Opinion: I promise I’m still grateful for the donations.
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It was 2:30 a.m. on a rainy night in early 2018 when Phil Knight, University of Oregon graduate and co-founder of Nike, Inc., woke up in a cold sweat. Knight, breathing heavily, recalled his nightmare: Every “Track Town, USA” sign had been removed from Eugene. In this hellscape, everyone had forgotten about UO’s track prominence.

As Knight took a few deep breaths and his heart rate settled back to its normal 126 beats per minute, his terror turned to purpose as plans for a groundbreaking investment brewed.

Now, follow me on this as I flashback to 1886. A woman named Sarah Winchester, following the death of her daughter and wildly successful husband, bought a 40-acre plot of land that included an eight-bedroom farmhouse in San Jose, California. Winchester had inherited a 50% stake in her husband’s family’s rifle company worth roughly $20 million (worth over a half billion dollars today), and immediately started a massive renovation on the house.

However, the renovations were nothing like your average kitchen remodel. The Winchester Mystery House, as it’s called today, is known for its outrageous design elements and logic-defying structure. It’s got every crazy addition you can imagine: stairs leading to the ceiling, doors going nowhere and more creepy hallways than you can count.

The property underwent steady construction for nearly two decades, transforming into a 160-room mansion. While work slowed after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, it is said never to have completely ceased until Winchester’s death in 1922.

There are many rumors on why Winchester continued to renovate. Some say she was haunted by the ghosts of her family or those killed by Winchester rifles, others claim it was due to instructions from a psychic. Nevertheless, Winchester left behind one of the most confusing yet beautiful homes in the country.

Now back to Phil Knight on this fateful morning in 2018. Winchester — I mean, Knight — was still dealing with the loss of his husband — I mean, dreams of a lost identity — and knew something must be done.

Knight had to ensure no one would ever associate “Track Town” with any other city. Blueprints were drawn up for a complete revamp of Hayward Field that would build a roughly 13,000-seat stadium and giant media tower.

It was an ingenious plan. Knight knows that track is his ol’ reliable. This, of course, is because track means running, running means shoes, shoes mean Nike and Nike… Nike means money.

Construction began on the $270 million passion project in the summer of 2018. However, as the stadium got closer to completion, Knight still awoke every morning from continuations of the same nightmare.

Without its classic nickname, dream-Eugene lost all purpose. The lines between good and evil blurred, and Knight’s beloved alma mater fell into shambles. Without track, we had nothing. Nike became a mere memory, and the name Phil Knight along with it.

Classes were canceled because professors didn’t know what to teach (because obviously we just learn about Nike in every class). Dining halls closed because, well, how was the university supposed to feed students without money from its sugar daddy? And of course, all of the dreams ended with the piercing laugh of Kasper Rørsted, the CEO of Adidas.

Even after Hayward Field’s opening weekend in April 2021, Knight was still troubled. What he thought would be the end of his nightmares only made things worse.

Construction continued on a massive, 160-foot long screen for the majority of the 2021-22 school year. Equipment blocked much of the recently closed-to-cars portion of East 15th Street, and students squirmed through the small opening on their way to and from classes.

However, the now-completed, largest permanent video screen for a track stadium in the country is not even the latest in changes to the year-old revamped stadium. Just when most thought they would be able to walk freely, fences went up once again. Now, multiple additions of bleachers jut out from the stadium, blocking a large portion of the path.

So what actually motivates the construction?

Is it really Phil Knight’s dreams that I made up for the sake of this article? Is Knight, the 28th richest man in the world, so wealthy that financing state-of-the-art stadiums is the only way he has to entertain himself? Or, and don’t quote me on this, is he just haunted by the spirits of angry children from overseas Nike manufacturing facilities? Who’s to say. But if Phil Knight is anything like Sarah Winchester, we may only escape the hard hats and cranes with the peril of our school’s largest donor.

But by then, UO may be home to the most complex stadium ever built.