Eyes ahead to Ducks' unofficial remembrance day
Remembering Spencer Webb, Khyree Jackson, Todd Doxey & more
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PORTLAND, Ore. — Something about Oregon summer makes it seem like there’ll be time enough for everything.
Something about summers here in Oregon makes it seem like football season is a long way off — But summer runs quick here in Oregon, a handful of cherry-sweet weeks between that last stretch of rain spilling into early June and the Autzen home-opener around the end of August.
College football is a long way off — until it isn’t
Schools let out for summer. Some years, there's time for a quick family getaway.
Those decent fireworks one night in July, punctuating those crap fireworks for the better part of a week in that one neighbor’s driveway.
We're already looking down the barrel of July 13, Oregon Football's unofficial remembrance day:
It’s almost July 13, the day Oregon DB Todd Doxey passed away in 2008.
Already almost July 13, the day Oregon TE Spencer Webb passed away in 2022.
All through the best part of summer, the days Khyree Jackson, AJ Jelks and Herman Ho-Ching left us too soon.
Then so many days the Oregon legends of bygone eras lived their share of years and left us just the same — Norm Van Brocklin, Len Casanova, Dave Wilcox, and so many more.
Something makes it seem like there’s enough time
Even then, on July 13, there's some Oregon summer left — Maybe a hot spell. Probably some forest fires racing uphill on dry east winds.
Maybe there's still time for a day on a lake somewhere, or sore legs soothed in a snowmelt creek.
If we’re lucky, a few days to pretend the t-shirt and shorts life can last forever — before the rush of burning-daylight August distractions start squeezing in, grabbing for any little scrap of summer with open days left.
Back-to-school sales will kick up, and talk of plans for Labor Day weekend — clusters of still-tart Oregon blackberries darkening between the thorns.
Summer runs quick here in Oregon — especially when you think you have time.
Gone too soon; never forgotten
#4Spence #OnceADuck
Bittersweet new beginnings & B1G games at Autzen
Before you’re ready it'll be here, football season: Montana State at Autzen, game-day traffic on the old home stretch of Centennial that becomes MLK, and Aug. 30 foghorn push-ups for The Duck.
Then the Ducks’ title defense after winning the conference championship in Oregon’s Big Ten debut season; a wealth of B1G games at Autzen just ahead. Then all at once, blueberries and salmonberries; shorter daylight tapering toward that first real rain that’ll soak the river valleys around the last day of September.
By then, we'll be back in our two-acre heartland — “Coming Home,” and all the #GoDucks you can tweet, and "It never rains," and the 4th-quarter Shout: "a little bit louder now."
College football season is a long way off — until it isn’t.
Summer runs quick here in Oregon — especially when you think you have time.
VIDEO: Coming Home (Oregon), by Mat Kearney
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