out he was actually a prominant Beaver, but to humor his traitor son, he donated the lumber to build Autzen Stadium, thus earning the namesake in the middle of a gloomy wetland.
4. Rich Brooks. Autzen Stadium's field is named after the guy, so he has to be a famous Duck, right? Right, er... sort of. Besides playing for OSU, Rich Brooks started his coaching career under The Great Pumpkin, Dee Andros, before taking the head coaching job at the U of O. Yes, the Duck's turn-around was started by a Beaver.
5. That One Guy who co-founded U of O... Alright, so I don't remember his name, or even the year. I just know "there was a guy." If I come across it I will add an addendum to this post with the details, but here is the skinny: Before U of O had its U or its O, it was known as Skinner's Butte Academy. (Presumably on Skinner's Butte? A hill in Eugene named for, you guessed it, Skinner.) This was similar to Corvallis College in Corvallis-- not officially the predecessor of the University that came later, but it should be. Like Corvallis College for OSU, without Skinner's Butte, the U of O would never have started. So why is this important? Because an SAC alum (SAC become OAC, which became OSAC, which became OSC, before becoming OSU) was a co-founder of Skinner's Butte Academy. What does this mean? An OSU alum founded U of O! That means that the Ducks are right-- OSU can't actually claim U of O is our little brother... though they should also realize that we are not their little brother either. Instead, we should be asking them: "Who's your daddy?"
A final disclaimer on the above: Everything I have claimed as fact is something which I 100% know to be true. I don't know the name of "that one guy" but I do know for sure that the details given are accurate. If I listed a detail, I know it to be fact-- if I was hazy on a detail, it is either not included, or not worded in a way to imply I am certain.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
The Serpentine
I have refined my topic a bit more, and although I am still hammering out an argument, I have decided that my project will revolve around school spirit at OSU up to the era of anti-establishment brought on by Vietnam. I don't have much else to report, though I thought I would share a fun photo of the "Serpentine," a tradition dating back over a century.
P217:028 064, OSU Archives (Taken from Flickr Commons)
Monday, January 16, 2012
In light of today being Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I think it is appropriate to take a look at my latest long-going projects in the Archives: Racism at OSU.
My first tale begins in 1969 when the Great Pumpkin, Dee Andros, was the head football coach at Oregon State. As is a common practice among various sports teams (the New York Yankees are perhaps the most obvious example), Coach Andros had a strict policy of his players remaining clean-shaven. Most of the team stayed within compliance of his policy, but one day in 1969, black player Fred Milton decided to grow a beard anyways. Upon his first sighting by Coach Andros, Milton was told that the beard had to go, and rather than concede, Milton stubbornly refused. After his suspension, Milton cried foul, pulling out the race card, and the 160ish-strong Black Student Union organized protests and a boycott of classes. Not much really happened in the aftermath, except that Milton transferred and a couple other black students left the team. Andros went on to become the Athletic Director, but although the incident gained international attention (I read one account of a man's friend calling about it from Turkey!), no policy changes were enacted. At a glance, this case really seems silly. I mean, what is racist about asking him to shave his beard? All the white players had equal treatment! BUT, in the words of Lee Corso, "not so fast, my friend!" In digging deeper, I discovered that, while not an inherently racist event, it was the catalyst sparking an already-present mood around campus. My final impression: stupid people did stupid racist things, so later, a harmless event channelled the existing tension and sparked a fire.
Fast-forward to the fall of 1990. The coordinator for the Black Cultural Center on campus was walking near campus when a van drove by. A member of the van hurled racial slurs, and the van sped off. Some accounts say the van even forced him to move out of the way, though the van driver was eventually cleared of all wrong-doing. In protest, the coordinator closed the BCC that Wednesday. His protest brought attention to tensions on campus which had been a real problem. In fact, he even claimed that similar events had happened at least two times prior. Fortunately, support on campus was so overwhelming that the center reopened two days later. The event also proved to have lasting effects as the university acknowledged a student request for a new educational requirement, the Difference, Power, and Discrimination portion of the Baccalaureate Core. While I personally bemoan the requirement as yet another annoying hurdle unrelated to my major (math, science, and DPD are not too separated on my interest scale), I do appreciate its importance and view its addition as a step in the right direction.
Skip ahead to 1996. Two students hurled racial slurs and attempted to urinate on a black student from an upper floor of their dorm. Coupled with the defacing of a political poster (a black student running for ASOSU President), the event sparked outrage, and led by the Black Cultural Center, the All OSU Boycott was organized. Between 1400 and 2000 (depending on the source) students participated in a silent march through campus, ending in the Quad with speeches. The two students were charged and convicted with hate crimes, and again, the tensions on campus were brought to the forefront. State-wide media covered the event, and letters to the editor at the Daily Barometer were in abundance for months. The poster-defacer was also banned from student housing for two terms. It is worth note that the victim of the urination was also the victim of another event in 1999, although no charges were filed.
As I am fairly observant of the fine line between either dwelling on the past to a fault or forgetting the past, I think revisiting events like these are healthy to do, especially on days like this which focus on such revolutionaries as Martin Luther King Jr. and the dream for which he fought. As I walk on campus in 2012, reading about past racism at OSU is shocking to me as the culture I have witnessed is vastly different from even 1996. Hopefully I am not blind about events on campus, but it seems to me that the last 15-16 years has seen great improvement at OSU.
My first tale begins in 1969 when the Great Pumpkin, Dee Andros, was the head football coach at Oregon State. As is a common practice among various sports teams (the New York Yankees are perhaps the most obvious example), Coach Andros had a strict policy of his players remaining clean-shaven. Most of the team stayed within compliance of his policy, but one day in 1969, black player Fred Milton decided to grow a beard anyways. Upon his first sighting by Coach Andros, Milton was told that the beard had to go, and rather than concede, Milton stubbornly refused. After his suspension, Milton cried foul, pulling out the race card, and the 160ish-strong Black Student Union organized protests and a boycott of classes. Not much really happened in the aftermath, except that Milton transferred and a couple other black students left the team. Andros went on to become the Athletic Director, but although the incident gained international attention (I read one account of a man's friend calling about it from Turkey!), no policy changes were enacted. At a glance, this case really seems silly. I mean, what is racist about asking him to shave his beard? All the white players had equal treatment! BUT, in the words of Lee Corso, "not so fast, my friend!" In digging deeper, I discovered that, while not an inherently racist event, it was the catalyst sparking an already-present mood around campus. My final impression: stupid people did stupid racist things, so later, a harmless event channelled the existing tension and sparked a fire.
Fast-forward to the fall of 1990. The coordinator for the Black Cultural Center on campus was walking near campus when a van drove by. A member of the van hurled racial slurs, and the van sped off. Some accounts say the van even forced him to move out of the way, though the van driver was eventually cleared of all wrong-doing. In protest, the coordinator closed the BCC that Wednesday. His protest brought attention to tensions on campus which had been a real problem. In fact, he even claimed that similar events had happened at least two times prior. Fortunately, support on campus was so overwhelming that the center reopened two days later. The event also proved to have lasting effects as the university acknowledged a student request for a new educational requirement, the Difference, Power, and Discrimination portion of the Baccalaureate Core. While I personally bemoan the requirement as yet another annoying hurdle unrelated to my major (math, science, and DPD are not too separated on my interest scale), I do appreciate its importance and view its addition as a step in the right direction.
Skip ahead to 1996. Two students hurled racial slurs and attempted to urinate on a black student from an upper floor of their dorm. Coupled with the defacing of a political poster (a black student running for ASOSU President), the event sparked outrage, and led by the Black Cultural Center, the All OSU Boycott was organized. Between 1400 and 2000 (depending on the source) students participated in a silent march through campus, ending in the Quad with speeches. The two students were charged and convicted with hate crimes, and again, the tensions on campus were brought to the forefront. State-wide media covered the event, and letters to the editor at the Daily Barometer were in abundance for months. The poster-defacer was also banned from student housing for two terms. It is worth note that the victim of the urination was also the victim of another event in 1999, although no charges were filed.
As I am fairly observant of the fine line between either dwelling on the past to a fault or forgetting the past, I think revisiting events like these are healthy to do, especially on days like this which focus on such revolutionaries as Martin Luther King Jr. and the dream for which he fought. As I walk on campus in 2012, reading about past racism at OSU is shocking to me as the culture I have witnessed is vastly different from even 1996. Hopefully I am not blind about events on campus, but it seems to me that the last 15-16 years has seen great improvement at OSU.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Research Topic
Today is the start of Winter Term. In the context of this blog, that means I am about to become an expert on one topic in the OSU Archives. I am taking History 407 (a large research project), and pretty much all I know for sure is that my topic will be related to OSU history. Although that is all I know for certain, I do have a few possible ideas, though nothing set in stone. I have considered researching OSU's athletic success, and also independently observing its academic statistics, and trying to identify any correlations. Another option might be something about racism on campus if only because I have done a bit of research on the topic already for another patron. I should know before the week is out what I will be researching, but if you have any fun ideas, let me know in the comments!
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
The Rose Bowl
To commemorate 70 years of bragging rights before Toilet Seat U ended its 95-year skid in the Rose Bowl this year, I hope you enjoy a couple of clips, courtesy of the OSU Archives! (I tried to embed them, but sadly, the coding isn't compatible.)
Clips from the 1941 Civil War and Homecoming Celebration
http://media.oregonstate.edu/index.php/show/1942_rose_bowl_pre-game_activities?id=0_4i04513i
Clips from the 1942 Rose Bowl
http://media.oregonstate.edu/index.php/show/1942_rose_bowl_game_footage?id=0_2dkbgo89
Clips from the 1941 Civil War and Homecoming Celebration
http://media.oregonstate.edu/index.php/show/1942_rose_bowl_pre-game_activities?id=0_4i04513i
Clips from the 1942 Rose Bowl
http://media.oregonstate.edu/index.php/show/1942_rose_bowl_game_footage?id=0_2dkbgo89
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Captain America
Today I got to view the first-ever Captain America comic, or at least the micro-fiche version. Our library had the entire comic series on loan from Stanford, so during my lunch break, I took advantage of our fiche readers (fiche is like micro-film, but one sheet instead of a reel). Sadly, our readers are only in black and white while the fiches were actually in color, so the images were only awesome instead of incredibly awesome.
I scanned a couple images from the book, but in an effort to adhere to copyright usage guidelines, I limited my reproduction to just the cover and an ad, and will only post the ad. (I am using the wikipedia fair use rules as a guideline and basically only posting one panel from the issue.)
I scanned a couple images from the book, but in an effort to adhere to copyright usage guidelines, I limited my reproduction to just the cover and an ad, and will only post the ad. (I am using the wikipedia fair use rules as a guideline and basically only posting one panel from the issue.)
Bottom of Issue 1, page 2
It is worth noting that this deputed in 1941, hence the request to join the "Sentinels of Liberty" and do your patriotic duty of searching for evil spies. Cool, huh?
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