Debra Fite would have wanted it this way.
She would have wanted her son, Ramone Reed, to return to Oregon. She would have wanted him to get back on the field and into the classroom.
She would have wanted things to go back to normal for the Berkeley, Calif. native.
Fite was particularly close to Reed, a 21-year-old senior linebacker for the Ducks. After Fite passed away on Oct. 13, Reed tried to get things back to normal.
It wasn’t easy.
“It was very hard and when I first got back, I couldn’t take my mind off of it,” Reed said. “When I got back, I don’t think I played in a game throughout the end of the season. Most of that had to do with me not being able to eat, just not having the energy to even be able to get out on the field playing.”
More than six months later, Reed still faces days when he doesn’t feel like going out onto the field. But penciled in as Oregon’s No. 1 weakside linebacker, he’s expected to be out there a lot.
It’s still hard.
“I just try to think about the reasons I play this game,” Reed said. “I try to think about all the days when I was six, seven years old and I used to go outside and play by myself. I used to make footballs out of socks or whatever I could.”
He said it’s slow going in terms of getting things back to normal. Maybe that day will come. Maybe it won’t.
Regardless, the consensus is that Reed is improving, both on and off the field.
“He’s changed a lot,” said senior linebacker Jerry Matson, a close friend of Reed’s. “You can see the joy in his eye instead of just dealing with all of the outside pain. And he can finally focus on things that are fun and (has) conducted to better himself in football and school.
“Before, family has got to come first, so he wasn’t very enthusiastic about anything in his life. But now, you can tell he’s changed his outlook on a lot of things and he’s getting back to having fun.”
Reed did play in three games after Fite’s passing. He participated, but did not figure statistically, in Oregon’s 35-0 victory over Stanford almost two weeks later.
Reed, 21, recorded three tackles against UCLA in November. In the Civil War, he was credited with one tackle.
He didn’t go to El Paso, Texas, with the Ducks for the Sun Bowl.
“He wasn’t even in good enough condition to come in and participate,” Matson said.
Much like a number of spots in Oregon’s defense, Reed does not have the weakside linebacker position pinned down. He knows that, and he understands it.
He wants to get better. He wants to be another Kevin Mitchell for the Ducks, even though the two play different styles.
At least he wants to make Mitchell’s kind of impact.
“I am pleased, probably more pleased just for Ramone personally, that he is here with us,” Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti said last week. “He is committed. His personal life has been really difficult in the past two to three years and I think he has come through it a stronger person. I think he has finally found a focus. And I’m excited because he’s a very good football player and he seems to be back.
“I’m not going to say he’s totally there or anything like that because there’s a lot of room for improvement, but he’s making plays. He seems to be enjoying himself at practice and playing the game of football. He is back in his adopted family.”

Scrimmage No. 3
Oregon players will participate in their third and final scrimmage of the spring today at Autzen Stadium.
Bellotti said the team will probably go through 60 plays — much like the previous two scrimmages — but that “we’re hoping to get more but it’s going to depend on the health of the lines.”
The Ducks practice on Tuesday and Thursday next week before playing the annual spring game next Saturday at Autzen.