By George Edmonston Jr.

Our story, this story, begins on Nov. 22, 1997.

It is a story of a band of brothers and sisters, formed into a unique family of believers through the shared experience of losing.

The day was cold and dreary, fitting, if only symbolically, for a football program that had endured almost three consecutive decades without a winning record. As it usually is in Oregon's Willamette Valley in late fall, there were rain and wind to go with the cold. It was a Saturday, the day of the Civil War game.

This one would be played in Eugene before a packed Autzen Stadium. Forget TV. Better teams playing in better games were elsewhere.

At 27-straight losing seasons and counting, no television network on this football weekend would have touched the Oregon State Beavers with a 10-foot pole. The year before, OSU had finished 2-9, the season before that 1-10. Now, under new coach Mike Riley, the program was better, but only by small notches, sporting an unimpressive 3-7 record overall and 0-7 in the Pacific-10 Conference.

This was a time when dismal was the norm for Beaver football. By kickoff, OSU had played 87 games in the 1990s, racking up 70 defeats. Only seven of OSU's 17 wins had been against Pac-10 schools, two of these, in 1991 and 1993, at the expense of the Ducks. Non-conference losses had come by way of such programs as Pacific, Montana, North Texas and UNLV.

Photo from the 1989 Beaver showing the empty spaces in the crowd at a football game in then Parker Stadium.

During the summer months, OSU had installed a 17-by-25 foot Jumbotron viewing screen in the southeast corner of what was then Parker Stadium, thus allowing the Beavs to join USC and Arizona State as the only three schools in the Pac-10 to have jumbo TVs for game replays and video promotionals.

The new equipment sparked someone from OSU's Memorial Union Program Council to grab a 10-foot pole. Why not use Parker's Jumbotron to broadcast the Civil War in the stadium with a closed circuit hookup? So it was written, so it was done.

All during the week, ads announcing the special showing blanketed the campus and the city of Corvallis. When the great moment arrived, fewer than 300 showed up to sit under the roof of the west stands to watch the game.

Call them crazy, call them football lunatics, call them what you will, but those supporters of the Orange and Black who left their radios and the warmth of their homes that day to watch OSU in a rain-soaked, empty stadium were hard core Beaver Believers, in a usage of the term some Oregon State fans of more recent times might not fully understand.

Truth is, now that OSU's winning, the meaning of "Beaver Believer" has changed. Indeed, it's not used that much any more, replaced in the last few years by the popular moniker "Beaver Nation," a name signifying anyone who shows up for an OSU sporting event wearing the school colors. And who can blame them for wanting to be a part of the new collective, enjoying as they do a football program the likes of which hasn't been seen around these parts in 40 years?

In the dark days of OSU football, the 28-straight losing seasons spanning the years 1971-1998, a "Beaver Believer" was a fan who would be there for the team no matter what, someone who wore the name proudly through thick or thin.

Beaver Believers of the dark days could be counted on for support, relying on little more than a built-in immunity to losing. That...and hope, for hope was what they had, hope was all they had, the same hope the 300 carried with them that day to watch the Beavers and Ducks knock heads on a giant television screen.

James Christopher Jones, photo from the 1991 Beaver.

Spiritually, they were not alone. This tiny group was the tip of a small iceberg, made up of the fans who also braved the November rain and wind that day to travel to Eugene to be at the game. Bets are on that many of these Believers were the same fans who, for example, had been a part of the 12,000 who watched OSU lose to Arizona 40-7 at Parker Stadium in 1981; the 15,751 who suffered through a 38-7 defeat at the hands of Stanford in 1987; and the 18,725 fans who watched USC destroy OSU's 1990 squad 56-7. Back then, Parker was a small stadium by Division I standards, and changing its name to Reser in 1999 didn't make it any larger. Twelve thousand fans in this stadium under any name would make the place look empty.

The origin of "Beaver Believer" isn't easy to pin down but Kip Carlson of OSU's Sports Information Department, himself a highly knowledgeable student of OSU sports history, has one possible answer.

As a young man of 12 growing up in Corvallis, he remembers the appearance of two bumper stickers in the late '60s that may provide a clue.

"There was one that said 'I've got Beaver Fever' and another that said 'I'm a Beaver Believer,' " Carlson said. "Around the same time, I also recall hearing certain OSU fans calling themselves 'Beaver Believers,' but I don't know for sure which came first, the sticker or the name."

According to former OSU Alumni Association board member Bob Allen, who was editor of Oregon State's Barometer student newspaper in 1969-70, the name probably appeared first.

"It seems to me 'Beaver Believer' came from a commercial effort by the Blitz-Weinhard Brewing Company sometime around the end of the 1960s," Bob explained. "The purpose as I recall was to form and maintain a loose organization of students and entertain them with beer keggers before football games at three locations around the city of Corvallis.

"Basically, these were student tailgaters," he added. "They were organized with officers and also given prime seating in the student section. 'Beaver Believer' became their rallying cry. I have no idea how many people belonged to the group. At some point the OSU Athletic Department adopted the name and began using it to pay tribute to fans who were loyal to the football program, even though OSU was beginning to fall on hard times. They also used it for bumper stickers, and the name became a rallying cry for some OSU fans to express the fact they still believed in the program. Over time, it became a badge of courage."

No matter how the name got its start, hope became the ingredient Beaver Believers used to bond together in a shared feeling of comradeship that made them a family. But hope always comes from somewhere and in the case of the Believers, it came in a set of victories during the losing years that showed OSU football might be down, way down, but still had a pulse.

In 1977, with six-straight losing seasons on the books, OSU under Head Coach Craig Fertig pulled off a big upset before a home crowd of 33,965 by defeating No. 13 BYU 24-19. It would be Fertig's second win of the year, and his last win for the season.

Photo of the BYU game from the OSU 1978 yearbook.

In 1978, Fertig had an even bigger upset, a stunning 15-13 triumph over No. 9 UCLA. The week before, OSU had defeated the Washington State Cougars by a score of 32-31; two in a row, the first time this had happened in seven long years. Over 28,000 Parker Stadium fans watched the UCLA match, and many still remember the Bruins as the highest-ranked opponent OSU would defeat during its record-setting 28-straight losing seasons. At the time, most Beaver Believers heralded the UCLA victory as a turning point in the program, a rounding of the proverbial football corner. However, the new attitude died a slow death over the next six seasons; the Beavers would win but seven games.

The 1981 campaign began in spectacular fashion, a 31-28 come-from-behind win over Fresno State after being down 28-0 deep into the third quarter. Making up such a point spread set an NCAA record, and Believer hopes were high as the Orangemen headed for Baton Rouge to play the always tough LSU Tigers. Until late in the final period, OSU was in the lead and seemingly headed for a major upset. But the boys from Louisiana found a way to win in the dying minutes of the fourth quarter, and a 42-12 loss to Minnesota the following week triggered what turned out to be the program's second 1-10 season in three years.

In 1985, another victory that gave hope, this one in Seattle against Washington, picked by Las Vegas oddsmakers at kickoff as 38-point favorites. By the final whistle, OSU had pulled off one of the great upsets in college football history, a 21-20 shocker thanks to a blocked punt converted for a TD with little time remaining on the clock. The win would have to do since the Beavers would finish the season losing their last four games.

In 1989, OSU beat UCLA and Cal in back-to-back weekends but, again, lost the last four games of the season to finish at 4-7-1. It was the beginning of the end for Head Coach Dave Kragthorpe, fired following the 1990 season after winning but a single game. But that one victory was huge, as OSU caught No. 21 Arizona napping in a 35-21 plastering of the Wildcats before a delirious but smallish Parker Stadium crowd of 21,653.

Enter Jerry Pettibone. His coaching tenure gave hope on three different occasions, including a 14-3 defeat of the Ducks on the road for the Beavers' only win of the 1991 season, and a 15-12 Civil War victory in Eugene to finish the 1993 schedule at 4-7.

1993 Civil War photo from the 1994-95 Beaver.

Pettibone's last big hurrah would come the next year with a 21-3 win over WSU before a home crowd of 26,438 Beaver Believers. The game would mark legendary OSU Head Coach Tommy Prothro's last visit to Parker Stadium to watch his former team.

Now at Civil War '97, the Ducks jumped off to a commanding 20-3 lead in the first quarter, a lead they would never relinquish. By game's end, however, Mike Riley’s chargers had put up a pretty good fight, rallying for 14 fourth quarter points to end the contest at a fairly respectable 48-30 final score, mostly on the strength of quarterback Tim Alexander's arm, who was 13-24 for 215 yards and two touchdowns. Jason Dandridge's legs also made a nice contribution. The fleet running back weaved in and out of a porous Duck defense to rush for 104 yards and another pair of TDs.

It was the most points OSU had pinned on the UO in 23 years. In Civil War games dating back to the very first one, played in Corvallis in 1894, Oregon State had put up 30 or more points on its archrivals only five times--1927, 1942, 1968, 1971 and 1974.

Hope springs eternal, saith the Beaver Believer, and the real thing finally began its long journey back to Corvallis in a game played in Seattle on Oct. 24, 1998, a game that serves as a fitting end to our story.

Jonathan Smith at the UW game, photo from the 1999 Beaver.

Down 35-27 late in the final period, Jonathan Smith led his team to a TD to close the gap at 35-34. A great moment of decision now faced the Beavers.

Boot the extra point for the tie and overtime? Or go for two and the "W"?

There was little hesitation from OSU's likable head man: go for the win. It was time to put an end to the losing, time to show people that Oregon State University was on the cusp of a new era, time to give Beaver Believers a big dose of hope for their hope.

The attempt failed.

But the attitude prevailed, and things haven't been the same since.

It was the beginning of the end of the Beaver Believer and the beginning of the beginning for Beaver Nation. In Dennis Erickson's inaugural year as head coach, 1999, the Beavers recorded their first winning season in 28 years.

Reser Stadium has been sold out over the last two seasons and scenes like above, courtesy Sports Information, are now the norm.

The push over the top came on Nov. 6 in a 17-7 home win over the Cal Bears for OSU's sixth win of the campaign. No stopping us now. Hope had become fact...for the 300 who had sat in a lonely, empty stadium that November day in 1997, and for thousands of other Beaver Believers who had refused to follow sunshine patriots to the exits.

They had stayed the course.

George Edmonston Jr. is editor of the Oregon Stater and Eclips.