In a team meeting earlier this week, Brandon Holliday shared his thoughts about the upcoming Pacific-10 Conference Championship meet.
But before the senior could utter a word, he did a little reminiscing.
“I remembered back to my freshman year coming to this meeting and all the seniors saying what they had on their minds, trying to get us pumped up and focused for the (Pac-10s),” Holliday said. “I knew (I was going to be a senior) someday, but you look back and say, ‘man, it seems like a few weeks ago I was a freshman and now I’m giving that same speech to the underclassmen.’”
What did the Beaverton native have to say? Just a little reminder to his Oregon teammates about the hustle needed to beat UCLA.
“Stay positive,” Holliday said “Finish every race all the way through the line and don’t ever give up. And if you see a blue shirt — if you see any shirt go get ’em — but if you see a blue shirt, definitely go get ’em.”
The Bruins entered the weekend meet in Tucson, Ariz., as favorites to unseat the Duck men as conference champions.
With Holliday and a 25-point performance from four Ducks at the past weekend’s decathlon, however, Oregon is poised to defend its crown.
Holliday enters the meet with the Pac-10’s top time in the 400-meter hurdles (51.08 seconds). Another important point-scoring hurdler will be sophomore Eric Mitchum, who owns the top time in the 110 hurdles (13.50).
In the field, junior transfer Leonidas Watson will be an important factor for Oregon in two events. He sits second in the triple jump and third in the long jump.
Freshman Tommy Skipper enters as the favorite in the pole vault. The Sandy native helped give the Ducks an early points lead by winning the Pac-10 decathlon championship.
Holliday (2002, 400 hurdles) and senior javelin thrower Adam Jenkins (2003) are the only other Ducks who have won an individual Pac-10 championship.
Other teams expected to be in the hunt for a title are Southern California, Stanford and Arizona State.
“The pre-meet charts have UCLA as the favorite, with us close,” Oregon head coach Martin Smith said. “But I’m not about to count any team out.”