Sixty-five years ago, a conference rang a death knell, too
A friend recently sent me a program from a Washington-Oregon State game at Portland Multnomah Stadium on Oct. 25, 1958.
It was a different world then. The program cost 40 cents. A game ticket cost $3.50. (The Beavers, incidentally, won 14-12 before a crowd of 29,514.)
But in some ways, the college athletics world was very similar.
The nine-member Pacific Coast Conference was breaking up after the 1958-59 academic year, much as the Pac-12 will be dissolved after the 2023-24 academic year, though for different reasons.
Oregon was at the forefront of it. In 1951, charges were made that Webfoots coach Jim Aiken had violated the conference code for financial aid and athletic subsidies. In the aftermath, Aiken resigned, but Oregon administration urged the conference to investigate similar abuses at UCLA by coach Red Sanders.
Evidently, it was going on at other places, too. The PCC found evidence of a “slush fund” at Washington and coach John Cherberg was fired. Soon UCLA, Southern Cal and California were charged by the league with illegal benefits for players. In 1957, the Bruins were hit with sanctions, including some suspended athletes and a three-year Rose Bowl ban.
The next year it was announced that Cal and UCLA were leaving the conference — Stanford, in fact, voted for the Bruins’ expulsion. By the fall of 1958 it was clear the PCC was finished after the academic year was completed.
Inside the UW-OSU game program was a story entitled, “The Future of Oregon State Athletics.” (There is no byline, but I suspect it was written by my father, John Eggers, who was “sports publicity director” at the time and would have been one to provide material for the program.)
To wit:
As the Pacific Coast Conference enters into its death throes, there has been much talk of the future of athletes for the northern members of the alliance. While is still far from being completely settled, and there is much talking still being done in secret and in the open, it would appear that as far as Oregon State is concerned, the future is bright.
Oregon State has prided itself on establishing its program of intercollegiate athletics on sound footings. This has been done through the years, by the coordinated efforts of aware administrations and dedicated athletic personnel, through a careful blending of ethics, loyalties, practicalities and economics.
It is hypocritical to say that economics does not play an important factor in the administration of an athletic program, emphasized or deemphasized. It takes money, a great deal of money to maintain an intercollegiate athletic program. Naturally, football must provide all or nearly all all of the income for the entire program — to buy the baseballs and bats, the tennis balls, transport the swimming team, pay for the new wrestling mat, as well as keep in order its own house with such things as uniforms, headgear, footballs. Then it must also provide the salaries for coaches, administrators, clerical personnel, seasonal employees and the like. Fortunately, at Oregon State, a successful basketball program is able to carry its own weight, but many schools are not this fortunate.
It is not surprising, therefore, that to an institution it must necessarily follow that the more extensive the athletic program, the most successful, economically, must be the football team. And usually it is a truism that the more successful the football team is victory-wise, the more money it can return to support the program. And on and on goes the vicious circle.
With the demise of the conference, Oregon State, through its athletic director Spec Keene, began earnestly to replace the games canceled by its former rivals. With the exception of one date, Spec has been able to rebuild the Beavers’ schedule completely through the 1964 season — a monumental task, and especially since he made efforts to contract institutions with teams of high caliber.
He was able to avoid the situation of playing the same team twice in the same year, a fate which did not escape our compatriots in Eugene. … still up in the air are basketball and other sports, which are normally scheduled on a year-to-year basis, and seldom over one year in advance. It can be assumed, however, that basketball will not suffer, as it has never suffered. Oregon State has always been able to schedule the finest teams in the nation, and there are encouraging reports along the coast that basketball may emerge brighter than ever. It may be too early to tell, since the bitterness and mistrust which beclouded the breakup of the PCC is still apparent in some circles, and in the end, may destroy whatever progress has been made to restore the group to realistic thinking.
For the other sports, it is expected that geographic proximity will dictate the schedules, as it has in the past, regardless of political affiliation or manner of bedfellow. This, again, is largely a manner of economics.
As it has in all the many crises which it faces annually, Oregon State is expected to emerge from the present trouble with its head up and its future bright.
Postscript: Beginning in 1959, Cal, Stanford, UCLA, Southern Cal and Washington formed the five-school Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU). Washington State joined them in 1962. For five years, Oregon State and Oregon played an independent scheduled before becoming AAWU members in 1964.
Could history repeat itself at some point, with OSU and Wazoo regaining affiliation of a new Power Five conference? Time will tell.
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