2008 Civil War Oregon at Oregon State, Part I: Culture & Heritage

From 1893 through 1896 Oregon State was known as the State Agriculture College. In 1897, by an act of the Oregon Legislature it was named the Oregon Agriculture College. In 1927, the legislature changed the name of the Corvallis school to Oregon State Agriculture College. Ten years later, the name was shortened to Oregon State College.

Finally in 1961, the legislature granted the name Oregon State University and in doing so, created Oregon's second public University almost 100 years after it began its first consideration for a publicly funded university in the former Oregon Territory.

While Oregon and State Agriculture College first met on the field of play in 1894, Oregon Agriculture College failed to raise a football team in the years 1900 and 1901. In 1896 however, they played each other twice and it is through this combination of events that we arrive at the 112th meeting in 2008, rather than the 114th as simple arithmetic might suggest.

Sports reporters had a difficult time with the term "webfoots," and gradually changed it to "Ducks." By the 1930's, a small white duck named "Puddles" was appearing regularly at University of Oregon sports events. As early as 1940, Puddles was appearing in student publications as a cartoon character with strong resemblance to Walt Disney's Donald Duck. By 1947, Walt Disney was aware of the issue. 

Oregon Athletic Director Leo Harris was friends with a Disney cartoonist, and through his friend arranged to meet Walt Disney. In the course of the meeting they reached an informal handshake agreement granting the University of Oregon permission to use Donald as its sports mascot.

In the 1970s, Disney lawyers questioned the existence of an agreement between the University and Disney. The university produced a photo showing Harris and Disney wearing matching jackets with an Oregon Donald logo. In 1973, a formal agreement granting Oregon the right to use Donald's likeness for Oregon Sports was signed by the two parties.

The tradition of the Oregon-Oregon State game being the last game of the regular season between the two colleges developed over time. It wasn't until the fourth year, 1897, that it was the last regular season game played by the two schools. 

From 1895 through 1938, scheduling of the Oregon-Oregon State game was generally slated for sometime in November, but there were several instances of it happening as early as October and as late as the first Saturday in December.

It was common during these early years for the two Oregon colleges to play one or both of the Washington schools as well as a California college after playing each other. Oregon State often scheduled Hawaii during this period as their last regular season game.

In 1915, the Pacific Coast Conference was formed and membership included Oregon and Oregon State. Membership in the conference included various Pacific Coast colleges including Idaho for a number of years.  It was with the conference affiliation that caused scheduling between Oregon and the eventual Oregon State to settle into a routine November slot.

While the PCC eventually disappeared, and was replaced first by the Athletic Association of Western Universities and finally by what we know as the PAC-10 in 1978, the tradition of the Oregon-Oregon State Civil War happening around Thanksgiving is a direct result of the conference.

The first use of the term, "Civil War," in referring to the annual Oregon schools football rivalry was in 1929 and was commonly used from 1937 on. Prior to 1929, the game was called the Oregon Classic or the State Championship Game.

The 1983 Civil War, played in pouring down rain at Autzen Stadium between two mediocre teams resulted in the 0-0 tie. To this day, players from those teams, Ducks and Beavers, freely admit that they were, "terrible." Recognizing the truth of just how bad everything was on that gray day in November, the fans quickly dubbed the game the "Toilet Bowl." Oregon finished the season tied for sixth at 4-6-1, while OSU ended up tied for ninth in the PAC-10 at 2-8-1.

An interesting historical foot note is that the Toilet Bowl may be the last 0-0 tie in the NCAA Division I history, because of the new Overtime Rules prevent a tie outcome.

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