Had we been smart several years ago we might have seen the writing on the wall. RoboDuck was nothing more than the University of Oregon slowly distancing themselves from longtime mascot Donald and rolling out the beta test product. The straw that broke the camels back was the recent announcement of eliminating 400 parking spots in a venue known as the 'best tailgate atmosphere' in the West to make room for some silly 'If you build it they will come" pipedream spawned by neurotic and competitive idealists. Oregon has finally dumped the figurehead of Donald and parent company Disney and will now embrace Looney Tunes. Afterall, was Roboduck nothing more than a futuristic Daffy Duck gone Darth Vadar on us all? Don't take my word for this evolution of mascots. Go to the Looney Tunes website and look up the definition of Daffy Duck and it will describe the maturation of Daffy who in earlier cartoons was manic, explosive and unpredictable yet in later years become more self-analytical, competitive, peevish, paranoid and neurotic.  "Th-th-thuffering thuccotash Porky, that sounds just like the DAF to me!"  For some, a baseball field in the midst of what was the Autzen Stadium parking lot is a crowning jewel of returning to glory. I suspect for the majority of legionnaires du' canard it has the appeal and sensability of a toddlers day care center stuck in the midst of a retirement home.

I would proclaim that Pat Casey is the Prince of Darkness for many an unknowing Oregon football fan right now. He is the culprit and responsible for gouging cash strapped Oregon fans who feel the pinch of reaching into their shrinking pool of donations. If only he'd been beaned a few extra times while standing at the plate during his Newberg Tiger days and developed a fear of the 'curve' and refocused on basketball where he wasn't too shabby either, then none of this might have happened. Face it, enough powerful Duck donors became increasingly neurotic, paranoid and downright jealous of Oregon State's success on the baseball diamond so much that they all went Kevin Costner on the rest of us. I'm not sure I share the same opinion as everyone but I actually enjoyed pulling for the Beav's at the College World Series. Home grown coach playing with a bunch of home grown kids. Whats not to love about that even if you're a Duck? I'm sure the nuerotic, competitive and paranoid Ducks didn't relish the Beav's success but I did. Afterall, we didn't have a program and that was fine with me. Perhaps its the gods leveling the playing field from 30 years ago when Oregon grabbed Rich Brooks and the Beav's proudly bragged up bagging Craig Fertig. Which kinda sent the Beaver football program into a lengthy funk that only Moses wandering around a desert can relate with.

     If there is a caveat to this picture, it is how quickly a program can revel in the good times only to experience the turn of an unfriendly card and suddenly you're stuck spoonfeeding a program you thought would be taking care of you. I hope the Oregon Thinktank has taken a look at both the Beaver football program from 1970 to 2000 and their basketball program since Ralph Miller. I might remind the Thinktank that it's quite possible that Pat Casey is the Ralph Miller of the baseball program. Minus the scotch and Moore cigs. It is also possible for the Ducks to catch a virus that has kept a bedridden Beaver program down for so long.

There are so many things in life I can't comprehend. Add Oregon's visionquest of adding baseball and dropping wrestling. Is baseball considered one of the rare sports the Ducks can count on to 'generate' revenue along the lines of basketball and football? I know Nike works wonders with Oregon and the only thing I can think of, that makes this a winner when it looks so bleak to me, is that Nike has taken some of their knowledge of 'simulated high altitude living quarters' and its evolved to a top secret "Micro Climate Management Machine" ready to roll out in 2010 when on a rainy 43 degree day in late March, it is sunny and 69 degrees in this tiny little quadrant of what used to be the Autzen parking lot.  The real truth I fear is more simplistic. The University of Oregon is just following the lead of other large universities who realize that the importance of a few big mega donors outweights the countless little penny ante supporters such as myself. This was really nothing more than a blueprint taken from the NBA and NFL who weren't interested so much in the families who get season tickets every year but instead the corporate sponsors who pony up the real dollars. For the U of O there will always be a sufficient pool of dollars feeding the pot from alumni who return with unwavering devotion and they are banking they can take some public relation hits and survive quite nicely. This is just a pimple of the forehead of Daffy compared to the mesmerizing large carbuncle on Donalds bill during the WTO' Uncle Phil Phiasco a few years back.

Surely smarter minds than I have the "Big Picture" all figured out. Dump a floundering wrestling program that has been fed with kibble and bring in a high visibility baseball coach with a contract ten times what Chuck Kearney made. Let it compete in Tracktown U.S.A for stretched dollars during the same season in an effort to decrease track attendance. Afterall, face it, not a ton of Portland based Oregon alums drive down for Saturdays except football because tailgating was part of the religious procession of Duck Saturday. Maybe the Duck Athletic Department can arrange Spring Saturday's to allow for a dual meet and double header where a single ticket gets you into both venues? Maybe they can roll out the NCAA Runner-Up Competitive Cheer Team to perform during the Seventh Inning Stretch to boost attendance.   Maybe they'll get the Duck sprinters to be their baserunners? Whatever they have figured out, it had better be a doozy or the DAF will come knocking on your door soon with a 'tithing' request along the lines of the LDS to keep yet another program afloat.

As for me, I fear my rampant days as the passionate Duck fan are beginning to wane. I disdain the corporate feel and atmosphere of professional football and basketball and the University of Oregon has made a decision to move in that direction. It is understandable and makes sense I am a casualty in their plans as they search for corporate sponsors like a meth addict looking for their next high. Certainly income plays a part but also the joy is dwindling. The wins don't feel as great and the depression of a tough loss that used to eat at me for days on end now rolls off like a bead of rain off a ducks oiled wing.  I remember my fourteenth birthday when my Dad, a loyal Beaver, succumbed to my demands of going to a Duck football game. So we watched Plunkett and company dismantle Fouts, Moore and Company on a sunny September afternoon in brand new Autzen. As a student I remember sitting with my buddies amid a sea of empty fifths on a rainy miserable November afternoon watching back-up quarterback named Norval Turner fumble a snap deep in Stanford territory and begin a  series of miscues, multiple fumbles and kicked balls resembling soccer until Oregon finally recovered the ball back on our own 32. It was a loss of 43 yards in what had to be the old PAC-8 record for yardage loss on a single play. And the countless beautiful fall afternoons spent in the Autzen parking lot with a the smell of bar-b-que's in the air, the feel of a cold adult beverage in my hand and the chatter of so many Duck fans sizing up the opponent, lamenting the loss or celebrating the win and speculating the path ahead. I could speculate that these grand times will at last be ripped away for many of us because of a myopic, self-serving few who have plans only to jeopardize the health of the Oregon fan base for the sole intent of putting Oregon State in their rightful place but that would be just plain Daffy.

As a footnote, I'd like to apologize to Fred and Bev Casey for calling their son the "Prince of Darkness" which would, I guess, make them the King and Queen of Darkness, which is a pretty funny picture! Also apologies to Dan and Andy who try their best to keep me focused on high school sports. I feel like one of those characters on the TV Show "Intervention" when they do a recap. "He managed to stay on the straight and narrow until suffering a relapse on April 12th, 2008 when he overdosed on college sports meets politics."