* The Emerald sports staff reflects on the year and chooses their favorite event that they were able to cover
Jeff Smith, sports editor: This past year I covered many thrilling Oregon athletic events, from the football team’s dramatic victory over Washington to the men’s basketball team’s upset win over Arizona.
But the one event that will always be special to me (and it had nothing to do with how great a game it turned out to be) was the Dec. 30 Holiday Bowl in San Diego, Calif., in which Oregon defeated Texas 35-30.
Growing up in “America’s Finest City,” I spent countless nights sitting in then-Jack Murphy Stadium watching my beloved San Diego Padres play. We all have our places, and The Murph is that kind of place for me.
So going down there to the newly-named Qualcomm Stadium and getting the chance to cover my college team play in a bowl game in my stadium was a thrill that I’ll forever treasure.
Scott Pesznecker, assistant sports editor: The Jody Runge fiasco had engulfed the Oregon women’s basketball team when it walked into the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City March 17 to face Iowa in its first round NCAA Tournament matchup.
The Ducks were disjointed for most of the game. Oregon endured scrappy play and jeers from the crowd — as Wolvert shot first-half free throws, Iowa’s band chanted “your coach hates you” — and trailed by 15 points with 11 minutes to go.
But the gritty Ducks rallied, tying the game at the end of regulation before falling in overtime.
Oregon lost the game, but not without putting forth a winning effort. And the spectacular senior quartet of Angelina Wolvert, Jenny Mowe, Lindsey Dion and Brianne Meharry got to extend their time together, if only for a few more minutes.
Robbie McCallum, sports reporter: Even though I knew it wouldn’t last, seeing the Oregon men atop the leader boards at this year’s NCAA Track and Field Championships was very cool.
For three days and most of the fourth, Oregon was the national leader. And even though they dropped all the way to ninth place overall, it was still a performance to remember.
The Ducks rode the shoulders of Santiago Lorenzo, the Argentinean decathlete with a thick accent, John Stiegeler, the javelin thrower with a little swagger, Jason Hartmann, the lanky and soft-spoken distance runner and Billy Pappas, the tattooed younger brother of two great decathletes.
The fab four scored more points at the NCAA Championships than all Oregon teams in the previous eight years combined. And they did it on the same track that Steve Prefontaine, Alberto Salazar, Mac Wilkins and Joaquim Cruz ran on decades earlier.
Peter Hockaday, sports reporter: I spent some very impressionable years of my life in Palo Alto, Calif., home of Oregon’s Pacific-10 Conference rival, Stanford. I spent a large chunk of my winters in Maples Pavilion, watching the Cardinal slowly but surely grow as a basketball program.
That’s why it’s hard not to root for them.
This season, I got a chance to cover Stanford for the first time as a reporter, when it came to town to play Oregon Feb. 8. As the Ducks played Stanford and the game grew into a classic battle, I filled with so much indescribable emotion that I found it nearly impossible to write an article that night. Oregon almost upset the Cardinal, and I don’t know what I would have done if they had.
Let’s just say I will always remember the first time I covered my favorite team and had to write about the other guys.
Adam Jude, sports reporter: It was supposed to be a cut-and-dry game, with perennial bottom-dweller Washington State hosting a pre-winter football game against perhaps the biggest surprise of the year, the Oregon Ducks.
But, as is often the case with everything, this game didn’t go as planned — although Duck fans will not complain with the outcome.
The snow that started falling sideways just minutes before the game was a sign of things to come for fans in the Palouse on Nov. 4. Players fell and didn’t return, two-touchdown leads evaporated and a wealthy business CEO from Nike finally made peace and watched his team in person. In the end, it was the combination of Josh Frankel’s right leg and Jed Boice’s right arm that secured a 27-24 overtime victory for Oregon.