Oregon Tales

Ken Goe's piece in the Oregonian (blogged by Achilles with HTs to CrouchingBruin and brand0n) is not the only pro-CRN column appearing in the Oregon papers this week. Check out George Schroeder’s column in The Register-Guard, with another incredible story on CRN. The story involves a Oregon fan named Jay Jones, who had produced the following video for Duck Vision (which I am guessing is the jumbotron at Autzen):

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. Later, the Oregon athletic director apologized for the incident.

Schroder followed up on that story this week:

Here, Joe Giansante enters the story. The UO administrator was a sportscaster then, working for KEZI and Chambers Communications, and he was good buddies with the guy who created the offending video for Duck Vision.

The furor had subsided by the time Giansante grabbed the microphone at the wedding reception for Jay and Alisa Jones, in February 2003.

As toasts by best men go, Giansante’s was pretty bland. Until he noted that Jay Jones was, to his knowledge, the only producer ever censured by the Pac-10. The lights went down, and Neuheisel’s face appeared on the big screen in the great hall.

The crowd gasped. Then Neuheisel started talking. He congratulated the newlyweds and said, "This is a big step for both of you. Alisa, Jay wanted me to pass this on to you …"

And suddenly, Neuheisel was gagging, retching, pretending to get sick and throw up.

"Typical Rick," Jay Jones says. "That’s what he adds. He does a good job and then he’ll take it one step further."

Neuheisel had made the video at Giansante’s request months earlier because, he says now, "It seemed like the right thing to do."

"I was happy to help," the coach remembers. "If I can bring a smile to somebody’s face, let’s do it."

Not sure whether any of these stories will calm down Oregon’s general fan base heading into this weekend’s game, but they sure help us see the big picture re CRN’s much talked about past as a head coach before coming home to Westwood. However, they do serve as more data points that affirm our conviction that we got the right guy to lead the challenging project of rebuilding our listless football that has been floundering for almost a decade.

Right now the way things are shaping up Saturday night looks to be a very difficult challenge for CRN and our football team. We are huge underdogs against a very good football team for good reasons. A gloomy night in Oregon will not make any of us feel better about the rebuilding pains we are going to go through in next couple of years. However, the more I read about our head coach and observe how he has been going about rebuilding our program for the long term, the more confident I feel about how he will have all of us smiling in the long run. We have the right guy in charge.

GO BRUINS.