Posted: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 12:00 am
Football season gets under way for Oregon State University on Thursday, when the Beavers play Stanford in Palo Alto, Calif.
To help you kill the time during the billion commercial breaks in the game, here are a bunch of fun football facts to share with your friends:
• At a team banquet, the 1920 University of Texas Longhorns ate their school mascot, Bevo.
• Bevo was named after being branded 13-0 n the score of a Texas loss to Texas A&M n during an Aggie prank. Texas fans rebranded the mascot, covering up the score with the name of a popular near beer.
• Notre Dame haters should also despise the Green Bay Packers. Founder Curly Lambeau used his alma mater's colors for the pro team's uniforms. The Packers originally wore navy blue and gold.
• Beaver fans love Notre Dame. In the schools' two bowl game match-ups, OSU has outscored the Fighting Irish 79-30.
• The most lopsided game of all time? Perhaps in 1916, when Georgia Tech beat Cumberland University 222-0.
• OSU's first mascot, in 1892, was a live coyote named "Jimmie." Sources say he's currently in a federal witness protection program with Bernice Beaver.
• OSU won the only Rose Bowl not played in Pasadena, defeating Duke in 1942. The game was moved to North Carolina because of World War II.
• The first Civil War, the annual game between OSU and the University of Oregon, was played in 1894 and ended with a 16-0 win for "the Hayseeds" n the unofficial nickname of the Corvallis college squad.
• From 1912 to 1915, the Civil War was held in Albany. A riot at the game in 1910 led to its cancellation in 1911, and then its move to a neutral site.
• The OSU fight song, introduced in 1919, was written by a Duck. When played backward at a high rpm, a careful listener may hear Satanic quacks.
• The Madden NFL 08 videogame, released last August, sold more than 2 million units its first week.
Quote file
"Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein." n Joe Theismann, ESPN announcer
"He couldn't spell cat if you spotted him the C and the T." n former Dallas Cowboys linebacker Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson, on the intelligence of rival quarterback Terry Bradshaw
"Football incorporates the two worst elements of American society: violence punctuated by committee meetings." n George Will, newspaper columnist
"If my mother put on a helmet and shoulder pads and a uniform that wasn't the same as the one I was wearing, I'd run over her," n Bo Jackson, former running back
Source: Information from the OSU Alumni Association and various online sources.
- Compiled by Kyle Odegard, who is a Minnesota Vikings fan