I wore: long sleeved light yellow from The Limited
I'm pretty sure that my first love was University of Oregon football. I was born in July, the first Duck game of my life was played less than six weeks later - a home game, a win against Stanford. Some of my earliest memories are sitting with my parents at Oregon football, basketball, track and field, even volleyball games (we go big for all Oregon athletics on team Kitchel). Decked out in green and yellow - when I was lucky I got to wear my Oregon cheerleader outfit - always screaming wildly for the Ducks.
Mighty Oregon has echoed through my heart and soul my entire life. When I was a girl, I was known to escape from my parents and run across the open field or court, sometimes mid-game, to sneak a hug from Puddles - the Duck mascot.
I have seen the Ducks play football live at least once every football season of all my 28 years. I've traveled to every Pac-12 stadium (ok, not Utah or Colorado, but they're new). I've watched my Ducks play in Texas, Michigan, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Virginia. My junior year of High School my best friend and I were late to our homecoming dance because we flew to Pullman that afternoon to watch the ducks play Washing State. We changed clothes and did hair/makeup on the plane ride home then raced straight to the dance when we touched down in Eugene- the only thing we forgot was to take the temporary "O" tattoos off our cheeks. Our priorities are glaringly obvious when you look at pictures from that night.
Living in the south, I am frequently chastised about the inferiority of the puny Pac-12.* In college I made friends with the TV scheduler at a local sports bar so that late on Saturday nights when the Texas faithful were out celebrating their victories or drowning their sorrows in defeat, I could steal away in a corner of the bar by myself with one screen that he would turn for me to pick up the West Coast stations.
Three years ago, I wept tears of joy sitting in rainy Corvallis, Oregon as the clock ran down to zero on my Duck's final game of the season. Winning the "civil war" (Oregon vs. Oregon State) that November afternoon not only completed Oregon's first ever perfect season, it also clinched a spot in the BCS National Title game.
In that moment of jubilation something else important was happening; I started thinking about what outfit I would wear to the game. The BCS Title game was played at the Fiesta Bowl that year, and Phoenix in January can be tricky to plan for. I knew I'd have hours of outdoor tailgating followed by the evening game in a domed stadium. So many variables...
I decided on nice jeans, a light green blouse and of course, a faithful cardigan. Since I had already picked a green blouse, that meant I had to find a yellow cardigan, and while I owned two mustard coloured cardigans, I determined neither was sufficiently Duck coloured enough for such an important game.
Searching for a light yellow cardigan in January is one of the hardest shopping assignments of my life. The standards all let me down; Gap, J.Crew, Nordstroms - even Target had nothing to offer me. I went out looking for the perfect cardigan every day for a week. Hope was fading. The game was only two days away. My last ditch effort was to walk through NorthPark mall in Dallas and go into every single store that sold women's clothing. No price too high, no material too fancy, no brand too obscure.
After getting laughed out of a few stores and having a Ralph Lauren sales person try to convince me that dark cream was actually yellow, I was starting to think about a backup outfit. And then it happened. In the windows of long forgotten retailer 'The Limited' hung a pastel yellow button up long sleeved cardi with a coordinating yellow polka-doted scarf. The heavens opened. The angels sang. The Lord was on my side.
The day of the National Championship game was one of the best of my life. Look how happy I was in my yellow party cardi.
Even though Oregon lost to Auburn after they kicked a last minute field goal, I wouldn't trade the experience of the game for anything.
It will only be topped this January when I watch my Ducks win it all in my favorite venue of them all: the Rose Bowl.
*check the polls people: whiche conference has two teams in the top 5? Go Ducks.
