The border war
Richard Linde, Updated November 2003, November 2006 and October 2007

Because people tell me that the border war has its roots in the days of Gil Dobie (58-0-3) and because I'd heard rumors of a strange, black monolith, I decided to visit the Washington campus and gather information for this story, a story about a long-running feud. 

The monolith, Dobie and the Oregon/Washington rivalry? They are all connected and intertwined I discovered. 

Supposedly, on a cold autumn night when the moon is full, a small rock or a blade of grass or a stick or some other loose pediment--in the midst of Dobie's old digs --morphs into a monolith and vanishes seconds later. 

Camera in hand and all alone on the venerable field one chilly night, I waited for the monolith to appear. The moon was bright, the stars were out, and quite by chance, I saw a shooting star; I wondered what the odds would be for its hitting our planet intact--let alone me. About the same as the apparition's appearance? 

Needing a verve transplant, my heart felt as icy and cold as kicker John Anderson must have felt, when, in the midst of a torrential downpour, the Cardinal’s Tyrone Willingham called three timeouts to “ice” the Doogie Howzer look-a-like in the last seconds of the first half. 

I felt as frustrated as if I had been sitting in the hell of Stanford Stadium and was about to leave when an uncommon chap startled me; evidentially, he'd skulked in the shadows, eyeballing me with inquisitiveness before slithering into view like an emaciated coyote. He looked as pitiful, and I wondered what had become of his bindle stiff.

“Ya waitin’ for the monolith, Gunny? Come to attention.”

“Yes, Sir,” I replied ceremoniously, yielding to my days in the Air Force. Don't mock him, Airman, lest you be sent to Fort Ord for training in Air Base Defense on your way to Korea. His demeanor told me that I'd have to humor him without being patronizing.

Tall, precariously thin, wearing a woolen overcoat and felt hat, he certainly didn't look like an ex-marine. His face was gaunt, chiseled by age, weathered, his voice low and gravelly. Mysteriously, an eagle sat perched on his left shoulder, and as I reached out, it flew off majestically, interrupting the silence of the night. 

“Ya know this is Denny Field, the home of Coach Gil Dobie, don’t ya?” Even the vapor from his mouth was wispy and hard to discern.

“Sir, I was about to leave.” Why doesn't "Gravel Girty" clear his throat, I wondered?

"Hear 'em in the distance?"

"Who?"

"Coyle, Presley, Sutton. They're runnin' the Bunk Play."

I shook my head from side to side.

“Let me show you the Dobie Bunk Play.”

“Ugh...really.”

“It’ll take but a minute, leatherneck.”

I decided to humor him, guessing he was harmless. He lit a cigar, slowly feathering the smoke from his lips in wispy waves. “Want one, lady?

I coughed, clearing my throat huskily, emitting low frequency sound waves. "Ugh, no."

"Too bad. There's nothing better than the smell of a cigar furrowed in wool, for it'll rekindle the spark in your lady's eyes.”  

"You know..." my voice trailing off. I wanted to tell him to get lost. 

"Want a swig?" he asked, smiling through yellowed teeth. He removed a flask from the inside of his overcoat. Taking the open flask, I wiped the nozzle clean with the sleeve of my wool jacket, took a sip, handed it back, and he took a full shot of its burning fluid. "To Whiskey Jim and Saint Mary's," he laughed, before taking another fiery gulp. 

"To Whiskey Jim and Washington is better said."

"So many Jims and James give me the jimjams. He paused for effect, "Hence, Saint Mary's."

"That's good." I laughed politely, on the same wavelength with the dork. It was going to be a long few minutes talking in code with him. 

"Take another swig, lad. There's nothing better than the smell of whisky on wool in the wetted wood; their camaraderie makes life better understood."

"Uh-uh." This guy was as much into homilies as Tyrone Willingham. For a moment, I felt a certain empathy coloring my mind from neurons programmed long ago during my dad's days as a lay preacher.

We knelt down, and, under the light of the moon, he began to regurgitate the Bunk Play, drawing it up in the dirt using a stick. It reminded me of my sandlot football days when we invented plays on the fly.

“Dobie used it against Oregon in 1911. Here’s how it goes. Instead of snapping the ball to quarterback Wee Coyle, Bevan Presley, the center, snaps it into his own stomach, and the two guards fall down in front of him. Coyle takes off his leather helmet, pretends it’s a football, tucks it under one arm and bolts around end. After counting to 3, Presley turns and hands the ball off to the end, Wayne Sutton, who scampers in the opposite direction from Coyle and scores a touchdown. All eleven Oregon players chase Coyle. For a moment, no one knew what happened.  Dobie won the game 29-3.”

“I see,” I mused, stroking my chin, trying to look like the kid in the Dell Computer ad, wanting to mock the condescending SOB.  

He refused to flinch, his eyes ablaze.  "Ye mean by your gesture that 'They setten steven for to meet To playen at the dice'? Nay, the world does not work that way. 'God does not play dice.'" 

My head whirled, as if jolted by the blue screen of death. How did he know about “Steven,” the pitchman for Dell? This out-of-touch dork was as quick a study as Leo La Porte. And his profundities were as irritating as a bumper sticker with "Neuweasel" on it.

He paused then went on. "Ye see, Gunny, once they take the bait, the play is really over. The Ducks will never forget it. Back in 1911, Dobie planted the seed for the hatred that flourishes today. It's in your DNA." His voice had gotten so raspy it sounded like a rotating fan chewing up paper.

Then he chanted this verse, 

"'Tis preordained,
All in the brain;
Dawkins in clover,
Not Satinover;
Find the date,
That rhymes with hate."

Laughing hysterically, he disappeared into a mist that began to envelop and darken the lonely field.  

Quickly, I grasped the meaning of his message. "What about quantum theory," I yelled out. The wretch was deep-thinking, if not pithy, I thought.

For a moment, I wondered? Dobie's apparition? No, it couldn’t be; he wouldn't have given a fig about free will, quantum theory and the effects of a monolith on one's mind. I was still trying to comprehend Jeffrey Satinover's book, "The Quantum Brain." And this guy had thrown a wrench into my understanding of it all. Holy grapes, I was back to Richard Dawkins.

If that wasn't Dobie, a lot of Dobie's clones must be parsing Denny Field nocturnally, while paying singular homage to Elvis look-alikes. Everyone thinks he's a coach nowadays--or an Elvis. The look-alike's pipes mimicked a visiting quarterback's larynx, one garbled by too many trips to Husky Stadium.

One thing for sure, the rivalry between Washington and Oregon fans may be one of the most bitter in college football—the Bunk Play having fomented the feud.  

Okay, so there is no free will. I began to put two and two together, the monolith along with the Bunk Play.

Ah, yes, the meaning of it all became clear, what the Dobie impersonator was saying. Functioning like Stanley Kubrick’s black monolith in the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey,”  Dobie's Bunk Play planted the seeds for the rivalry between the Ducks and Dawgs, creating both bitterness and joy in fans’ minds. After all, Gloomy Gil Dobie was a cantankerous gent, a hell raiser from the past. Although Washington president Henry Suzzallo fired him, the prescient Dobie seemingly knew he would have the last laugh by designing a controversial play for a game that would eventually become part of an intense series. It would forever endear him with Husky fans, adding to its hostile import.  

The rivalry: a date that rhymes with hate. 

I began to research the rivalry more, delving into the archives of the old Pacific Coast Conference, looking for a date that rhymed with hate, looking for the date when the border war began.

Yes, he meant 1948. As the series between the Huskies and Ducks evolved, the first shot in the feud occurred in 1948, when California and Oregon tied for the Pacific Coast Conference crown. As in Kubrick’s movie, 2001, the man-apes began “to swing with their bone-tools, now using them as weapons to threaten the nearest other tribe of rival proto-humans.” I now was on a roll.

To determine the Rose Bowl representative, a vote of the conference schools was taken to break the tie between Cal and Oregon. It was assumed that the four California schools would vote for California and that the six northwest schools would vote for Oregon. Washington voted for California and encouraged Montana to go along with its vote. California went to the Rose Bowl, only to lose to Northwestern 20-14. Norm Van Brocklin, one of the greatest quarterbacks and coaches in NFL history, quarterbacked the Ducks that year, and Oregon fans, the older ones, feel it's a darned shame he never got to play in the Rose Bowl.

The war escalated on the football field, when Oregon beat Washington 63-6 in 1951 and Washington beat Oregon 49-0 a year later.

Then in 1956, after he was fired, Washington Coach John Cherberg went on television and revealed that Washington football players were being paid by a downtown “slush fund," called the Washington Advertising Association. Cherberg's revelation led to a two-year probation for Washington in 1956. It was determined that 27 Washington players received an average of $135 per month, instead of the allowed $75. The PCC banned post-season competition for all of its athletic teams. A domino effect followed in Los Angeles, when UCLA and USC were placed on probation for slush fund irregularities. 

More acrimony occurred in 1958, leading to the formation of the AAWU. Yes, fifty-eight rhymes with hate.

In part, the harshness of the punishments led to the dissolution of the PCC and the formation of the AAWU (1959-1968), which excluded the so-called "cow colleges" (WSC and OSC) along with Oregon and Idaho. Note that Montana left the old PCC in 1950.  

The fact that all of  Washington’s athletic teams were placed on probation, rather than just the football team, was the center of contention. Although most of the conference members voted for the sanctions, Orlando Hollis, dean of the Oregon law school was the chief prosecutor in cases against UCLA, USC, California and Washington. He was particularly disdainful of the corrupting climate of southern California, and he was a target of the local media in Los Angeles and Seattle.

During the border war’s long history, some noticeable incidents have occurred:

• In 1962, Washington fans, who had rushed onto the field, tackled Oregon's Larry Hill who was attempting to catch a pass in the end zone to win the game. [Smith].
  
  
• In 1996, former Washington coach Rick Neuheisel, who coached Colorado at the time, called for a fake punt against the Ducks in the Cotton Bowl, with the Buffs leading 38-6. Ducks fans won't forget that one.
  
  
• Oregon beat Washington 58-0 in 1973 and Washington beat Oregon 66-0 a year later.
  
  
• Bobby Moore (Ahmad Rashad), from Tacoma, allegedly went to Oregon, in part, because a relative of his (Donny Moore, 1965, ‘66) was dismissed from Jim Owens' football team. This further inflamed the rivalry. According to Oregon’s official website, the Seattle Times ranks Bobby Moore as Washington State’s fourth greatest running back of all time. Ironically, the Seattle Times ranks Oregon’s Jonathan Stewart, out of Lacey, as the state’s fifth greatest running back of all time. Stewart, who enrolled at Oregon in 2005, could have been soured on UW, in part, by the clouding miasma of the NCAA investigation of 2003, which eventually cost the NCAA $2.5 million in a lawsuit settlement it made with former UW coach Rick Neuheisel. UW fans wonder if the snitch, who anonymously refers to himself as Peter Wright and who emailed the NCAA about Neuheisel’s auction activities, was an Oregon fan.
  
  
• Husky fans believe that Oregon turned Washington in for the quiet-day rules' violations that occurred in 1999 when Rick Neuheisel took over as head coach. [Smith].
  
  
• And then there is the Bellotti factor. After the quiet-day visits in 1999, Gary Barnett and several other coaches, as reported by the press, signed a letter "protesting what the punishment might be for Washington." Barnett was quoted as saying they "petitioned the NCAA to make this punishment fit the crime, because it won't. They'll get their hands slapped and they'll be reinstated. That's just the way it's done. I just think that's ridiculous." Later, two of the coaches reportedly signing the letter denied doing so. The press had mistakenly reported that Mike Bellotti, Oregon's coach, was one of the coaches signing the letter. The fact that he didn’t sign it doesn’t mollify Husky fans; the whole thing was unfair in their minds.
  
  
• In addition to throwing dog biscuits at them, Duck fans threw cups of urine and dog feces on Husky players at Autzen Stadium two years ago, this according to a Husky staff member. [Smith].
  
  
• With potential Washington recruits in the house at the Oregon/Oregon State football game (Eugene, 2001), a video clip of Rick Neuheisel was juxtaposed with a scene from the movie "Airplane" that showed a woman vomiting. It was shown six times on the Jumbotron. Of course, the partisan crowd whooped it up each time. The Oregon athletic director apologized for the incident. [Seattle Times].



• Washington DE Donny Mateaki attended the "Vomit" game, as an intensely pursued recruit out of Hawaii. "Coaches call you, and they bad-mouth the other coach," Mateaki told a local television station. "I almost didn't take my trip to Washington because I went to Colorado and Oregon, and all they did was bad-mouth Neuheisel."

  "The complaint against Oregon as an institution was fine. The implication that its coach, Mike Bellotti, was only recruiting players after Washington identified them, that Bellotti did something wrong in getting Albert Toeaina and Chris Solomona away from the Huskies at the last minute seems inappropriate," Blaine Newnham of the Seattle Times wrote. "No college football coach has enough credibility to obliquely criticize others."

  Also, see our spoof on the recruiting wars that took place in 2001/2002, "A day at Castle Pacifica."
  
  See the article describing our experience at Autzen Stadium, "A din of inequity."




• Preceding the 2003 game, stories in the local press made mention of the Huskies’ prolonged, 30-minute celebration after they had thrashed the Ducks 42-14 at Autzen Stadium in 2002.

  Visages of that raucous party haunted Oregon’s players and coaches all week, according to a mini-hurly-burly raised in the press.

  During the week, there were quotes from several Oregon players. "It wasn't ... how would I say this?" QB Kellen Clemens said. "I don't know. We will use it as motivation. It wasn't something that showed a whole lot of class."

  Oblivious to the proverbial bulletin board material, Oregon free safety Keith Lewis took some swipes at a number of Huskies and essentially guaranteed his team would be dancing on Husky Stadium's midfield "W" at the end of the game. Reiterating his comments about  QB Cody Pickett from the past season, Lewis said, "Anybody can have one good season. Cody Pickett was overrated, bottom line, in my opinion." He went on to say that no one knew about Charles Frederick until after his game with OSU and, in the past, he had called UW's WR Reggie Williams slow.

  Along with Lewis, Oregon coach Mike Bellotti added his two-cents during week, saying he thought the Huskies' behavior in last season's game was in "very poor taste."

  After the 2003 game, which the UW won 42-10, Husky players danced on their midfield "W."

Fans may never see who wins the border war; it could be a war without an end. Is there no hope for mankind?

An afterthought. Why am I always running into guys like that beanpole with the cigar? Please lock me up when I dress up like Dobie and roam Denny Field late at night looking for a blasted monolith. In the meantime, I'll try Satinover again.

Acknowledgement:

"Steven" in the Dell computer ads is played by a 21-year old college student, Benjamin Curtis. The reprobate's line about "steven" is taken from Chaucer. 

Factoid:

John Anderson made the kick, giving UW a 10-6 lead at halftime. Washington beat Stanford, 31-28, in a quest that led them to a win over Purdue in the 2001 Rose Bowl.

A plaque for Gil Dobie

The story in our link is dedicated to the memory of William "Wee" Coyle, who played quarterback for Gil Dobie from 1908 until 1912. He is no longer frightened of his coach. It is said they have been seen walking across Denny Field on moonlit nights, arm-in-arm, always smiling, always laughing, always upbeat. "Run it for me, kid, just one more time. Come on, kid, just one more time, one more time for Gloomy Gil." It is said that Coyle tucks his leather helmet into his stomach and runs the Dobie-Bunk Play…over and over and over. Dobie can't get enough of it, never wanting it to end. As a cloud covers the moon, the mystical twosome slowly fades from view. There'll be another night to practice the bunk play--for it is a friendship made in heaven.  

References:

[Smith]. Smith, Shelley, "Oregon-Washington: 'We know they hate us,'" 20 April 2001. Special to ESPN.com.

[Seattle Times]. Withers, Bud, "Neuheisel upset at recruiting tactics of some, like Oregon and UCLA," The Seattle Times, 7 February 2002.