A: The first flipper, and the biggest, was ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ coach Tex Oliver. His famous "Blue Brigade" teams went 32-11-4 at the UA from 1933-37, and in the final game of the ’37 season — 80 years ago this season — he stomped the favored Ducks 20-6 in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥.
A month after the game, Oregon fired its coach, Prink Callison — yes, Prink — and offered Oliver what was then an almost unheard of three-year contract for $18,000 to coach the Ducks. That yearly salary of $6,000, which is roughly $100,000 in today’s money, blew apart the salary structure of the old Pacific Coast Conference.
And that was even before Nike’s Phil Knight, who has showered the Ducks with gobs of money, was born.
ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ was paying Oliver $4,500. Its booster group, the Towncats, had also rewarded Oliver for his 8-2 season of 1937 by giving him a new car. He took the car and drove to Oregon. How’d it work out? He went 24-28-3 and was fired.