Post by wrestlingpublicist on Aug 20, 2008 20:46:19 GMT -5
Guess what I said. 
I told the pleasant young man a story about the year 1984, when I was living in Vancouver, Washington, flying as a pilot for Horizon Air's PDX operation.
Bill Byrne had just opened a Portland regional office of the Duck Athletic Fund. He hired a bright, engaging young graduate of Oregon State, of all places, to raise money for the Ducks in Oregon's largest city.
During annual fund drives, we met in his downtown Portland office and manned phone banks, calling active and inactive "Quacker Backers," as we called Duck donors in those days. We put a special emphasis on reactivating lapsed donors.
This was only three years after Athletic Director John Caine dropped baseball, and several other sports, during one of the athletic department's periodic cash crunches. Mel Krause, his former players, and Ducks baseball fans were not happy. If you think there was some blowback from the decision to drop wrestling, you should have been around back then.
It didn't take too long to figure out who was a baseball supporter in those days. Usually, upon introducing myself and asking why a donor had suspended support for the DAF, I got an ear full. Some of the language was not fit for publication on a family forum, but to a man each baseball supporter remained firm that not one dime would ever leave their pockets for the University of Oregon until this injustice was rectified.
Baseball supporters never forgot. Mel Krause bent the ear of every successive athletic director. Baseball alumni and fans never quit going to Oregon Club or the equivalent organizations and championing their cause. They never lost interest in Oregon, but they let the potential of their withheld donations be known.
When Pat Kilkenny announced resumption of baseball last summer, he told one reporter about the untapped donor potential to be found in the 150 or so baseball boosters who had pledged funding for the sport's first few years. Only two of that number had any previous donor experience with the athletic department.
So, on the phone tonight with that energetic young undergraduate who called, I politely but firmly told him that I would never give a penny to the university until the wrestling is reinstated. He said he would pass on my sentiments to his superiors.
I told the pleasant young man a story about the year 1984, when I was living in Vancouver, Washington, flying as a pilot for Horizon Air's PDX operation.
Bill Byrne had just opened a Portland regional office of the Duck Athletic Fund. He hired a bright, engaging young graduate of Oregon State, of all places, to raise money for the Ducks in Oregon's largest city.
During annual fund drives, we met in his downtown Portland office and manned phone banks, calling active and inactive "Quacker Backers," as we called Duck donors in those days. We put a special emphasis on reactivating lapsed donors.
This was only three years after Athletic Director John Caine dropped baseball, and several other sports, during one of the athletic department's periodic cash crunches. Mel Krause, his former players, and Ducks baseball fans were not happy. If you think there was some blowback from the decision to drop wrestling, you should have been around back then.
It didn't take too long to figure out who was a baseball supporter in those days. Usually, upon introducing myself and asking why a donor had suspended support for the DAF, I got an ear full. Some of the language was not fit for publication on a family forum, but to a man each baseball supporter remained firm that not one dime would ever leave their pockets for the University of Oregon until this injustice was rectified.
Baseball supporters never forgot. Mel Krause bent the ear of every successive athletic director. Baseball alumni and fans never quit going to Oregon Club or the equivalent organizations and championing their cause. They never lost interest in Oregon, but they let the potential of their withheld donations be known.
When Pat Kilkenny announced resumption of baseball last summer, he told one reporter about the untapped donor potential to be found in the 150 or so baseball boosters who had pledged funding for the sport's first few years. Only two of that number had any previous donor experience with the athletic department.
So, on the phone tonight with that energetic young undergraduate who called, I politely but firmly told him that I would never give a penny to the university until the wrestling is reinstated. He said he would pass on my sentiments to his superiors.