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The outside of McKale Center could look something like this — just a vision — someday with Arizona honoring Lute Olson with a statue (AllSportsTucson.com graphic)
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Something is wrong with this picture, although it shows the abundance of money Oregon gets from its donors: The school unveiled an 8-foot, 1,000-pound bronze statue of its duck mascot this week. Arizona has yet to honor Hall of Fame coach Lute Olson with a similar monument outside of McKale Center.
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Oregon unveiled this week an 8-foot, 1,000-pound duck mascot statue outside of Matthew Knight Arena (University of Oregon photo)
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To be fair, Arizona has a statue of Wildcats close to McKale Center:
(Flickr Commons photo)
The popular bust of Button Salmon was moved from outside McKale Center to be adjacent to Arizona Stadium:
(University of Arizona photo)
Oregon has plenty of money to spend with donations from boosters, most notably Nike CEO Phil Knight, so the outlandish statue of the duck comes as no surprise. The Council for Aid to Education reported this week that Oregon was only behind Texas A&M last fiscal year in athletic department private donations.
The Ducks received $53.7 million from boosters last year while Texas A&M brought in $66.9 million. Information about Arizona’s donations was not available in published media reports.
FYI, tweeted this three days ago …
Oregon added 1,000-lb bronze statue of a duck outside Matthew Knight Arena. UA yet to put one of Lute outside McKale. Something wrong here.
— Javier Morales (@JavierJMorales) January 26, 2016
Somebody in Tucson has to step up to the plate to foot the bill to honor Olson with a statue. This plea is coming on the heels of the school finally honoring Larry Smith this year with an induction into the Arizona Sports Hall of Fame 16 years after his coaching career ended and eight years after he passed away from leukemia.
Oregon placed a duck outside of Matthew Knight Arena because it does not have a coach worthy of such an honor. The coach with the most wins in school history is Ernie Kent with 235 but the Ducks fired their alum after the 2009-10 season.
Here’s the Tale of the Tape between Olson and The Duck:
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* — Four at Arizona
Puddles having a statue outside of Oregon’s arena instead of Olson having the same honor at McKale?
Get the duck out of here.
ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon.
