`OUTHOUSE TO THE PENTHOUSE' OREGON'S PROGRAM HAS BECOME NATION'S RAGS-TO-RICHES STORY.

Byline: Billy Witz Staff Writer

EUGENE, Ore. - Stay Hungry. Those are the words on the large sign that greets University of Oregon players, coaches and staff as they walk into the plush locker rooms of the $13 million Casanova Center, an 11-year-old building that also houses the athletic-department offices, its Hall of Fame, coaches offices and a film room with theater seating.

Just off the banks of the tree-lined Willamette River, the Casanova Center is next door to the 4-year-old, $15 million Moshofsky Center, the indoor facility that allows the team to practice out of the frequent rains. It also sits adjacent to Autzen Stadium, which recently underwent a $90 million renovation that boosted its capacity by more than 12,000 seats to 64,000.

All this - plus 10-story billboards in Manhattan promoting its star players - is for a football team that has won a share of back-to-back Pacific-10 Conference championships, finished No. 2 in the nation last year and has won 10 consecutive games and 32 of its past 35.

Stay hungry?

The Ducks, 5-0 and ranked No. 7 as they prepare to play UCLA on Saturday at the Rose Bowl, are more likely to be victims of consumption than starvation.

If Oregon is sometimes dismissed by schools such as USC, UCLA and Washington as nouveau riche - a program built on the money of Nike founder and OU alum Phil Knight and on the backs of lax admission standards - perhaps its just a case of pigskin envy.

The Ducks appear primed for their sixth nine-victory season in nine years and are trying to win 10 games for the third consecutive season. Their coach, Mike Bellotti, has turned away overtures from USC, Ohio State and Notre Dame.

That this has happened in this cozy city of 200,000 - more than 100 miles from Portland, the closest thing in the state to cosmopolitan - might be the most remarkable part of all.

UCLA coach Bob Toledo, an assistant at Oregon for six years during the 1980s, recalled visiting former Ducks coach Rich Brooks and his staff at their hotel in Pasadena in 1994, when Oregon made its first Rose Bowl appearance in 37 years.

``I had a lot of friends on the staff, and I was happy for them,'' Toledo said. ``But I thought, `They can't sustain this.' That's the amazing thing. They've not only sustained it, they've exceeded it. It's an unbelievable story.''

Those with long enough memories, like Toledo, know why.

When he arrived as the offensive coordinator in 1983, the Ducks were coming off back-to-back two-win seasons and, along with Oregon State, were regular fixtures in the syndicated newspaper column The Bottom Ten. In his first season, they lost to Pacific - where Toledo used to be the head coach - and San Jose State. Two years later, they lost to Nebraska 63-0.

If the football team was bad, the facilities were worse.

The players' locker room was a misnomer - it didn't have lockers. Each player had a hook for his clothes and a shelf on which to to put books. The coaches' locker room didn't have hooks, just a nail to hang a jacket.

The players lifted weights in two small rooms, one of which included a loft, underneath Autzen Stadium. The coaches, who had one secretary among them, shared closet-sized offices in McArthur Court - the school's basketball arena, a couple of miles away. Toledo's overlooked a cemetery across the street, a fitting metaphor.

``I remember (former USC coach) John Robinson telling his assistants, `Don't go to Oregon, it's a graveyard for coaches,'' said Oregon assistant head coach Neal Zoumboukos, in his 23rd year at the school.

``There were four coaches to an office without a lot of room. It was not unusual to walk in with the lights out and you'd have one coach watching film in the corner, another writing with a light, another counseling a player in a corner and another sticking his head under the desk so he could carry on a phone conversation in privacy.

``We didn't have any meeting rooms. Groups met in the press box and the tunnels of the stadium. One group actually met in the bathroom. You can literally say we went from the outhouse to the penthouse.''

Drumming up interest in the Ducks wasn't easy, either.

Bob Diamond, a volunteer fund-raiser for the Duck Athletic Fund - the department's fund-raising arm - recalled that in the late '80s, they were looking for a donor who would haul the athletic department's trash away.

``We were standing out on a bridge putting up banners to vote for ballot measure 5, trying to get cigarette-tax money,'' Diamond said. ``We were begging people for $10 donations.''

There were several watershed moments in the program's evolution:

--The hiring by Brooks of Bellotti, a sub-.500 head coach in five seasons at Chico State, as offensive coordinator in 1989, when Toledo left for the same job at Texas A&M.

``I honestly never imagined myself as the head coach at Oregon,'' said Bellotti, who was promoted in 1995 when Brooks was hired by the St. Louis Rams. ``I was concerned about the future of football at Chico State and the inability to get over the hump. I didn't want to wake up in a few years and say why did I pass up that opportunity?''

--Oregon's decision to buy itself into the Independence Bowl in 1989 - the school's first bowl game in 26 years. The school could sell only one-third of the 15,000 tickets it bought, but the berth provided the impetus for two key building blocks: the fund-raising efforts of the Casanova Center and the recruiting class that would take them to the Rose Bowl in 1994.

--Kenny Wheaton's interception. The Ducks, after a 1-2 start that included losses to Hawaii and Utah, were in the Rose Bowl race in late October. Old nemesis Washington, which had beaten them five consecutive times, was poised to score the winning touchdown when Wheaton intercepted a pass near the goal line and returned it the length of the field to seal the victory.

``After that our confidence truly soared,'' Bellotti said of the play still shown regularly on the Autzen Stadium screen. ``There were a lot of plays that season that you could point to as the difference, but that one has been lionized.''

The football landscape is littered with one-hit wonders. Georgia Tech won a national championship in 1991. Northwestern got to the Rose Bowl in 1995. Brigham Young and Clemson won national titles in the early '80s.

For every Florida State, which rose to national prominence in the late' 70s and has remained there, there are dozens who haven't.

``When I got the job, I said I wanted to see the day in the not-so-distant future where Oregon becomes a destination, not a steppingstone,'' said athletic director Bill Moos, who took over in 1995. ``Yeah, we're in the arms race. But we don't want to keep up with the Jones'. We want to be the Jones'.''

To that end, Moos aggressively has sought to upgrade Oregon's facilities. The Casanova Center weight room has been improved, the Moshofsky Center was built and, thanks to Knight's $30 million gift, Autzen was expanded - a project that also included 32 luxury boxes.

``It was a gamble when we went forward with the stadium project,'' said Moos, noting a double bond payment of $4 million was due this year. ``But we knew to keep the program successful, we had to develop more revenue streams. As we kept our fingers crossed, the stadium was finished coming off the Fiesta Bowl season, and we were able to sell it out.''

Though the capital improvements have helped fund-raising, it hasn't necessarily helped in recruiting. It's rare Oregon beats out UCLA, USC or Washington for a high-profile recruit.

The latest example came last winter when, despite being 11-1, they couldn't land Long Beach Poly High running back Hershel Dennis. He signed with USC.

Quarterback Jason Fife is a more typical recruit. A fourth-year junior from Lake Elsinore, he visited UCLA's one-day camp before his senior year. UCLA already had offered a scholarship to J.P. Losman.

``Al Borges (then the offensive coordinator) said I looked pretty good,'' Fife said. ``He wanted to know why (his high school coach) didn't tell him about me. I was kind of an unknown. I played in Division VII, where not a lot of guys get looked at.''

Fife, who is second in the Pac-10 in passing efficiency, chose Oregon over Fresno State.

``We've proven you can be successful without having a roster full of high school All-Americans,'' Zoumboukos said. ``We've had a blend of star-caliber players and a blue-collar group. The stars, by virtue of their physical play, raises the physical play of the other kids. And the other kids, by virtue of their need to achieve, helps the attitude of the superstars.''

It's that type of mentality that has made the football team popular across the state. The Ducks have become a status symbol among the young, cash-heavy set in Portland. The Ducks held their spring game there this year and drew 15,000. On a typical game day, southbound Interstate-5 is choc-a-bloc with cars with green Oregon flags on the antennae, and traffic on the four-lane road is backed up for miles near Eugene.

Oregon, which even during its Rose Bowl season played to four home crowds of less than 31,000, is expected to average beyond its capacity for the seventh time in eight years.

The athletic-department budget has grown from $18 to $36 million since Moos arrived. That hasn't gone over well with some members of the academic community, who believe spending on athletics has gotten out of control - particularly when the school is absorbing state budget cuts.

In a move aimed at quelling those concerns, Moos announced last week the athletic department no will longer rely on state funds - something few public schools (UCLA being one of them) do.

He also notes student enrollment has increased by 3,000 over the past seven years, and that Bellotti has donated $25,000 to the school's library, a gift matched by the athletic department.

Of course, Bellotti is in the second year of a seven-year contract that, with incentives tied to attendance, will pay him more than $1 million this year.

In addition, recent NCAA graduation rates showed Oregon with a Pac-10-best 88 percent for the freshman class of 1995-96, ahead of even Stanford.

Stay hungry?

``I don't think you ever want to set a ceiling on your dreams,'' Bellotti said. ``Our desire is to continue to this and by a serious contender for the national championship, not just the Pac-10. There's a smaller margin for error here than at other places with a larger local population, but is it possible? Absolutely.''

UCLA vs. OREGON

When: Saturday, 12:30 p.m.

Where: Rose Bowl

TV/Radio: Ch. 7; 1150-AM

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

Former Oregon quarterback Joey Harrington, now with the Detroit Lions, is one of the reasons why Oregon's program has prospered.

Matt York/Associated Press