Intercollegiate Athletics
Rob Mullens, Director
541-346-4481
Len Casanova Athletic Center
2727 Leo Harris Parkway
Head Coaches
Dana Altman, men’s basketball
Kat Mertz, women’s soccer
George Horton, baseball
Mark Helfrich, football
Robert Johnson, men’s and women’s cross-country, track and field
Jen Beck, women’s lacrosse
Casey Martin, men’s golf
Jim Moore, volleyball
Felecia Mulkey, acrobatics and tumbling
Ria Scott, women’s golf
TBD, women’s tennis
Nils Schyllander, men’s tennis
Kelly Graves, women’s basketball
Mike White, softball
Intercollegiate athletics at the university is an integral part of the institution. Opportunities to participate in athletics are offered to students of both sexes.
The university has a rich heritage in men’s intercollegiate athletics, one that includes seven National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) track-and-field championships, six NCAA cross-country championships, and the first-ever NCAA basketball championship in 1939. University women earned national track-and-field titles six times—including a run of five consecutive indoor championships from 2010 to 2014—in addition to women’s cross-country titles in 1983, 1987, and 2012. The men claimed NCAA track championships in 1962, 1964, 1965, 1970, 1984, 2009, and 2014, as well as cross-country title in 1971, 1973, 1974, 1977, 2007, and 2008.
Success in sports has made Eugene and the university an attractive site for national championships. The university has been the host for collegiate national championships in men’s and women’s track and field, women’s basketball, gymnastics, wrestling, and golf.
Eugene was the site of the 1972, 1976, 1980, and 2008 Olympic Team Trials in track and field, and will host the Olympic trials again at Hayward Field in 2012. In addition, the University of Oregon has hosted nine NCAA meets and seven U.S. national championships.
Men’s and women’s teams in various sports have won conference and regional championships. Many university athletes have won individual national titles and participated in the Olympic Games, World Championships, and other major competitions.
Emphasis on academics and athletics has resulted in the university accumulating ninety-three Academic All-Americans, five NCAA Top-Eight awards, and a number of NCAA postgraduate scholarship recipients.
The university fields eight sports for men and twelve for women. Men’s sports are baseball, basketball, cross-country, football, golf, tennis, and indoor and outdoor track and field. Women’s sports include acrobatics and tumbling, basketball, cross-country, golf, lacrosse, soccer, softball, tennis, indoor and outdoor track and field, and volleyball. Sand volleyball is the latest addition to the women’s side; intercollegiate competition began during 2013–14. Women’s intercollegiate athletics, organized in 1973, joined the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics in 1977.
The University of Oregon belongs to the NCAA; both men and women compete at the Division I level. The longtime organizer of men’s athletics, the NCAA, began sponsoring women’s championships in the 1981–82 season.
The university also belongs to the Pacific-12 Conference (Pac-12). Other members of the Pac-12 are Arizona, Arizona State, UCLA, USC, California, Colorado, Stanford, Oregon State, Utah, Washington, and Washington State.
The UO football program—participants in twenty-seven bowl games since the 1916 season—has been selected for twenty-one postseason appearances in the last twenty-five years, including Bowl Championship Series victories in the 2002 and 2013 Fiesta Bowls and the 2012 Rose Bowl.
Pac-12 schools have captured more NCAA titles than any other conference in the nation.
Duck Athletic Fund
The Duck Athletic Fund, the fundraising arm of the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics, has as its primary mission the funding of athletic scholarships. Home offices are in the Len Casanova Athletic Center on the UO campus; call 541-346-5433. There are branch offices in Eugene and at the University of Oregon in Portland. The University of Oregon in Portland is at 70 NW Couch St.; call 503-725-3825.