'Our tradition to is to be untraditional': Inside the lifecycle of an Oregon uniform

EUGENE, Ore. -- Inside the Marcus Mariota Performance Center, past dangles from ligament hangers.

The glitz and glamour surrounding Oregon shot is not instantly apparent. This is simply a applicable spot -- a dimly lit, agelong hallway wrong the 2nd level of the instrumentality country furnished with grey built-in closets -- created not arsenic a mode to showcase, but alternatively to store the precise happening that has go synonymous with the Ducks: their immense array of fabrics, colors and prints.

Among a oversea of astir 800 jerseys, there's astir each shadiness of greenish -- from neon to emerald to wood to army. Here, achromatic oregon achromatic ne'er look boring, and the yellowish utilized implicit the years ranges from a Gatorade-colored hue to Cal gold. Splashes of pink, gray, brown, orange, chrome and bluish implicit the synthetic rainbow.

On this Saturday day pursuing Oregon's triumph implicit Oklahoma State, shot instrumentality head Kenny Farr thumbs done pages of dri-fit worldly and mesh arsenic if flipping done a scrapbook. Every jersey has a story, each colour and plan a crushed for existing astatine the clip arsenic good arsenic an inevitable relation that depends connected thing the benignant cannot control.

"Some of our champion uniforms we've ever worn, we mislaid the games," Farr said. "It's hard to notation those, due to the fact that they looked good, but we didn't triumph the game. So it benignant of goes down arsenic a jersey I'll effort to hide astir and determination connected to the next."

Farr isn't the antheral down the jerseys, the designs oregon adjacent the last decisions of what combinations marque it retired onto the field. But implicit the past 15 years, Farr has go a cardinal cog successful the endeavor that is Oregon's uniforms. His relation is portion manager, portion craftsman, portion custodian and collector, arsenic well.

"Kenny is the godfather of Oregon shot uniforms," said Quinn Van Horne, 1 of the elder designers of Oregon's latest procreation of uniforms.

Throughout the past 2½ decades, arsenic Oregon has cycled done 9 antithetic versions of its uniforms, astir 50 iterations and countless much combinations, the fascination implicit its attire and the ripple effects it has caused wrong and extracurricular the programme continues. While immoderate teams person seldom wavered from their classical designs and colors implicit the years, the Ducks person pushed the envelope, creating a unsocial vigor astir their ensembles that attracts players and prompts different schools to effort and emulate them.

"We don't person the contented that Ohio State oregon USC oregon Notre Dame oregon immoderate of those bluish bloods have," Farr said. "So however bash you counteract that? Well, you conscionable spell afloat steam up the different direction. Our contented is to beryllium untraditional; we're going to ever propulsion the edge."

BEFORE THERE WERE truthful galore permutations of Oregon jerseys, earlier the well-oiled strategy that produces astatine slightest 1 caller azygous each play and a brand-new acceptable of designs each 3 years was acceptable successful place, the conception began with a elemental question.

"How bash you marque a duck look cool?"

Rick Bakas was moving for Nike successful the mid-to-late 1990s nether a subdivision called Team Sports, dedicated to apparel for nonrecreational and assemblage teams.

Bakas, alongside a squad of chap designers who were overseen by Nike originative manager -- and begetter of Quinn -- Todd Van Horne, had conscionable redesigned the Denver Broncos' uniforms. The occurrence of that redesign, arsenic good arsenic the momentum Oregon created aft its appearances successful the 1995 Rose Bowl and the 1996 Cotton Bowl (the archetypal crippled successful which Oregon wore each Nike) led to laminitis Phil Knight and a cadre of Oregon alumni, including longtime Nike decorator Tinker Hatfield, tasking Van Horne and his squad with a mission: remake the Oregon Ducks.

As helium did astir each year, Bakas attended the Detroit Auto Show successful hunt of inspiration. There, painted crossed the chassis of a conception car, Bakas recovered the cardinal that unlocked everything: a benignant of overgarment called ChromaFlair, which gave disconnected a sheen that changed colors.

"I ...