For college basketball purists; those who care about balance and building programs, the end of the 2011-12 college basketball season was the sport’s absolute nadir. The Kentucky Wildcats were national champions, despite being a team assembled in the mode of all recent teams under head coach John Calipari: a collection of high school stars whose featured players first played as …
Behind the Curtain: Inside the Press Box
With FishDuck adding coverage to more sports each season, I frequently get asked the question, “What’s it like to be in the press box?” I could say, “Look on the internet”, except for one problem: there isn’t much of an answer. The question is, why isn’t much written on the topic? More than likely, anyone in a position to write …
Who Would Pac-12 Coaches Be If They Were on The Walking Dead?
With Signing Day come and gone, and the Spring Game still two months away, we’ve now reached the one of the quietest periods of the sports year: six weeks of post-Super Bowl, pre-March Madness doldrums. While the Ducks’ basketball teams are in full swing, those games are only a couple of hours per week; besides, college basketball makes no bones …
Trading Reno for Monticello: Requiem for the Last Great Road Trip
On Monday, the Ducks announced that they were replacing a September 7th road game against Nevada in Reno with a game against Virginia in Charlottesville the same day. It was a move that made sense for all parties involved: Nevada wanted out of an already loaded non-conference schedule that included UCLA and Florida State, and Virginia needed a replacement for …
Next Man Up: How Coaches Replaced Legends
Next man up. That mantra doesn’t apply only to the roster, it applies to Oregon’s coaching staff as well. 1977 was the last time the Ducks didn’t hire their previous offensive coordinator to fill their head coaching vacancy. On Sunday, Mark Helfrich became the latest one to follow that path, and in doing so allowed a staff that had previously …
Is Oregon the Most Tortured Sports State in America?
Chip Kelly left town Wednesday morning, and a fan base mourned. His teams had been perennial national title contenders, going into November with a shot at a national championship in five of his six seasons in Eugene. Oregon never won it all during that time, but Chip Kelly had Duck fans believing that the law of averages would eventually prevail, …
FishDuck Game Review: A Fast, Hard Finish to a Season…and an Era
“We don’t let outside influences define our program.” – Chip Kelly That’s been the definition of Win The Day, the mantra of the Oregon Ducks since the start of the Chip Kelly era. The team only worries about what it can control, and what it cannot is ignored. Yet despite playing in its fourth consecutive BCS game, including the National …
Could Jabari Brown Be The Next Chris Harper?
Normally, a reserve guard for the Missouri Tigers going 1-for-7 on three-pointers while playing twenty minutes in a Tuesday night non-conference game would elicit as little interest as any topic that could be written about herein. However, the reserve guard in question isn’t just anyone, but once the most celebrated recruit to have signed with Oregon in nearly a decade, …
Hey, Johnny Football? Thank Dennis Dixon for That Heisman
In 1970, Notre Dame’s publicity man, Roger Valdiserri, convinced the school’s starting QB, a senior named Joe Theismann, to do something drastic to increase his chances of winning the Heisman Trophy. Valdiserri suggested to the QB, who pronounced his Austrian surname “thees-man“, that he should change the pronunciation to “thies-man”, to rhyme with the name of the sport’s most prestigious …
The Blackened Hearts of the Black and Orange
(Ed. Note: This article is referring to the majority of a specific fan base, not a description of each individual member of that fan base. There are plenty of reasonable, grounded people within each fan base, just as all fan bases have total idiots who serve as terrible diplomats for their team. What is addressed here is the majority’s behavior. …
2,000 Yards From New York City: Kenjon’s Heisman Quest
One week and 321 yards ago, Kenjon Barner was just another talented player in a nation full of talented players, waiting to show the country what most Duck fans already knew: that he is the most complete player in college football. Now, along with Kansas State QB Collin Klein, Barner is one of two players in the country certain to …
Lane Kiffin Wants To Steal Your Candy and Haunt Your Children
If someone walking the streets of Eugene today appears to be in a festive mood, it can only be for one of two reasons: 1) It’s Halloween, obviously. But also, it could be… 2) They are a Duck fan, celebrating today as the 3rd anniversary of Oregon seizing control of the Pac-12. October 31st, 2009: #5 USC, the seven-time defending Pac-10 champions, …