Hayward Field and Knight Arena

Trafton B.

April 17, 2010 - 7:13 PM

Today, my friends and I experienced nearly a century's worth of Oregon sporting history as we watched Oregon Men's Track & Field compete against UCLA in the classic Oregon-UCLA Dual Meet at Historic Hayward Field and then we toured the construction of the new Matthew Knight Arena.

The track meet was slightly less spectacular than last weeks, I will say. Ashton Eaton doubled up to win both the 100 & 200 Meter Dash, again. Mac Fleet and AJ Acosta finished 1-2 in the 1500 Meter Run, and we didn't even put our best runners out there. No Andy Wheating. No Matt Centrowitz. No Cyrus Hostetler. It's not that we didn't take the meet seriously; it's just that we have bigger things to worry about. We ended the afternoon winning with 92 points to UCLA's 71. But the reason I bring it up is because history was made on the Hammer Field, sort of.

First of all, Jordan Stray and Scott Penny set personal bestswith throws of 66.28 meters and 60.11 meters respectively. For Jordan, that throw puts him at around 12th in the NCAA. For Scott, that was the first time he broke the 60-meter mark and he's sitting on the bubble for qualifying for NCAA Regional Championship, but he still has plenty of time to better that mark before the end of the season. The real story, however, was that of my roommate Cam Norris who finished wish a final throw of 1.39 meters (4'7"). And, no, that's not a typo. Let's put this into context.

Right now Cam is a little bit under the weather because he has mononucleosis - i.e. mono. As some of you might know, mono pretty much sucks all energy from your body to the point where waking up in the morning and stumbling to the couch is a difficult task. Needless to say, it doesn't help your performance in the hammer throw.

But because UCLA did not enter any throwers in the Hammer Throw, Oregon decided to enter Cam into the field where he was guaranteed a third place finish and one point for overall team score. For his first and only thrown, Cam stepped into the circle lifted the hammer, stretched his right arm outwards and gentled placed the ball as far as his wingspan allowed. With a puzzled look on his face, the referee measured the mark at 1.39 meters as Cam trudged back the bench amongst scattered chuckles from the spectators. He scratched his next five throws, and by the look on his face, I don't think he could have picked up the hammer one more time.

The announcer actually said over the megaphone, "Ladies and gentlemen, don't be alarmed, that is not an error on the Hammer Throw scoreboard. Cam Norris finished in third place with short but legal throw of four feet and seven inches, which is good enough for third place." Cam took a victory lap around Hayward to celebrate the first points he scored for the team in any competition, and he will go down as the shortest throw in Oregon Track & Field history to still score. The beginning of an illustrious career, I'm sure.

After the meet, Leslie and I headed to the final open house of the Matthew Knight Arena construction site. Knight Arena is set to open for the first Pac-10 conference game of 2011, next year. And it's going to be AWESOME! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, but I will say that I'm stoked. It might even persuade me to watch a game or two next season, despite this year's lackluster performance.

It should have a total capacity of around 12,500 seats, with state-of-the-art everything thanks to good ol' Uncle Phil. Not to mention it's directly adjacent to the residence halls on campus. Word to the wise, if you're planning on living in the residence halls next year, try to get into either Bean or Hamilton and you'll be within earshot of every basketball game. On second thought, actually, you might want to steer clear of those halls for that same reason.

(Left to right) Cam, Scott and Jordan take their victory lap. Forthe record, Jordan said he would toss his "Victory Lap" T-Shirt to me in the stands and, let's just say, I'm still waiting.

The Men's 110M Hurdles

 Matthew Knight Arena from the north.

The new and improved "Pit."