Jason Hartmann was denied the cover of this month’s Playboy magazine, even though he was prominently featured as a “Playboy All-American” inside.
But Hartmann was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated last month! In fact, he shared the cover with Oregon State crew star Joey Hansen. The two were featured joking around, each playing with the other university’s mascot. Har-har. Hartmann was also featured on one of ESPN the Magazine’s four regional covers. But hey, at least the entire West Coast got to see Jason’s smiling mug!
You see, the Oregon cross country team, which stars Hartmann, has been getting a lot of national attention recently. It seems that Oregon is considered the center of the cross country universe.
In fact, the Associated Press ranked the Ducks seventh in the nation! The media agrees that Oregon could make a run (pun intended) at the national championship.
Hartmann is getting a lot of national attention himself. You could call him the poster boy for the Ducks cross country team. He has requests for interviews almost every day, and has to turn down many of them. Every time he goes for a run around town, fans scream “Jason, Jason!” in an effort to get his autograph or at least a picture with the near-celebrity.
All this pressure, of course, means that the Ducks will enter each meet with a lot of extra baggage weighing them down. Imagine trying to knock off cross country powerhouses like Arizona and Arizona State, when each of those teams is looking to upset a higher-ranked team?
You could say the Ducks have large bull’s-eyes on their chests.
This also puts a lot of pressure on Martin Smith, the Oregon coach. Smith is just trying to go “one meet at a time,” though, and he’s not overlooking the Roy Griak Invitational, as easy as it might seem.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, near where the football team plays, the Oregon soccer team is facing some pressure of their own.
I mean, the Ducks had 537 fans at their opening game! Do you know how hard it is to figure out defensive formations, or execute a well-timed touch pass, when fans in a crowd of that size are all screaming at the top of their lungs? Its deafening in there. They call it the Papé advantage. Other teams prepare for weeks before coming to Eugene, but still can’t break through the wall of sound.
One common Ducks-supporting bumper sticker reads “No audibles at Papé Field.”
At McArthur Court, where the Oregon volleyball team plays, head coach Carl Ferriera has really turned the program around, and the fan support has gotten nearly out of control. Fans take their motor homes and park in front of the arena as early as the night before a game. At the recent Oregon Classic volleyball tournament, fans were queued up around the block for tickets.
But really, the pressure on the Oregon fall sports teams is embodied in Hartmann and the cross country harriers. If the Ducks don’t make it to the NCAA Championships — in fact, if they don’t blow out every one of their opponents — the national respect, rankings and revenue from the thousands of fans who attend cross country meets will all dwindle. Sad, really, to place so much pressure on people barely able to file their first IRS returns.
It’s what we’ve come to expect in the pressure-filled world of Division I cross country.
Note: This column was actually copied from the latest “Mad Libs” book, “College Sports Mad Libs.” Mr. Hockaday unfortunately misplaced “Harrington” with “Hartmann” and “football” with “cross country,” “soccer,” and “volleyball,” among other misplaced nouns. The Emerald regrets the errors, sort of.