Duck land just too dang nice.

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

I'D HEARD about the vicious things University of Oregon students had yelled at Southern Cal basketball coach Henry Bibby a few weeks ago.

I'd seen a drunken Duck fan challenge my son's college roommate to a fight before a UO-Washington football game, simply because the kid was wearing a Husky sweatshirt.

It was time to find out what it's really like to be The Enemy in hostile territory. So Saturday night I took an Oregon State fan from Corvallis, John Mills, to the Duck-Beaver men's basketball game to see how he'd get treated.

"And don't forget to wear your colors," I said.

"I'm nothing but Beaver bait," protested Mills, though he arrived gamely dressed in traffic-cone orange.

Before my first cast, some history: Mills and I go back to junior high days in Corvallis, before, as he might say, I sold my soul to the Devil Duck. He has never hidden his undying love for Oregon State nor his contempt for Oregon - even if it sometimes bites him in the bu - er, tail.

In 1973, for example, the two of us were watching a UO-OSU track meet in Corvallis when Mills huffed that it was a good thing for Steve Prefontaine that he was hurt because OSU's Hailu Ebba would have "smoked him." That triggered an angry, eight-letter word protest from a guy sitting behind us: Prefontaine.

But, then, I was a tad embarrassed a few years later when Mills and I were at an OSU-UO basketball game in Corvallis and Duck coach Dick Harter tripped a cheerleader who was flaunting a trophy.

You never know what's going to happen at these Civil War events, but I wanted to see Saturday night's through a visiting fan's eyes. To solidify our findings, Mills and I agreed to score each interaction he had with a Duck fan as "civil" or "uncivil." And may the best - or worst - behavior win.

Before the game, we chowed down at the Steelhead Brewery, which draws plenty of Duck fans. In 90 minutes, Mills was treated like some sort of foreign dignitary. As we walked to the game, a kid outside the McKenzie Study Center saw Mills' Halloween colors and gave him a thumbs up.

"Oh, it's a Beaver," smiled a parking attendant.

Outside McArthur Court, we - as Mills put it - "walked the gantlet" of UO students waiting till the doors opened. Mills triggered nary a smirk, much less any one-line grenades.

WHAT WAS going on? By the time we walked into The Pit, "Civil" was up 4-zip and Mills was talking about having his teen-age son check out UO's accounting program. "I love the campus," he said after I'd showed him around.

Goodness, this was like taking Pat Robertson to the Oregon Country Fair and later finding him sipping loganberry punch while perusing nipple rings.

In the lobby, a young woman laughed with Mills about signing him up for a Duck credit card. The woman who sold him his popcorn smiled so warmly it nearly melted the ice in his Pepsi. He wasn't even to his seat yet and -

"John Mills?" Darned if it wasn't an old high school classmate, now a Duck. The two chatted effusively for a good five minutes while I nervously looked at my watch. This evening was not going at all the way I'd figured.

Finally, hope appeared in the form of a kid - maybe 12 - who locked onto Mills like a grizzly bear who sees a sleeping bag and thinks "burrito!" The kid poked out his neck, glared at Mills and said, snottily, "Go Ducks!"

That was the worst it got. Honestly. Even Mills' retort - "You wanna piece of me, man?" - was said with such obvious jest that the kid just laughed and walked off.

I suddenly realized that this was a column gone terribly wrong. Everyone knows that what sells papers is conflict. Alas, it wasn't to be.

The boos from the UO student section when OSU came on the court sounded almost obligatory. The students' most biting yell was "It's all over" - when Oregon jumped to a 2-0 lead. (And it was.) The Beaver and Duck cheerleaders did a routine together. The two mascots had a good-natured arm-wrestling match. Pathetic.

Mills' orange garb made him stand out like pumpkin in a zucchini patch, but nobody screamed, chortled or even quacked at him. A woman one seat away invited him to use the empty chair for his coat.

Enough already. I realize the schools' basketball rivalry, as of late, has lacked the intensity of their football rivalry. And there's not the booze at Mac Court that sometimes makes things ugly at Autzen. But as we walked outside - "Civil" having thrashed "Uncivil" 11-1 - I couldn't help but feel defeated.

Mills, ever the good sport, suggested an antidote. "Me and you - Civil War, Reser Stadium, next November," he said. "And don't forget to wear your colors."

Bob Welch can be reached by phone at 338-2354 or by e-mail at [e-mail].