The Civil War is upon us.

No, the United States isn't about to repeat the terrible carnage of 1861-1865. This is the University of Oregon-Oregon State University Civil War that separates Ducks from Beavers, Journalists from engineers, chemists from oceanographers, attorneys from accountants, and geologists from foresters. Thanksgiving is the great prelude to this annual ritual where green & yellow meets black & orange.

On Thursday, Nov. 27th, extended families from across Oregon will sit down to a bountiful Thanksgiving dinner and discuss the prospects of which Oregon team is the better.

Will it be Ducks or Beavers in the Rose Bowl? The typical Oregon family is comprised of one-half Oregon alums and the other half Oregon State grads. It is a fierce loyalty that only siblings can fully appreciate.

A few Oregon families have sons and daughters that claim those other universities: Eastern Oregon, Western Oregon, Southern Oregon and Portland State, but to participate in the intellectually challenging finer details of the Civil War, they must adopt Oregon or Oregon State as their honorary football Alma Mater. There is no such thing as neutral ground in the Civil War. 

(My older brother is an Oregon State graduate and a CPA. It only took me two years to forgive him for the error of his ways in choosing the black and orange over the green and yellow. Unfortunately, we're still waiting for him to recognize that he made a foolish choice).

Saturday, November 29th will mark the 112th meeting of the Ducks and Beavers. This makes the Oregon-Oregon State annual battle the seventh longest running continuous football rivalry in the nation. Oregon leads the series, 55-46-10. It is the 112th meeting, but then, like almost everything in sports history, it isn't as simple as it would first appear. 

In the beginning, Oregon State University was a private college run by a Corvallis and taken over by the State of Oregon in 1868. Four years later the University of Oregon was authorized by the legislature, but without funding. The people of Eugene and Lane County held many fundraisers to build the initial UO campus and it opened in October 1876.

By 1893, Oregon State was known as the State Agriculture College, and that year William H. Bloss, the son of SAC's school president put together the first team. Bloss was both quarterback and coach.

The first team took shape in October and numbered 17 young men from around Corvallis. Four weren't even SAC students, while one was a high school junior and another was a faculty member.

The following year, just 45 miles to the south, Cal Young and J.A. Church shared head coaching duties as Oregon played it's first season of football. The schedule had four opponents, Albany College, State Agriculture College, Portland and Pacific. Oregon defeated Albany 44-2, lost to SAC 0-16, Portland 0-12, and tied with Pacific 0-0.

In the early days, neither the University of Oregon nor State Agriculture College had the familiar nicknames or mascots that are recognized around the world today as Pacific Northwest icons. Oregon was originally known as the webfoots, a name that originated among Massachusetts coastal fisherman, whose descendants settled in Oregon's Willamette Valley.

The first documented use of a Beaver as an Oregon State mascot is found in a 1942 yearbook photo. While the photo of the students posing next to the statue is the first recorded example of Benny the Beaver, early alumni dating from 1900 claim the school used the Beaver as early as 1910. Because of the lack of documents, we may never know for sure.

Early Oregon State records show that from 1892-1893 the first mascot was "Jimmie" the Coyote, followed by the "Bulldog" from 1906 to 1910. 

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