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“Now is the winter of our discontent.”
— Richard, Duke of Gloucester, in Shakespeare’s “King Richard III”
In hindsight, perhaps it was an omen. When, on New Year’s Day, Oregon quarterback Dante Moore threw a pick-six interception against Indiana in the Peach Bowl — on the Ducks’ first play from scrimmage — it was a step into the darkest January in UO athletics I can remember.
Turns out the 56-22 blowout to the Hoosiers was only the teaser to a month-long miniseries of misery.
Soon thereafter, UO men’s basketball stars Jackson Shelstad and Nate Bittle were ruled out indefinitely with injuries. The Duck hoopers won on Jan. 2, then lost nine straight games and will likely not post a winning record for the first time in coach Dana Altman’s 16 years at Oregon. The Ducks are tied for last in the 18-school Big 10 conference.
The women’s team showed more promise but also endured painful losses, including four in a row at one point. The Ducks squandered a 16-point lead against No. 15 Michigan State and lost. They led Wisconsin by 6 points with less than a minute to go before losing in double overtime.
And for “adjunct adversity,” you could point to two ex-Duck QBs and their painful NFL playoff games: On Jan. 11, Justin Herbert, playing with a broken finger and behind an offensive line more porous than a fishing net, was swallowed by a tsunami of New England rushers, fumbled and was shaken up to end any LA Chargers hopes of overcoming a 16-3 deficit. On Jan. 17, Bo Nix gallantly led Denver past Buffalo in overtime, only to limp off the field with a broken ankle that ended his season. Imagine: In the crack of a bone, the best night of your athletic career becomes your worst.
As Duck fans, other than the recent rise of women’s basketball, it has been the winter of our discontent.
You can spin the sadness with positivity, pointing out that the football team did make the College Football Playoff’s final four. That Altman has had 15 straight 20-win seasons. That the women beat USC on the road and finished the month with three straight wins to get to 17-7 — and remain in the hunt for an NCAA tournament bid. And that Herbert and Nix at least got their teams into the playoffs.
Alas, the higher you climb on the mountain of success, the more it hurts when you slip. When I attended UO in the 1970s, I remember little pain as a fan because when your success is meager — UO lost 14 straight football games my final two years — life is a no-gain/no-pain proposition.
Still, regarding January 2026: Ouch. The kind of ouch that even Welchian optimism can’t cure. But I do think I can add some context that suggests this isn’t the end of the world.
I’ve been a Duck fan for 54 years. You want pain? Allow me to share the 10 most painful moments I’ve experienced as a Duck fan, in chronological order, from past to present.
Collectively, it might take the edge off our current plight of pain.
May 30, 1975
The death of Steve Prefontaine
I’m the sports editor of The Oregon Daily Emerald and watch Pre win the 5,000 meters on a pleasant Thursday night at Hayward Field. The next morning, in front of UO’s Allen Hall, my friend Mike Yorkey tells me the news: Pre is dead. Killed in a one-car accident early that morning.
I can’t comprehend it. I’m 21 years old. The only thing I can relate it to is an Oregon State basketball player, Mike Keck, dying in a car accident in 1971, back when I lived in Corvallis and bled orange and black.
I attend Pre’s memorial service at Hayward and, along with thousands of others, walk out numb, disbelieving, empty.
Nov. 18, 2000
Oregon State beats Oregon 23-13 in Corvallis as Harrington throws five picks
It’s No. 5 Oregon at No. 8 Oregon State with the Pac-10 title and bowl considerations on the line for both 9-1 teams. It’s perhaps the best two teams to play each other in the annual rivalry game.
OSU’s Jake Cookus, a reserve safety, intercepts Oregon quarterback Joey Harrington three times. In all, Harrington throws five interceptions. For me, it isn’t just losing a big game to the Beavers. It’s that bad things happened to such a good kid: Harrington, a total class act, the guy cheering on the Duck hoopers at Mac Court wearing an air-less basketball over his head, two eyes cut out so he can see.
Nov. 15, 2007
Knee injury levels Dennis Dixon and, with it, Oregon’s national title hopes
The Saturday before second-ranked UO travels to Arizona, Dixon partially tears an ACL at home against Arizona State. But, despite wearing a brace, he is playing well against the Wildcats and the Ducks are rolling. Then, while making a cut, the knee buckles. My heart lurches. Dixon is carted off. Oregon loses 34-24. But what I remember most is seeing Dixon on the bench in tears, towel draped over his head, knowing his career at Oregon is over. Man, that kid was a slight-of-hand magician with a football.
Jan. 1, 2011
The last basketball game at Mac Court
The Ducks lose 60-55 to Arizona State in the final men’s game at the iconic “igloo” that opened in 1926 — four years after my grandfather graduated from college. I won’t miss the too-small restrooms or the 72 steps to our upper-level seats, but the ambiance is unmatched. Our seats come with literal cable vision: braided wires to keep fans from falling overboard. Kids play hoops on a Nerf hoop behind us all night. And what a vibe: when an opponent goes to the free throw line late in a close game, the arena shakes in fabulous frenzy.
A friend and artist, Sandy Silverthorne, describes the upper level “like being in steerage on the Titanic. You expected to see Leonardo DiCaprio leading the other passengers in an Irish folk dance.”
Given all this, it’s hard walking back to the car that night, knowing I’ll never see another game in that special place.
June 11, 2012
Ducks on the brink of Omaha but lose to Kent State in the ninth
Oregon hasn’t been to the College World Series in Omaha since the year I was born, 1954. Kent State hasn’t been there since World War I (1915). It’s the final game of the best-of-three SuperRegional series — winner to Omaha — and it’s 2-2 in the bottom of the ninth, with the Golden Flashes batting. One out. Runner at second.
If Oregon can get out of the inning, the Ducks can extend the game, perhaps win and change history.
But in front of the largest PK Park crowd in history to that point, 4,177, including me, a Kent State kid hits a fly ball down the left field line. Can the Ducks’ third baseman get it? The shortstop? The left fielder?
Nope. The ball drops just inside fair territory. The runner scores from second. The wildly cheering Ducks fans go silent, as if someone has pulled the plug on a jukebox.
Jan. 3, 2016
Oregon leads the Alamo Bowl 31-0 at the half, and then …
Oregon quarterback Vernon Adams and center Matt Hegarty go down with injuries and we can hardly get a successful snap to the backup QB. As Texas Christian starts a comeback, I’m thinking: If we can just get one more touchdown — heck, even a field goal — we can put it out of reach. But we can’t score in regulation — 31-31 at the end of regulation — and we lose 47-41 in triple overtime.
Oct. 8, 2016
Ducks take a ‘U-Dub’ drubbing
After losing 12 straight to the Ducks, Washington hammers UO 70-21 at Autzen Stadium, low-lighted by Husky QB Jake Browning pointing a nah-nah-pooh-pooh finger at a UO player as he dances into the end zone for what seems like the 112th U-Dub TD.
March 12, 2020
COVID scraps NCAA basketball tournament — when No. 2 Oregon women are 31-2
The Oregon women have won their last 19 games in a row. They have the greatest college player in the land, Sabrina Ionescu, and two other starters who, like Sabrina, will soon be first-round WNBA draft picks: Satou Sabally and Ruthy Hebard. No. 2 Oregon has just won the Pac-12 tournament, is 31-2 and is prepping for what many believe will be a championship run in the NCAA tournament.
But when the World Health Organization announces that COVID has become a worldwide pandemic, the tournament is canceled. As the 19th century poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote — and Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully was found of repeating: “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, / The saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’”
Nov. 26, 2022
Ducks go 0-for-5 on fourth downs to fall to the Beavers
Oregon leads 31-10 after three quarters but Bo Nix, playing with a bad ankle, is forever just short on fourth and short. Meanwhile, the Ducks’ defense wilts. OSU doesn’t throw a single pass in the second half, but rallies to a 38-34 win. Later the Beavers say they knew they had the game won when it started to rain and the Ducks put on their designer rain jackets.
Jan. 1, 2025
Wilted roses
The Pasadena sky is blue, the Ducks are cool. I shell out more money than I’ve ever spent on a sporting event to get four tickets to Oregon-Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. The game is so bad on so many levels that losing 42-21 is not the worst of it.
The worst of it is a Buckeye fan who, every time Ohio State scores — which is easily and often — stands up, turns around, flips the bird and yells “Fu** the Ducks!” My son and grandson, after being told by security they would be allowed back in the stadium if they used a restroom outside the gates, are not allowed back in. (Our individual tickets cost north of $300). And after the game, we must stand in line for 75 minutes for a shuttle to Pasadena, rubbing shoulders with gleeful Ohio State fans every agonizing step of the way.
So, just sayin’: As Duck fans, we’ve had worse and it always gets better.
