University Of Oregon’s 2015 ‘Civil War’ Game Achieves A Collegiate Football First With Gold Certification

It’s confirmed—the 2015 ‘Civil War’ football game hosted by the University of Oregon Athletic Department has earned Gold. With the achievement, it becomes the first collegiate football game ever to earn certification from the Council, and lends evidence to the case for the applicability of the version 4.2 RESPONSIBLE SPORT STANDARDS to a broad range of event types.

The NCAA Division I contest hosted biennially at Autzen Stadium in Eugene attracted a sellout crowd of more than 55,000 guests in the Oregon Ducks’ 52-42 win over the Oregon State University Beavers last November. The game has long been deemed the ‘Civil War’ by Oregonians because the rival schools are the two largest public Universities in the state of Oregon.As Council for Responsible Sport blog readers may know, events seeking certification must earn credit in each of the five categories set forth in the standards: planning and communications, procurement, access and equity, resource management and community legacy. The UO met the requirements for 49 of the 61 total best practices across those categories to earn the gold level designation.“This is an incredible honor for our Athletic Department and the campus community as a whole,” said Director of Athletics Rob Mullens. “Thanks to our Athletics staff and the tremendous work and organization by Natalie Colvin and her team of fellow students from the Lundquist College of Business, along with our partners Sanipac and Daimler, we were able to execute this important ‘first’ in college athletics.”The effort was collaborative—graduate students from the UO Lundquist College of Business helped document many of the initiatives that led to certification. The City of Eugene also provided support through its sustainable sports initiative, building upon years of partnership developing responsible sport resources with both UO Athletics and TrackTown USA for elite track and field events across the river at Historic Hayward Field, including the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials in 2012 (Gold), the IAAF World Junior Championships (2014-Gold), the NCAA Division I Outdoor Championships (2015-Silver), and the USATF Outdoor Championships (2015-Silver).