Rain or shine, nothing stops the Ducks at Autzen Stadium

Making your way to Autzen Stadium through the bucolic fields of rural west-central Oregon, you could be excused for feeling just a bit like Dorothy as she made her way to Oz. There it is in the distance: the glittering building that looks otherworldly as it rises above this unspoiled landscape. And as in the journey to Oz, this journey too is filled with magic.

You’re on the banks of the Willamette River, a short stroll northward from the main campus at the University of Oregon. Maybe you’ve run a few miles on this river path. After all, we’re in Eugene, perhaps most famously known as Track Town, USA. But it’s Autzen Stadium, its towering, sparkling green and yellow “O” adorning the building, where the football magic happens.

Just remember one thing as you cross the footbridge on your approach to the gates on game day. Don’t bring your umbrella, because it never rains in Autzen Stadium!

At least, that’s the story handed down by none other than Don Essig, the stadium voice of the Oregon Ducks since 1968. A year after Autzen Stadium opened, Essig, who made his career as a secondary school teacher, was recruited for the stadium job after stints calling high school basketball and football. One year the athletic director asked him to announce that no umbrellas were allowed in the stadium. Tough pill to swallow, considering the Pacific Northwest’s ubiquitous fall season foul weather. But then, just like the magical Oz, the heavens opened up and not a drop of rain fell on a home game day for 11 years. Essig’s voice bellowed during the pregame announcements: “It’s a really nice day! You don’t need your umbrella.”

“So eventually it transpired into ‘The Weather Report,’” Essig says. Today Essig reports the temperature on the field and welcomes the opposing team. And then, Essig leads the crowd as they cheer with him: “It never rains in Autzen Stadium!” And 54,000 fans do everything they can to outshout him.

Autzen Stadium opened in 1967. Named after Portland philanthropist Thomas J. Autzen, the original stadium cost about $2.5 million in 1967 dollars to build. (Prior to 1967, the Ducks played at Hayward Field.) The stadium’s first game on September 23 of that year saw the Ducks lose to Colorado, 17-13. The Ducks recorded their first Autzen Stadium victory a month later against Idaho, defeating the Vandals 31-6.

Even if you haven’t made the trek to Oregon, chances are you’ve seen this building before. In the 1978 cult classic National Lampoon’s Animal House, Autzen Stadium stood in for Faber College Football Stadium when John Landis’s film crew came to town. Landmarks all around Eugene were used for location shots; the university cooperated in exchange for a few bucks ($20,000 to be exact, according to oregonencyclopedia.org) and by having the production team promise it wouldn’t identify the University of Oregon in the film. If you’ve ever caught yourself singing the Otis Day and the Knights version of the classic Isley Brothers dance tune “Shout” on the streets of Eugene, you’re not alone; it’s a mainstay at Oregon home games before the fourth quarter, complete with a stadium sing-along and hand-clapping, more than 40 years after the Knights themselves played the song in the famous toga frat party scene.

The stadium has witnessed many memorable game moments over the years. But in Eugene, there is just one Autzen Stadium moment that every Duck fan remembers. It happened during Oregon’s 1994 Rose Bowl season in the last moments of what looked like a game-winning drive by the ninth-ranked University of Washington Huskies. With less than a minute to play, UW quarterback Damon Huard threw an interception caught by Oregon defensive back Kenny Wheaton. Wheaton took off. Jerry Allen, Oregon’s radio announcer, couldn’t contain himself. “Kenny Wheaton’s gonna score! Kenny Wheaton’s gonna score!” That 97-yard pick-six not only won the game, but it also became the defining play of the Ducks season — and, some say, the play that turned around the Oregon program. The Autzen Stadium crowd went nuts. When Wheaton returned to Autzen 20 years later to celebrate that magical moment, he wore a custom #20 Ducks jersey that read, simply, “The Pick.”

Essig announced that game and hundreds more. He’s seen Autzen morph from a single building to a massive sports complex. When Essig first started announcing, “there was no such thing as a skybox,” he recalls. “No such thing as a meeting room. The football team used to meet in the tunnels. The workout room was about two big closets. We just watched it grow.”

During the 2015 season, the Ducks hosted the California Golden Bears in a downpour. “My good friends were taking bets [that we wouldn’t make the umbrella announcement],” Essig remembers. So he improvised: “Sometimes we have a drizzle, sometimes we have a monsoon,” he intoned to the 56,000-plus fans. “But let’s all remember, it never rains in Autzen Stadium!” And Oregon, playing on the same field where Kenny Wheaton made that magic pick-six, went on to win the game.