Friday, April 27, 2012

The Spring Game and Goodbye Autzen

Tomorrow is the Oregon football Spring Game and today is the last day to renew season tickets for the 2012 football Season. I will be taking a charter bus to Eugene tomorrow for the Spring game but today  I will not be renewing my season tickets . All good things come to and end and this is one.  Our family has had season Oregon football tickets for 22 years but not next year.  I will still be going to games at Autzen  but just not as often. When we originally bought season tickets, the Ducks had just come of their first bowl game in a long time, the 1989 Independence Bowl in Shreveport La. We have had two tickets and the kids in their teenage years would take turns traveling to Eugene for the games.  Even when my son was a college student at Willamette University in Salem he would meet me at the games. However, both kids are now adults living in the Eastern time zone. My wife doesn't like crowds and we are both getting old and a three hour trip to Eugene, attending a 4 hour game and then driving three hours home is not as much fun as it once was. In addition, they have raised ticket prices to make purchasing season tickets a major investment.  One fan in our section, after the last price increase, kiddingly ask if we all gotten second mortgages on our homes to buy the tickets. Finally, after going to the Rose Bowl and winning it last season, the first time in 95 years for my Ducks, there aren't many more mountains to climb. Don't worry, I am still a crazy Duck fan but I will be watching more Duck games in front of my big screen high definition TV where there is a restroom just down the hall and the hot dogs are less expensive. I will miss interaction with fellow Duck fans but with my ipad and twitter there will still be lots of interaction. As usual, I will have the TV sound turned down and will be listening to the games with Jerry Allen and Jorge on the Duck Radio broadcasts.

I still plan on making at least one home  game per season at Autzen and  one road trip each year to an away game in the San Francisco bay area (Stanford or Cal) or a trip to Seattle for a game with the Washington State Cougars. ( The Cougs want to play one game in Seattle for their fans in the metropolitan area.

As far as tomorrow(Saturday) the University of Oregon Ducks will hold their Spring Football game at Autzen Stadium in Eugene. The Oregon Club of Southern Oregon is sponsoring a bus trip to Eugene for the football game and an Oregon baseball game after the football game. I am looking forward to the trip.