On June 26th, officials at the University of Oregon and Oregon State University had announced that athletic events between the two schools will no longer be referred to as the "Civil War."
Before leaving his post, OSU President Dr. Ed Ray said that changing the name was long overdue as it represented a connection to a war to perpetuate slavery. It was also an acknowledgement that not changing the name before now was a mistake.
Former Beaver football standouts Ken Simonson and Steven Jackson are among members of OSU's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee that supports removing the tern "Civil War" from the series.
OSU's Vice President and Director of Athletics Scott Barnes also thanked U of O President Michael Schill and Athletic Director Rob Mullens for their collaboration in the process. Barnes, Schill and Mullens have moved forward to continuing to work to highlight the rivalry.
The 124th edition of the football game between the two schools will be played this Friday (11/27) at Reser Stadium in Corvallis starting at 4:00pm.
The two schools' men's basketball teams have played each other a record 354 times.
Personally, I've been seeing many posts on various social media (mainly Facebook) that there will still be detractors that will continue to refer to the Ducks-Beavers games as Civil Wars. My advice - move forward, please. Not backward. If you still want to refer to these athletic events as "Civil Wars," you may need to rethink your stance on slavery.
Bill Crawford is a long-time Eugene radio personality and freelance radio play-by-play voice of the Eugene Overhead Door Challengers American Legion baseball program. He also is the play-by-play voice of Henley High School football and post-season high school football, basketball, softball and baseball for Wynne Broadcasting, a locally-owned six radio station group based in Klamath Falls.
The opinions expressed are strictly his own.
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