Looking onto the field at Autzen Stadium, students expect to see not only a winning football team, but also the marching band, cheerleaders, and, of course, an oversized Donald Duck dancing along the sidelines. Donald didn’t always protect the University’s athletes, however. Originally, the school had the Webfoots. That’s right — Webfoots.
Local folklore documented by Jean Campbell reports that Webfoots was the nickname a traveling salesman gave residents of Western Oregon. While traveling north from California, he stayed at a farmhouse in Lane County. The salesman hated the rainy weather and commented to the woman who lived at the farmhouse that he wouldn’t be surprised if all the children in the area had webbed feet. Then the woman showed the salesman her baby’s feet — which were, in fact, webbed between the toes.

The truth of the story is debatable, but the name stuck, and, according to a 1978 article in The Register-Guard, University students and alumni voted in 1932 to call themselves the Webfoots. A sports editor for The Oregonian suggested the name, an altered version of a common nickname, the Webfooters. Other choices at the time were Trappers, Pioneers, Yellow Jackets and Gorillas.
Drawings in the University archives show the mascot as a man wearing a sweater with a large “O” on the front, a blazer and duck feet.
But the name didn’t last long. By World War II, the term Ducks was as common as Webfoots, according to former University archivist Keith Richard. After a brief stint in which Puddles, a live white duck, appeared at sporting events, former Athletic Director Leo Harris made an agreement with Walt Disney to have Donald Duck be the University’s official mascot, Richard said.

After Disney’s death, the Disney Corporation demanded to see the contract between Harris and Disney in order to continue letting the University use the Donald Duck image, Richard said. As the University archivist at the time, Richard was put in charge of finding the contract. He was not able to come up with a written agreement, but instead found a photograph of Disney, wearing a University letterman jacket, and Harris shaking hands.
“The only proof of the contract was that photo,” Richard said.
The photo was enough, and to this day the University is the only organization of any kind to use Disney artwork without a fee, according to The Register-Guard’s 1978 article.
The only other obstacle to Donald Duck’s reign as mascot occurred in 1978. Steve Sandstrom, an Oregon Daily Emerald staff member, created Mallard Drake hoping Mallard would become the new mascot. According to an issue of the Emerald published at the time of the elections, Sandstrom and the student group “Committee to Appoint Mallard Drake as University Duck” believed Donald Duck was too well-associated with Disney and wanted something more specific to the University. However, efforts from an opposing student group, the “Retain Class in Your Bird Committee,” ensured that students voted to keep the Disney character as the mascot.
Students today continue to support the duck.
“How many universities can say that their mascot can be found naturally on their campus?” sophomore theater arts major Martha Mosqueda said.