By George P. Edmonston Jr. for the Gazette-Times

Most days at 5 p.m., chimed through loudspeakers mounted atop OSU's Memorial Union building, there is heard a simple little tune that sits deeply in the hearts of all Oregon Staters who consider themselves true Beavers.

Within a vale of western mountains,

There's a college we hold dear...

Like a religious call to prayer, the song asks all who cherish the Orange and Black to pause for a moment and reflect, just as it has done for generations of OSU alumni since it was first introduced in 1919.

Appropriately titled "Carry Me Back," Oregon State's alma mater was written by a young man named W. Homer Maris during the World War I years.

He is listed in early school yearbooks as a Teaching Fellow in the department of entomology and a faculty advisor to Phi Delta Theta social fraternity. While he taught, advised and composed the song, he was also a graduate student in the College of Agriculture. And the record is very clear that he was something else...

He was, gasp, a Duck, having received his bachelor's degree from the University of Oregon in 1913.

If there's a lesson in this story that applies to Civil War week, it is this: don't get too cozy in your assumptions of what may or may not happen when Oregon's two Division I football schools square off in their annual gridiron bash to see who's best.

Since the game's in Corvallis this year, that means OSU announcers will do the TV play-by-play, right?

Since it's the Civil War game, toss the record books out the window, right?

If only it were this simple. A study of the series, entering tomorrow into its 106th year (12:30 p.m. kickoff, Reser Stadium, ABC), shows that nothing can be taken for granted and anything can happen. The flap earlier this week between Eugene television station KEZI and the OSU athletic department, in which the former threatened to pull the game from the tube if it did not get to choose the announcers, is the latest in a long list of Civil War oddities that makes this rivalry one of the most colorful in all of college football.

Let's start with the games themselves. Since 1997, winning and losing has been a back-and-forth affair, with each university winning at home and losing on the road. But has it always been this way? After all, the attitude has been "must win" for coaches, players and fans from both schools since the two first slugged it out in 1894. The answer is no; indeed, the last five years in the series has been the exception rather than the rule.

OSU won the inaugural match over a century ago, 16-0. The victory only served to make the boys from Eugene fighting mad, as it would not be until three years later, or 1897, that the Beavers, known then as the OAC Agrics, would win another.

This earliest period in the series, referred to at the time as the "State Championship" game, delivered a few oddities of its own. Not only were two of the first three games played in Eugene but the two schools faced each other twice in 1896 (also in 1945), with Oregon State losing both matches. The rematch that year was the first time Oregon State had hosted the championship in Corvallis, but the home field advantage mattered not. The final score was 12-8 in favor of the Lemon Yellow.

From 1898 to the present, the series has been anything but equitable and shatters the assumption of a back-and-forth affair. What is more the truth is that the games have been characterized by long periods in which one team has "owned" the other.

Until 1923, for example, in a period stretching 23 years, Oregon State managed to win but six games, while losing 11. Of the 10 ties the two programs have racked up in the long series (the most of any OSU opponent, in or out of conference), six of them occurred during this era, making the years 1898-1923 the most competitive of any in the history of Oregon's Civil War.

Coach Paul Schissler's squads of the mid-1920s gave Oregon State a bit of a respite, but in 1928, things, at least for Oregon, returned to what the Ducks were accustomed to. It would not be until 1936 that the Beavers would finally enjoy a long run of success of their own, with but eight losses to the Ducks (against two ties) in a 38-year period stretching all the way to 1974. So one-sided was the series, it would have been a hard sell to get Beaver fans back then to throw out the record books when playing the Ducks.

But nothing lasts forever. By 1975, the coin began to flip with a 14-7 Beaver loss to the UO in Eugene. Oregon State would not record another win over its archrival until Dave Kragthorpe's squad accomplished the feat, 21-10, in 1988.

Other Oddities:

Ties: The last 0-0 tie in NCAA history was recorded at the 1983 Civil War game before 33,176 fans at UO's Autzen Stadium. Because both teams entered the contest with losing records and going nowhere, OSU at 2-8 and the Ducks 4-6, the game is sometimes referred to as the "Toilet Bowl."

Photo from the infamous "Toilet Bowl". Picture from the '84 Beaver.

However, no tie for the Beavers was more disappointing than that which happened to end the 1957 season. OSU beat the Ducks that year 10-7 to finish atop the Pacific Coast Conference with a 6-2 record and 8-2 overall. But because the Ducks had also finished the conference with an identical 6-2 record (7-3 overall) and because the PCC had a "no repeat" clause for appearances in the Rose Bowl (OSU had gone to start the year), it was the Ducks and not Prothro's Orange and Black who made the trip to Pasadena to face Ohio State.

Photo of Rich Brooks from when he played football for OSU. Photo from the '63 Beaver.

Ducks and Beavers: Although the name is rarely used, the football field at the UO's Autzen Stadium is named for popular UO coach Rich Brooks, who played football for OSU from 1960-62 and later served as an assistant for Oregon State Head Coach Dee Andros. Brooks is tops among Duck coaches for Civil War victories. Also, current OSU Sports Information Director Hal Cowan worked for the Ducks from 1967-1973, during which time the Lemon Yellow won but one game against OSU. Joining Oregon State as SID in 1976, the Beavers would not win another Civil War game until 1988. Current "Voice of the Beavers" Mike Parker is a UO graduate and recently retired Autzen Stadium and Mac Court public address announcer Don Essig is a Beaver alumnus and former member of the OSU Alumni Association Board of Directors.

Career Performances: Of the 67 categories in OSU's Football Media Guide in which opponents are listed alongside individual or team records, only a few top marks have been recorded against the Ducks: Jay Locey's 94-yard interception return in 1975 and Ken Simonton's four TDs in the immortal 1998 two OT game remain two of a number of favorites remembered by longtime Beaver Believers. Both lend credence to the possibility that many OSU players put something extra into the Civil War game in hopes of turning in a career performance as, for example, Billy Main's 93-yard kickoff return against the Ducks in 1968, Howard Maple's 75-yard punt return in the '27 game, or Mike Fessler's 70-yard punt in the '98 game.

Riots and Neutral Sites: A riot at the 1910 game left fans from both schools so mad the 1911 game was canceled. Only after agreeing to meet on a neutral site was the rivalry resumed in 1912, but at a stadium located in Albany. The series remained there until 1915. Portland's Multnomah Stadium (now PGE Park) has hosted seven neutral site Civil War games. OSU is 4-4-1 when playing the Ducks outside Eugene or Corvallis.

Trick Plays: Lon Stiner's 1933 squad devised a special "pyramid play" that season to block field goals and extra point attempts.

Photo of the "Pyramid Play" from the '38 Orange & Black.

The clever maneuver featured 6-5 Clyde Devine being hoisted skyward by teammates to just the right height to tip the ball and change its direction. First tried against Washington State without fanfare, it was later used against the UO at Multnomah Stadium and captured on film by Portland newspaper photographer Ralph Vincent. The photo attracted worldwide attention and continues to be the most talked about and publicized photograph in OSU sports history. OSU's "trick play" was subsequently outlawed by a college football rules committee in a decision that remains in force to this day.

Pranks: Until about 20 years ago, pranks remained a mainstay of the series, with each school trying to outdo the other in nasty deeds. However, the prank of all pranks took place just before OSU's Homecoming game with Washington State in 1957. Posing as journalists from the Seattle Post Intelligencer, four UO athletes "kidnapped" Oregon State's Homecoming court members and took them to Salem, where the home of one of the "nappers" was used to entertain the three coeds (the parents of the student had dinner waiting) for over 12 hours. The story made national news, and a good time was had by all.