NCAA Track And Field In Eugene

That meet was beyond tremendous. Spectacular performances, many in crappy weather.

 

OMG, you just brought back memories of covering the 2001 NCAA meet in Eugene. It was a really bad spring for my allergies that year, and I was just getting over them when I traveled from Texas, where summer had begun and the spring pollen was all but gone, to Oregon, where spring was in full bloom.

I got floored by it almost from the second I stepped out of the airport. I was miserable the entire time -- could barely breathe, and nothing I took worked. I was informed that week that part of Oregon produces a huge percentage of the grass seed sold in the U.S., and I felt every bit of it in my head.

The meet itself was great, though. A freshman phenom from Tennessee named Justin Gatlin won the 100 and 200, and the Vols beat TCU for the men's team title by one point after TCU star (and future world champion) Kim Collins false-started out of the 200.

 

Ahhhhhh, 2001. A vintage year. All Collins had to do was finish the 200 and TCU would have at least tied for the team title. Finish seventh? Frogs win it all.

 

There was never a thread in the sports section, but the USC women's 4X400 come from behind win to win the race and team title was the most exciting sporting event I've seen this year.

 

Run down of my Eugene experience....

1) It was my first NCAA national tournament as an SID.
2) Hayward Field oozed greatness. A privilege to get to see it before it gets modernized --- those press box stairs were not easy
3) My coach didn't set me up for a media credential ... I had University administration ... and I did what any of you would have done ... took full advantage of it.
4) One of those perks was a trip to the Nike Company store. That place -- and the deep discount -- can turn anyone into Sarah Jessica Parker's character in Sex In The City
5) The other perks were the receptions at the football stadium and the Oregon Electric Station. Wow.
6) Of course it rained. It was Oregon.
7) The location where they filmed the food fight in Animal House is now a Chiptole/Starbucks whatever...&*&^%$ sacrilegious.
8) Didn't get to buy weed legally. Darn. Did find a great burger at Hop Valley Brewery in Springfield -- in fact, it was a Big Kahuna burger with a pineapple, fry sauce and a waiter that knew why a quarter pounder w/cheese isn't called that in France.
9) Poindexter is right. In fact, the whole meet was exciting. NBA finals were an afterthought.
10) Great to meet murphyc, compare Earnhardt and racing notes and prove this is a board of good folk.

Thanks to those who made suggestions, hopefully, I can do those in 2021....

 

One of the joys of going to school there was constantly discovering places used in the film. There's a grass field right above Hayward (that probably has soccer fields or something now) -- that's where they hit Niedermeyer's horse with the golf ball. I had several philosophy and sociology classes in the room where Donald Sutherland lectured about Milton. I had a class my senior year in a room I'd never been in before and couldn't figure out why it was so familiar - then I realized it was used for the Deltas' council hearing. ("I'm not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America! Gentlemen?")

The best was once I graduated and was working as a TV photog in Eugene, and shot an interview with the university president in his office. In the middle of it I realized it was Dean Wormer's office. They let them use the actual office for the film. I was standing where the horse dropped dead.