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View Full Version : Nike's Phil Knight donates $100 million to Oregon


DuckDuckGriz
August 21st, 2007, 05:28 PM
Looks like UO is working more and more towards that new basketball arena on the east side of campus. I personally do not want a new one built, Mac Court is 80 years old and still going strong, the best game environment on the west coast and arguably one of the best in all of college basketball. xsmhx

Also it would be nice some money for....ya know......academics and such. xreadx

http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/sports/1187668514113150.xml&coll=7
AggieFinn
August 21st, 2007, 06:47 PM
...Also it would be nice some money for....ya know......academics and such.


Amen, get a school of engineering. Or at least a department, say ag engineering, it's always a good start ;)
DuckDuckGriz
August 21st, 2007, 07:51 PM
Amen, get a school of engineering. Or at least a department, say ag engineering, it's always a good start ;)

OSU has that covered. We just added baseball now imagine how they'd react if we added engineering too. xlolx

In reality though, Knight has donated alot to UO's law school and general academic fund. It pales in comparison to what athletic gets but such is the case at any school trying to keep up with the USCs Ohio States and Texases of the world.
Mountain Panther
August 21st, 2007, 10:23 PM
Looks like UO is working more and more towards that new basketball arena on the east side of campus. I personally do not want a new one built, Mac Court is 80 years old and still going strong, the best game environment on the west coast and arguably one of the best in all of college basketball. xsmhx

Also it would be nice some money for....ya know......academics and such. xreadx

http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/sports/1187668514113150.xml&coll=7

Wasn't in true that a few years back Knight was going to donate A LOT of money to expand the football stadium, only to back out when the president of U of O publicly made a statement about how Nike needs to stop using child labor in Asia?
DuckDuckGriz
August 22nd, 2007, 01:56 AM
Wasn't in true that a few years back Knight was going to donate A LOT of money to expand the football stadium, only to back out when the president of U of O publicly made a statement about how Nike needs to stop using child labor in Asia?

It wasn't the president but pressure from former AD of UO (and Montana for that matter) Bill Moos.

In comes Kilkenny and the boosters to buy out the rest of Moos' contract in order to keep firm ties with Knight.

Thus securing the Nike-UO love bond.
Mountain Panther
August 22nd, 2007, 09:09 AM
It wasn't the president but pressure from former AD of UO (and Montana for that matter) Bill Moos.

In comes Kilkenny and the boosters to buy out the rest of Moos' contract in order to keep firm ties with Knight.

Thus securing the Nike-UO love bond.

I did drive by Hayward Field last month....stopped long enough to see the statue of Bowerman. Construction was under way for the Olympic trials.
Mort
August 22nd, 2007, 10:52 AM
It wasn't the president but pressure from former AD of UO (and Montana for that matter) Bill Moos.

In comes Kilkenny and the boosters to buy out the rest of Moos' contract in order to keep firm ties with Knight.

Thus securing the Nike-UO love bond.

If I remember correctly it wasn't the UO president who made the comment about labor conditions in China but some UO sponsored study group or some such thing that came out and denounced Nike for utilizing such labor.

But the big thing was UO running Moos off. Knight wanted him gone and so he was bought out and sent packing. Then Knight got UO to hire one of his cronies who had absolutely ZERO academic or athletic administrative experience to become the figurehead AD.

This $100 million gift completely cements the fact that Phil Knight runs UO, not just its athletic department. It isn't the University of Oregon Ducks. its the University of Nike Knights.

I wonder how much longer it will be before Knight goes to the state of Oregon and makes an offer to buy UO so he can make UO a private university and actually make it the University of Nike. I seriously wouldn't be surprised if he does that at some point. If he does, I also wouldn't be surprised if the state accepts since they need the money. The state could then focus their efforts on further developing Portland State University and make it the second "major" university in the state. The city of Portland would love for that to happen, too.
DuckDuckGriz
August 22nd, 2007, 11:37 AM
I did drive by Hayward Field last month....stopped long enough to see the statue of Bowerman. Construction was under way for the Olympic trials.

Mountain you should have stopped by for a beer my house is about 3 blocks east of Hayward. Construction is still going strong for Eugene 08 and man what a pain in the ass. You gotta love Hayward though, the Wrigley Field of track in America - one thing that we have left to old tradition, ironically, where Nike started.