Eugene, Oregon: Guido’s grooves to game-day football victors, ‘Girl you know it’s true, ooh-ooh’

As UO preps for arch rival OSU in a national championship quest, a reflection: QB Bill Musgrave and company jump-started the program to prosperity. Characters like Zeus filled the 1989 street scene.

A Rhodes Scholar nominee, Bill Musgrave led UO to its first bowl game in 26 years. He played in the NFL seven years, winning a Super Bowl ring, before spending the next quarter century coaching, the majority as an offensive coordinator and with quarterbacks. Today, he is senior offensive assistant for the Cleveland Browns (photo: likely by The Oregonian).

Nestled into a student union arm chair around the corner from where John Belushi screamed “Food Fight,” Bill Musgrave was doing what came naturally to him:

Hitting the books.

Would the next-year Rhodes Scholar nominee ever set notes aside and loosen up off the grid iron? That 1989 bookworm afternoon, his blue eyes remained glued to text, as if at Oxford—except he wasn’t. Dangling daypacks over shoulders, public-school undergrads cruised by obliviously, leaving to peace the unassuming quarterback from an old West railroad town.

On game days too, Musgrave meant business. Seconds before third-down snaps, the play-caller would peek at an easy-access cheat sheet encased on his left forearm. It paid dividends. As a true freshman in 1987, he led UO to a 10-7 season-opening win over Colorado before holding his own the next Saturday at No. 5-ranked Ohio State, raising eyebrows. A home victory over USC came the fifth week, and UO was suddenly sitting pretty at 4-1. Cynical alumni were waking from a decades-long spell, like King Arthur from Morgana’s hex, game for the I-5 slog from Portland.

But when you’re a Duck, heartbreak is just a collar-bone break away, a failure to box out against North Carolina basketball or a last-second Auburn field goal for all the marbles.

At times like these, the best thing to do is gingerly take off the jersey you bought, hang it back into the closet and say, ‘Wait til next year, Phil Knight.’

***

My senior year at the University of Oregon, drizzly night-time strolls took me through the fish-bowl diner made famous in “Animal House,” to little-bit-louder-now frat-house toga parties, under shadowy firs in Pioneer Cemetery, and down west-edge sidewalks roamed by Zeus, a tie-dyed counter-culture fixture rumored to have lost his mind to LSD after a stint as campus genius.

Across the street from the bearded Zeus, who panhandled but refused pennies, were the UO bookstore and a disco bar with a south Italian name:

Guido’s.

That mid November evening, a deep bass pulsated from within, where Derek Loville was leaning against a brass rail two hops from the dance floor. Outfitted in snappy white threads, the halfback who San Francisco 49ers teammates would dub “D-Love” was engaged in conversation with a nice woman. Toward the door, much bigger guys were trickling in, their sore steps in synch with relatively slow pop. It was too early yet to break out Milli Vanilli, the handsome German duet who recorded so true.

On Nov. 18, Oregon had just slugged Oregon State in the Civil War, 30-21, fueling speculation a bowl game might at long last be awarded. The Ducks, with seven wins and four losses, hadn’t suited up for the holidays since the 1963 Sun Bowl, when my mom was a high school senior. That would be 26 years. Back then, bowl games weren’t parsed out left and right.

Whatever the case, it always felt good to beat the Beavers. For one, my UO car decal had been recently showered in spit after a ghoulish Halloween drive up Highway 99 to pop in on a Sandy friend in the OSU college town of Corvallis. At least that was the plan. Me and my Datsun pickup headed straight back down the road.

Back in Eugene, euphoria was building on East 13th Avenue and Alder Street, where greasy slices of Sy’s New York Pizza tamed stomach gurgling after swilling of big-brand lager at places like Rennie’s Landing, up the block. Inside the pizzeria, the ubiquitous Zeus put in his two cents’ worth on congressional dysfunction, cutting off my buddy Phil and me. 

“It’s about checks-and-balances,” he boomed between bites, pivoting in an ankle-length hemp shawl.

Ten steps away, the usual crowd was filing up to Guido’s: frat kids with baseball caps on backwards, dormitory upperclassmen in sweatshirts and jeans, trios of dirty blonde sorority chicks, and the occasional dressed-to-kill girl in a tight-hugging sweater dress. The curly blond six-foot-4 bouncer, himself a football player, would have his hands full with the extra-buzzed street scene.

“Man, this guy’s trying to sneak in a forty,” he said incredulously, confiscating an oversized brown bottle before letting the infraction slide. “Next up, let’s go.”

Inside, “Pump up the Jam” heightened the mood ever higher. Thirsty for on-tap beverages, throngs of giddy college kids surged toward the bar, where a pair in orange-and-black apparel kept to themselves. Their nervous cigarette pulls contributed to a purple haze fit for a Husky.

Nearby, my Cedar Ridge (Ore.) junior high classmate, Tiffany, herself looking nice, seemed miffed at a back-up UO linebacker, scanning the dance floor in pursed silence. It wasn’t the time to make small-talk.

Giant-talk would soon come my way via the trenches.

***

Under coach Rich Brooks, right, UO played in the 1995 Rose Bowl, losing 38-20 to undefeated Penn State. The Ducks have never won a national championship. Brooks started Musgrave as a true freshman in 1987 (personal scrapbook clipping).

Like indiscriminate pigeon droppings, three slit ketchup packets took flight down the bleachers of the UO student section before splattering on spectators. Oregon quarterback Chris Miller, a beacon as a first-round NFL pick to-be, was in mid scramble, capturing eyes at Autzen Stadium in a game versus Rose Bowl-bound Arizona State in 1986, when 25,000 was a good crowd.

After the play, a stalky undergraduate smeared crimson red into the shoulder area of his crisp white T-shirt, expecting to wipe off water droplets. Irate, he whipped around and surveyed the sea of standing students for the culprit, who was right beside me. In black sunglasses, the scrawny rascal was pulling off an Oscar-worthy performance, stoically in tune to public address announcer Don Essig’s sorrowful baritone recap: “Fourth down.”

Those were the type of pranks that at times overshadowed on-field action in the mid 1980s.

That was all about to change.

By 1988, Musgrave was the face of UO sports whether he liked it or not. His throwing motion graced a free poster distributed across campus and into the hands of fresh season-ticket holders and bandwagon fans across the state. No Eugene college kid would ever say a mean word about him on Sunday morning after a loss or in the student section when the chips were down. “We got Musgrave,” went the thinking. 

Everybody knew he didn’t have Troy Aikman’s cannon arm, but it didn’t really matter. He had panache, pinpointing feather-touch screens and mid-range balls into the capable clutches of receivers like Terry Obee and Tony Hargain. Running backs Latin Berry and Loville loosened up the passing lanes. At crunch time, Musgrave spread the field and emitted a cool calm, just as UO point guard Terrell Brandon did on the hardwood.

Wide Receiver Terry Obee, right, complemented Musgrave’s arsenal. Undrafted along with Loville, Obee was one of at least five ’89 starters on offense to make the NFL (scrapbook photo of article by The Oregonian).

Before fall semester classes, textbooks needed to be picked up at the UO bookstore, where a freshly unveiled No. 14 Musgrave jersey hung on the clothing rack. It reflexively became mine. Today it would be considered old-fogey vintage, but the mesh shirt’s classic green-and-yellow color combo, Champion logo and unmistakable number defined late 1980s Oregon football. 

At the student union’s Friday beer garden, an out-of-stater mistook me for Musgrave, seeing the jersey.

“Say, are you Bill Musgrave?” he inquired after approaching me.

“Yup, sure am.” 

“Sure like your game.”

“Gosh, thanks, I try my best.”

Suspicion then crossed his face after sizing up my skinny six-foot frame, better suited to cross-country running.

“By the way, who’s the third-string quarterback?”

Now, here’s the thing. QB3 had been my kitty-corner neighbor at 1456 Alder St. the year previous, before the perks at Carson cafeteria lured me back to dorm life.

“Oh, you mean Jon Okken. Great dude.”

The guy nodded, three-quarters convinced.

My friend Calvin, down the bench, gestured me over.

“Dave, what are you doing? That’s not cool.”

***

Cool kids took to Guido’s disco floor as the blond bouncer kicked it into gear, letting in pack after pack before barking: “Get with the program, back up. We got VIP company.”

Five towering figures, each nearing 300 pounds, waltzed through. One of them fixed his glare on me. It felt like a Conan the Barbarian moment. A long finger curled my way. There was no escape. Their leader spoke.

“You, come here.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you in the jersey.”

Two steps put me face-to-face with the brawny quintet, grade-A brute force, the kind that shoves for scholarships.

“You’re gonna meet the real Musgrave,” he said. The jovial five hoisted me onto their shoulders as if delivering a wood log to a Viking king’s bonfire. Disco dancers made way. Everybody had a good idea who they were, five starting linemen who defended their leader.

My senior year: At UO’s beer garden, an out-of-stater mistook me for Musgrave. At Guido’s, it was a different story (photo by Julie Skipper-Pedersen).

Again, Bill Musgrave was seated alone, only this time at a semi-circular booth with a cocktail table, where his tackles would soon rest themselves. He smiled, asking the simplest yet most complimentary of questions, as if on the high plains.

“What’ll you have?”

A shot of whiskey came my way.

We made comparisons between the Colorado town of Grand Junction, his city of birth, and Laramie, Wyo., mine, two rugged-territory railroad towns. Ten minutes with the scholarly quarterback was my crowning moment at Guido’s.

Lyrics of “Girl you know it’s true,” gripped the disco, alive to UO’s steady rise.

 “Ooh, ooh, ooh.”

***

Two nights later, 34 years ago today, on the way back from the student union to Carson dormitory, the news broke over my yellow Walkman: Oregon was going to the Independence Bowl, cause for celebration at Guido’s.

-30-

Rose Bowl, 1995. The Musgrave jersey has traveled with me far and wide, even to Italy.