An unlikely alliance was formed when the Oregon women’s basketball team arrived at the Eugene Airport in early February.
The Ducks, traveling to road games at Stanford and California, were dismayed when they discovered they’d be sharing a flight with their in-state rival, Oregon State.
One could speculate that nobody was more appalled than Oregon center Jenny Mowe and Beaver forward Ericka Cook.
The teams’ two post players have shared nothing but shoves, elbows and fouls since they first stepped on the court together. Their rivalry was immortalized when, at a Jan. 29, 1999 game in Eugene that Oregon won 59-46, Mowe delivered a sharp elbow to Cook’s jaw, sending the Beaver to the floor.
Cook was treated for 10 minutes on the bench before returning to the game. By the game’s end, Cook — then Ericka Brosterhous — gave Mowe a bloody nose.
So you know what Mowe was thinking last month about being trapped in a plane with Oregon State players.
“They pulled up to the Stanford flight, right outside the airport, and I go, ‘Oh great, now we’re going to have to go with Oregon State,’” Mowe said. “I said ‘With my luck, I’m going to have to sit right next to Cook.’”
Guess what happened next?
“Sure enough, I’m like, ‘yeah, I got the exit row, yeah!’” Mowe continued. “I walk in the plane, and I’m like, ‘oh, no!’”
Neither player will soon forget the moment when Mowe sat down next to Cook.
“It was a little scary at first, when she walked down the aisle and everybody was like, ‘I’ll bet you five dollars she’s sitting by Ericka,’ and I’m like, ‘Shut up!’” Cook said. “And she comes and sits right by me, and coach [Judy Spoelstra] goes, ‘Be civil to each other now.’”
At first, neither player knew what to do. First attempts at conversation were turbulent at best, and mostly limited to asking each other, “How long is this flight?”
Then, Mowe and Cook started joking around. Then, they actually started talking.
Now, they are friends.
“We started asking questions, and answering, and figuring out that we have a lot in common,” Cook said.
“It took awhile to kind of break the ice,” Mowe said. “But after awhile we were like, ‘No way, oh my gosh!’ So it should be fun.”
Thus, the most hostile one-on-one rivalry between the Ducks and Beavers effectively came to an end.
But for all you women’s basketball fans who were hoping to see some fireworks at Saturday’s 1 p.m. Civil War at McArthur Court, cheer up — there’s still plenty of rivalry left between the intrastate schools.

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Oregon forward Lindsey Dion has taken her share of blows in Civil War action. She’s also dealt her share of maybe-accidental hits.
Just before halftime in this season’s first Civil War in Corvallis, Dion and Beaver guard Felicia Ragland raced from opposite directions to recover a loose ball. The result was a spectacular collision that landed Ragland on the floor.
To say the least, Ragland was furious. She jumped up, got in Dion’s face and gave her a quick shove. Teammates separated Dion and Ragland before the conflict could escalate.
Both players received technical fouls, but Oregon won the War, 71-67.
“Words were exchanged, shoves were exchanged, and that was it, our teammates came,” Dion said. “It wasn’t going to be anything more than that, either. But it was definitely a lapse of sportsmanship on my part, and like I said, I don’t anticipate that happening again.

“I’m not going to let someone take advantage of me either, so never say never.”
Since that game, Ragland has become the Pacific-10 Conference’s leading scorer with 19.8 points per game, and she is a strong consideration for Pac-10 Player of the Year — and she has her sights set on Oregon.
“It’s still fresh in my mind,” said Ragland, referring to her run-in with Dion. “But we’ve got to deal with it on the court, you know.”
Also in January’s Civil War, Oregon forward Brianne Meharry bumped Cook as the two ran down the floor. Both players tripped and fell, and Cook was whistled for allegedly kicking Meharry. Needless to say, Beaver fans were furious.
And who can forget the Civil War at the beginning of last season? Before that game, Cook flipped Dion the bird as they crossed paths in a hallway. Oregon players responded with an inspired 68-51 victory.
However, not all antics of recent Civil Wars involved players.
In last season’s final Civil War, Oregon seemed to get some lucky breaks in the final minutes as it tried to secure its first outright Pac-10 title in history.
But the moment of controversy came when Oregon State’s Reda Petraitis sank a three-pointer to cut the Ducks’ lead to 57-56 with about 30 seconds left. An official waved off the basket, ruling that the Beavers called for a time-out first, and Oregon held on for the 60-53 win.
After the game, Spoelstra was furious when she found out that official was an Oregon alum. The Pac-10 later reprimanded Spoelstra for comments she made to the media about the officiating.
“That was a very close-fought basketball game,” Spoelstra said. “We felt like we didn’t get any breaks down the stretch there, and we hit that three-point shot to pull to within one — that was taken away. You know, a lot of weird things were going on.
“It’s not anything that we really talk about or dwell on, we’re pretty much more talking about Oregon State, what we need to improve on.”
Not dwelling on something, though, doesn’t mean it’s forgotten.

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Times have changed since last season. Back then, Oregon was hoping to host the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Now, Oregon simply hopes to get invited.
But don’t think the stakes aren’t as high — in fact, they could be higher than ever. The Ducks have won four of their last five games, while the Beavers are victors of five straight.
A win on Saturday could propel either team to the Big Dance.
“It’s a guessing game when it comes to the NCAA Tournament,” said first-year OSU assistant coach Stephanie Norman, who was released from her assistant coaching job at Oregon in May 1999. “They have so many formulas to decide who it is who gets to go and who doesn’t. We have not used it as a distraction, we’ve just talked about postseason play as our goal, whether it’s the NCAA or WNIT.”
No matter what the NCAA selection committee decides, everyone knows that pride is on the line when Oregon and Oregon State rumble.
And perhaps it is that sense of pride that has drawn light-hearted criticism from some of Mowe’s teammates.
“Jenny is friends with Oregon State players now,” forward Angelina Wolvert said. “We’re all a little upset about this. It’s her prerogative, but we want to go out and beat them.”
Mowe says she still looks forward to playing the Beavers, “But not for the reasons that I used to look forward to playing them,” she said.
“We clicked,” Cook said about her bond with Mowe. “I thought she was really cool. She’s a great athlete, and I really respect her now because I know where she’s coming from.
“With her personality, she would fit great with our team.”
A Duck being a Beaver? On Civil War weekend?
Don’t count on it.