When civility strikes out
Self-absorbed UO students tarnish an otherwise great win over OSU at PK Park
I BOUGHT a last-minute general admission ticket to the Oregon-Oregon State regional NCAA baseball game at PK Park in Eugene Sunday night. It was the best college baseball experience I’ve ever had.
And, not incidentally, the worst — by a long shot.
It was the best experience because the Ducks and Beavers were meeting in postseason play for the first time in history, and the crowd of more than 4,000 was amped. The stadium was bathed in buttery sunshine. Chants of “Go” (first baseline fans) and “Ducks” (third baseline fans) reverberated. It all had the feel of a high-pitched Oregon-Oregon State football game back in the days when the two teams were equally good.
If Oregon won, it would advance to one of eight Super Regional tournaments, which, if the Ducks were to then win, would get to play in the College World Series in Omaha for the first time since the year I was born, 1954.
To make a Super Regional, the Beavers would have to beat the Ducks twice. That only deepened the intrigue, however, because OSU has a well-earned reputation for beating the odds, having won three national championships and, just last year, reaching Omaha after battling back from an opening-game loss in the first round.
It was the worst experience because University of Oregon students, many clearly drunk, were among the rudest, most belligerent, foul-mouthed collection of fans I’ve witnessed in more than half a century of watching live sports events.
As a 1976 University of Oregon alum and a former adjunct professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, I was embarrassed to be wearing green and yellow.
I was in a standing-room-only area on the concourse above two sections of perhaps 500 UO students along the third baseline. Behind me, amid the three-to-four-deep rows of fans standing on the concourse, was a generous collection of Beaver fans, who were outnumbered by about 10 to 1 stadium-wide.
Before the first pitch, the UO students began chanting something that, at first, I couldn’t quite understand. Then I got it: “F--- the Beavers!” Repeatedly, for perhaps 10 to 15 seconds.
I mentally shook my head. Really?
But then, this wasn’t my first sports rodeo. In Boston, I’ve witnessed Red Sox fans fire such language across the street at a couple wearing Yankees gear. At the 2025 Rose Bowl, a young man wearing Ohio State garb turned toward the crowd above him, including me, and yelled “F--- Oregon” every time the Buckeyes scored, which was early and often. And after beating Oregon in football on their home turf, I’ve seen OSU students flaunting a strangled duck — an actual dead duck — along the sidewalk.
So, yeah, I’ve seen plenty of boorish fan behavior. Still, this was a bridge too low — and can’t be simply blamed on beer. The conformity of UO students in their hateful chant struck me as programmed, like a collegiate version of The Stepford Wives, as if the individual students believed wholeheartedly that this was a fun, necessary and noble thing to do.
“F--- the Beavers! F--- the Beavers!”
It mirrored a massive lack of class. I wanted to tell the students to grow up and appreciate the privilege they had of watching a baseball game — for free, with the UO having offered students more than a thousand free tickets, conveniently located behind the opposition’s dugout — instead of fighting a war, as some previous generations had done at their age.
But, hey, maybe this was a one-and-done “cheer.”
Nope. When Oregon tied the game 1-1 in the top of the third, a young man in the center of the section below me stood, turned to face the Beaver fans behind me and unleashed another burst of profanity, punctuating his point with dual finger flips of the bird.
My stomach roiled.
