December 1, 1945: OSC at Oregon (Civil War)

click to embiggenThe war is over, and football teams across the country not named Army or Navy are picking up the pieces of shredded rosters and depleted coaching staffs. Some teams soldiered on through the war, and some shut it down. Oregon was one of the latter, OSC the former, and it showed during the 1945 season. A cobbled-together schedule resulted in the only season in which Oregon lost both the Civil War and Border War twice, including this week’s featured program game.

The Ducks were greener than their home jerseys in 1945. 27 of the 37 roster players were freshmen, and of the “upperclassmen” only Bobby Reynolds held letterman status, having played in ‘42 before joining the Navy. There were four juco transfers, including future standouts Walt Donovan and Jake Leicht. No other player had taken a snap since high school.  

That this team managed to win three games says as much about the quality of the opposition — of the three victims, only Cal had fielded a team in 1943 and ‘44, while the losses were all to teams that kept their programs going.

The program has but one color page, the cover, a nice period “guy holding a program with a picture of a guy holding a program with a picture of a guy holding a program…” image of Typical Fan at a bus stop in his stadium coat, by commercial artist William Macrae Gillies. (Don’t get used to these fine-art covers, they’ll be going out of style soon.)

There is solid editorial content in this program — a detailed bio of Duck coach Tex Oliver, and an explanation / apology for the season. Just not much; at 20 pages including covers, the 1945 program is a full 12 pages shorter than that of the 1941 Civil War. 

Thankfully, cigarette advertising is down this season. (Don’t get used to that, either.) Just the Chesterfield center roster spread, and the Philip Morris half-page accompanying the explanation of referee signals, and a quarter page for “apple toasted” Old Golds.

On page 4, there’s an In Memoriam placement from the team for their teammate Ronald Crites. Two weeks earlier, Crites, an Army Air Corps pilot, was on a training mission at Mahlon Sweet Field northwest of Eugene when his plane suffered engine failure, caught fire and plummeted to the earth. Crites was killed instantly; his training mate, John Ohmer, died a few days later at Sacred Heart. Investigators never discovered the cause of the crash. 

Center spread:

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November 29, 1941: OSC at Oregon (Civil War)

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The nation would be at war within ten days, but the only reflection of a war footing in the ’41 Civil War program is a mention of Mike Mikulak, backfield coach, who was called up to active duty and replaced by Manny Vezie.  Otherwise, this is a big program at 32 pages that supports the importance of the game: An OSC win would put them into the Rose Bowl for the first time in program history. (Win they did, 12-7 over an injury-riddled Duck squad; but the December attack on Pearl Harbor forced the relocation of the game from Pasadena  to Durham, North Carolina.)

ASUO business manager Jack Saltzman’s team really stepped up its game in 1941. The year’s program is loaded with a variety of ads; besides the obligatory full-color cigarette pages, there are dozens of half- and quarter-page ads for local business, national entities like Pepsi and Longines, and even pages without display advertising contain single-line text ads in the footer.

The cover art is by Howard Brodie, who would go on to widespread acclaim as a battlefield artist and later as a courtroom illustrator at high-profile trials such as the Chicago Seven and My Lai court martial.

A humorous “Glossary of Football Terms” is not all that out of date when looked at 70 years later. (“Quarterback – Nitwit who couldn’t hear the instructions you shouted to him during the game.”)

 Center roster spread:

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October 13, 1934: Washington at Oregon

— Click to embiggen — This year, the program has an official name, “The Oregon Goalpost.”

So many cool things that we take for granted now first appeared in 1934.  Flash Gordon.  The Three Stooges.  The Soap Box Derby.  Bart Starr. Hank Aaron.  Sofia Loren. Wink Martindale.  And the nation’s new-found optimism under FDR, or socialist hysteria depending on one’s perspective, marked the beginning of the end of the Great Depression – the estimated unemployment rate would never be as high again as the 21% idled by mid-summer.

Clearly, at least one person was gainfully employed in the area of Oregon athletic program design, or maybe employed as a student intern from the Department of Art, as the 1934 UW-UO folio shows a definite upgrade in layout and graphic content. There’s a beautiful cover painting by “Shawl”. There are nice Art Deco touches throughout – note the faux-woodcut “Huskies” and “Ducks” logos, as well as the stencil-effect helmeted head here and there. Photo quality is improved over 1932, and there was enough room in the budget for a full-page team shot, a list of 1934 rules changes, and a blurb for “Challenge Day” (“Each year.. a group from one city or the other has, on the Tuesday preceding the game, created a maximum of disturbance in the other metropolis.” I can’t read this without thinking of Eugene’s contribution to the anarchist riots at the World Economic Forum in Seattle a while back.)

Blitz Weinhard was an advertiser.  And there is another subtle but foreshadowing sponsorship encroachment – a full color, back-cover ad for Chesterfields. A toe in the water, perhaps..  but Richfield couldn’t be expected to cover the cost of all that color forever.

Oh, the game? Sadly, Oregon’s string of six consecutive shutouts against UW came to an end, with the visitors rolling to a 16-6 triumph on the toe of one Elmer Logg, who kicked three field goals and an XP.

Center spread (click to embiggen)

I can’t mix orientations in the scrolling window, so in the interest of avoiding a wrenched neck, below are the two landscape pages (clickable)..