For those of us who consider ourselves to be a part of ‘Oregon Country,’ at least as that pertains to this school and to college football, two weeks ago was our Finest Hour.
For five days we were scheduled to achieve our goal – to play in the BCS National Championship Game. All argument about the calculus of the BCS notwithstanding, our separation from No. 3 was so sufficient that those who understand these things, who have suffered for years and decades knew that we were, for the first time ever, a ‘lock’ to play in college football’s equivalent of The Show.
We didn’t just have that, we had a Heisman candidate (and more). Two weeks ago, Dennis Dixon was also a ‘lock’ to take that award. If you are all about counting blue states and red states, the writing was on the wall: From the Bible Belt all the way (it seemed) to the Belt of Orion, Dixon was the fans’ consensus favorite to win that award. Only in those few states where his rivals played did the polls show our QB having less than 50 percent of the Heisman vote, over around a half-dozen other candidates.
Our Finest Hour. For five days caring Ducks and Duck alums could walk about not so much as champions (yet) but as those who had earned an exclusive pass to that event where the champion is crowned. Only two schools qualify for that each year, and we had our RSVP. If you only know, or feel, how far, far away this school has been from that objective, can you appreciate where we were two weeks ago.
And now, for this year, that time has passed. That’s a fact, and so is this: It might never come again.
And so I say to those other suffering souls of ‘Oregon Country’: Savor the memory of two weeks ago, when we had a very legitimate right to think we were going to The Show with our own Heisman Trophy winner.
Swen Orter
Editor
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