People around the nation won’t think of Orygun as the rain-drenched school with the cartoon mascot any more. We are now the school that houses the sentimental example of what a college football program should be modeled after.
While many feel the latter is a much more positive portrayal of the University, much is left in between. Oregon’s 38-16 drubbing over Colorado in last week’s Fiesta Bowl capped what will easily go down as the best football season in Oregon history. While a Nebraska win would have made an 11-win season that much more memorable, University administrators outside of the Athletic Department couldn’t be asking for much more.
This great exposure could also help the University as a whole. In recent years the University has lost several star prep athletes to schools such as Michigan and California, simply because degrees from those schools hold a higher value in the real world.
Football powerhouses like Florida State and Miami have faced the same problem for years. People know the names of these schools because of what they do on Saturday afternoons during the fall, but not much else.
Oregon can now fall into the same predicament, or use the exposure created by the football team as a catalyst. It is a nice human interest story to tell people that Joey Harrington plays the piano, but what about the fact that his degree in business administration came from one of the top-ranked schools in the country?
Now that the Ducks have national recognition, the University must be careful not to fall down the slippery slope of success. A year ago Oregon State sat in this very position, and this year its bowl game consisted of counting the marshmallows in Lucky Charms. Of course, there is much disparity between the quick strike success of the Beavers against the sustained superiority of the Ducks, but it could be easy to fall into the trap when the golden carrot was dangling just one lost game away.
With success comes exposure. More talented athletes will now look to Oregon as a possible stepping stone toward their athletic endeavors, but the fact is that not every talented athlete is academically college material. Admission standards must remain high and the relationship between the classroom and the field should remain studying before sport.
When television networks are flashing hundreds of thousands of dollars to a school that is also spending $80 million on a stadium, priority lines could become a bit blurred.
The University has never been in a spotlight like this before, but at some point the light will dim. It is then that it must not become greedy and attempt to get it back at all costs. What got Oregon to this point should be used to go even further. Sustained development in athletic programs with a deep cooperation in academics could make Oregon to college football what Duke is to college basketball: an athletic program respected for what it does on the playing field as well as off it.