BRIAN LIBBY

A Green and Yellow House of Cards

The Oregon Ducks’ 2005 football season is turning out to be a reminder of what a fragile house of cards the pursuit of a great season can be.

Right now the team has a very impressive 7-1 record and they are ranked #14 in the AP Top 25 college football poll. In the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) rankings, which determine placement in the top-tier bowls, Oregon is ranked even higher at #11. What’s more, until recently the Ducks looked to be favored going into their last three games against Cal, Washington State and Oregon State. A 10-1 record, something the team has only achieved one other time (during the magical 2001 season) certainly has seemed to be within reach.

But then, in last Saturday’s game against Arizona, quarterback Kellen Clemens suffered a broken leg, and now he is out for the season.

Clemens was the lifeblood of the offense, with the experience of a senior who has spent four years in the program, virtually all of which since his sophomore year came as a starter. After the disappointment of a 5-6 season in 2004, Oregon’s first losing season in more than a decade, Clemens’ career was rejuvenated this year by the spread-option offense of new coordinator Gary Crowton. He was on pace to become Oregon's all-time leading passer. This season his passing was so proficient that he routinely threw the ball to receivers who hadn't even made their cut. And Clemens has run the ball with great success as well. He's also been a mature leader who knows not only his own position, but others' around him. Lineman have said he even gave tips with their blocking assignments in the huddle.

Of course a 10-1 record wouldn’t have been a given even with Clemens healthy all season, and no one argues that USC is the best team in the Pac-10 Conference (if not the nation) anyway. But before his injury was not at all absurd to consider the glory Clemens might lead Oregon to. Even if it was unlikely, The Oregonian had just featured him as a Heisman Trophy candidate a few days earlier. More pragmatically, Oregon would have at worst been in the Holiday Bowl, the most prestigious of the pre-New Years’ Day bowl games. Beyond that, it’s certainly possible 10-1 could have seen Oregon could have been called up to one of the BCS bowls, such as the Fiesta Bowl in Tempe.

But now, it’s quite possible that Oregon could wind up losing all three of their remaining games. If that happened, they’d still go to a bowl game at 7-4. But it would be the Las Vegas Bowl or the Insight.com Bowl, each of which could alternately be known as a toilet bowl.

I realize these seasons happen to just about every team sooner or later. It’s certainly happened to Oregon before. And these are memories branded on my brain.

In 1988 Oregon had a 6-1 record before quarterback Bill Musgrave (who has come to symbolize the program's resurgence in the 1980s) broke his collar bone against Arizona State - a game I was at. The team proceeded to lose their final five games that year for a 6-6 record. They didn't go to a bowl game, despite how the Rose Bowl, to which the team hadn’t been in 31 years at that point, had at midseason seemed within reach. I remember the week after the catastrophic ASU game, Oregon played UCLA on national television. The Bruins boasted Troy Aikman at quarterback, and with Musgrave down we had...Pete Nelson.

In 1998 the team began with a similar flurry of wins only to see tailback Ruben Droughns break his leg against UCLA in a nationally televised matchup between two Top 10-ranked teams. Oregon lost that game in overtime after Droughns went down. While the Ducks still finished with an 8-3 record (and Holiday bowl trip) that year thanks largely to the heroics of quarterback Akili Smith, that team I will always remember for being capable of much more.

Of course Oregon's post-Clemens era hasen’t even begun yet - mercifully they have this week off. Perhaps this time an injury to its most valuable player won't be as catastrophic to the team as I'm steeling myself for. (Fatalism is a common tendency for me as a Ducks fan.) Sophomore quarterback Dennis Dixon has looked good if inexperienced in mop-up duty for Clemens. He was a blue-chip recruit two years ago and he’s enormously talented as a dual run-pass threat in the Michael Vick mode. Crowton’s offense should provide lots of opportunity as well. But again, Dixon is young and will almost certainly make mistakes. And Oregon can’t afford many of those. Against Arizona last week it was the defense and special teams that saved the victory after Clemens got hurt, but don't think one can expect them to do that week in and week out.

With a winning season guaranteed and the future bright with an enviable talent base and first-rate facilities, as a Ducks fan I can’t complain very much. That said, teams of the caliber of that Oregon had this year under Clemens are exceptionally rare, even as the Ducks have virtually always had winning records under coach Mike Bellotti. This year there was reason for almost boundless optimism. Now, as is decidedly more the norm, I’m not so sure.

Time and time again with the sports teams I love, I obsess, however futile I know it to be, over what might have been. Sports are unique because they engender such great emotion, yet the results are completely out of our hands. It's not that I don't cherish the moments of joy and achievement. Certain memories of Duck seasons past are among the most prized of my life. Yet I think you have to remember all of it--the dreams, the nightmares, and the attendant peaks and valleys coming in between. Committing this season to history, Clemens' injury will always be there, burning. But along with it I hope to always keep in mind that even if it was for eight games and not eleven, this was a uncommonly thrilling and capable football team.

200,000 and Counting

Over the last few weeks I’ve noticed the mileage on my car, a 1984 BMW 733i, approaching the 200,000 mark. Despite all the repair bills, I adore my car, so I decided that when it surpassed the mark, I wanted it to be while I was doing, going to or coming from somewhere enjoyable, something I could look back upon fondly.

This morning I had a mere fifteen miles to go, and the destination seemed perfect. I was on my way to the Rose Garden to do a short interview with Portland Trail Blazers point guard Sebastian Telfair for Men’s Fitness magazine. A mild but warm autumn sun shone brightly as I strolled into the media room at the Rose Garden. As sports reporters from The Oregonian and KATU talked shop, I gazed at portraits from the Blazers’ championship-winning season. In one shot, Bill Walton stretched in mid-air to block a shot by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Nice. In another, all of Broadway was a sea of people as the championship parade slowly made its way down the street.

Then came my interview with Telfair, who I was very excited to see the Blazers draft last year as an 18-year-old high school senior. I think he's going to be a superstar. And although our interview was very brief, Telfair was very personable and gave great answers to my questions. I can tell you he loves Jay-Z and that the alley-oop play is all about subtle eye contact between the guy who tosses up the ball and the one who catches it for a dunk.

Although it was exciting to see the whole Blazer roster there on the Rose Garden court shooting baskets and practicing post-ups, players like Zach Randolph and Darius Miles, I actually felt far more star-struck seeing assistant coach Maurice Lucas, whose jersey is retired by the Blazers for his crucial contributions to Portland's 1977 NBA championship. (He was their leading scorer and a major intimidator who had Walton's back.) I suppose as a reporter I could have made up an excuse to ask Lucas a few questions, but in truth I couldn't think of anything to say except, "Thank you." So I left old Luke be so he could keep instructing Miles on footwork.

But then, as I got into my car, I realized that with 11 miles to go, the trip home would not be long enough to get me to 200,000. And the only other trip I had planned in the car for the day was to attend a funeral for my uncle and aunt’s mother in law. (They're a brother and sister married to a brother and sister.) Obviously paying respect to Marie von Behren is infinitely more important than the odometer on my car, but I'm a bit superstitious sometimes, and I still didn’t want to reach the 200,000 mark on my way to a funeral. (Incidentally, I think it's often been a weakness of mine over the years to try and force something meaningful out of a particular prescribed moment, like to have a good day on my birthday or whatever.)

So instead of driving home, I headed for the Interstate 5 onramp near the Rose Garden. With the stereo playing one of my favorite albums, Smart Went Crazy’s Con Art, I took a speedy but scenic drive on Interstate 405 over the Freemont Bridge and past the western edge downtown. I could see countless cranes in the Pearl District erecting condos, and a haze hanging over Mt. Hood in the distance.

As the mileage approached that big round number, I had to laugh at a possible omen coming from one of the songs on the album, “Song of the Dodo”:

proud and doomed
as a dodo bird
in a history textbook
under a puddle of drool
on your desk

obsolescence burst right out
of a birthday cake
with a bright bikini
and a festive grin

If you tell people your car has 200,000 miles on it, they assume it’s an obsolete, beat-up piece of shit and you’re going to trade it in as soon as humanly possible. While my car has certainly had its troubles over the years—multiple catalytic converters, a busted radiator, numerous air conditioning fluid leaks, a fender bender with a city bus, all but obsolete tires that have to be special ordered from Louisiana for a fortune, and much more—I have no intention of getting rid of it. I don’t subscribe to the notion of buying a new car every few years. Many of the cars I see people pay tens of thousands of dollars for seem pretty flimsy, and stylistically banal. I feel as though I have a great car, a distinctly beautiful and a very solid one built for the long haul. If a part breaks or wears out, I have it fixed or replaced, even if it's something as big as a motor or transmission. Sooner or later the end of this car will come, either because of fossil fuels' end or a car accident. But in the meantime, this is my car.

As it happens, “Song of the Dodo” finished a few minutes before the milestone and I kept the car kept rolling, now heading back toward home on I-5 as the odometer creeped its final mile toward 200,000. And when it finally arrived, I was crossing the Marquam Bridge over the Willamette River, with a postcard view of downtown Portland. The symbolism was almost too perfect.

Roland Kirk's Volunteered Slavery

Volunteer Slavery is not traditionally my favorite album by jazz musician Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Although recorded in his prime, with the album including both studio tracks and a raucous performance at the 1968 Newport Jazz Festival, there has always been an over-the-edge quality to the music that has, for all Kirk’s astonishing musicianship and passionate playing, lacked a crucial sense of control. The music always seems to be teetering just barely beyond some indefinable, unmarked line.

Known primarily as a tenor saxophonist, Roland Kirk (as he was known in the earlier portion of his career), also often plays flute, as well as a multitude of toy-like instruments peppered through his songs, such as the stritch and the monzello. He also frequently plays two saxophones at once (with one reed branching out to the two horns) and has the rare gift for what’s known as circular breathing, in which one can breathe in and out while simultaneously continuing to play the instrument (the soloing possibilities are endless). On one of Volunteered Slavery’s live tracks, he even plays nose flute.

But lately, since I’ve been listening to the album often, it is the very chaos of Volunteered Slavery that I've been drawn to. Kirk and his band may sound raucous, but it comes with a contagious exhuberance. Throughout his career, Kirk has been described as a player with the talent of a virtuoso but the reckless abandon in his playing of a street musician. Although there’s an element of almost Barnum-like showmanship to Roland Kirk’s persona—the guy wears a top hat, after all—he has the chops, the knowledge and the sheer soulfulness to back it up.

(Apropos of nothing, Roland Kirk was blind. Oh, and he died of a stroke in 1977.)

Volunteered Slavery crosses another line that I’m less sure about, but ultimately I end up going for it too. Coming in the mid-to-late Sixties, the album is open and liberal about integrating jazz with rock and pop. Roland Kirk covers both Stevie Wonder’s “Mon Cherie Amour” and Burt Bacharach’s “Say A Little Prayer”. The idea of it sounds alarm bells in my mind, for this era of jazz was one teetering on the edge of the fusion era, something that created a lot of bad records. But I like both Wonder and Bacharach (I grew up listening to my mom’s copy of Talking Book), and I think you could argue that Roland Kirk’s covering these songs is no different from John Coltrane covering “My Favorite Things”. Besides, Roland Kirk was always one to incorporate a variety of genres, both in and out of jazz (he moved effortlessly between avant garde, bop and other sub-genres).

Ultimately it’s another Rahsaan Roland Kirk album, The Inflated Tear, that still earns my vote as his most refined and exquisite album. (Thanks be to Neil for introducing me to it back in London in 1995.) It came slightly earlier in his career, and he was yet to become quite so unbridled. As a result, there is a precision to the playing that you don’t necessarily hear on Volunteered Slavery. But the latter record, perhaps of the strong gospel influence that wasn’t so prevalent with its precessor, has this pulsating rhythm that I think is its true secret. I’ve never, ever been one to clap along, but if I ever did, it would be to Volunteered Slavery.