EUGENE — I wanted to look this rivalry game in the eyes, so I rode the Autzen Stadium elevator from the press level on the fifth floor to the field level in the third quarter during Saturday’s Civil War.
A couple of University of Oregon students who work for the “content team” were on the ride down, too. They were carrying fancy cameras, wearing white sideline vests, and had media credentials dangling from their necks.
“You get paid for this?” I asked.
It’s the same question I asked my aunt Nicole when I was 11. She was a photographer at The San Francisco Examiner, and let me tag along for a 49ers-Raiders NFL preseason game at Candlestick Park. I was floored when my aunt informed me she got money to hang out at a football game.
That sealed it.
Here I am.
Blame her, folks.
Oregon beat Oregon State, 41-7, in a Civil War that was lively and interesting for one quarter, before it fell into an NIL-induced coma. Those two student photographers might have the best campus job ever, aiming cameras and shooting video and photos of a UO offense that piled up 585 yards and scored five TDs.