The Civil War game, as you can imagine, has been marked over the decades by a variety of nasty deeds perpetrated by either one school or the other, with destruction of the giant "O" atop Eugene's Skinner's Butte in Eugene or torching Homecoming bonfires early in Corvallis representing the extremes in both towns.

Three pranks, however, in 1937, 1953 and 1957 stand out as the most fun to recall on this week of the big game between the Ducks and Beavers.

Two days after the 1937 game, won by OSU in Eugene 14-0, someone in Corvallis got the bright idea of gathering up a bunch of Beaver fans and doing a car caravan to downtown Eugene to "rub it in."

The Duck fans got advanced word of the deluge headed their way (reported by the press the next day as numbering over 200 cars), and had a brass band waiting for the group to blast them with the UO fight song. Then someone from the Stater contingent began pelting Duck fans with ears of corn and fists starting flying. A riot broke out involving some 500 fans from both schools, and it spread across campus to downtown Eugene and directly through the front doors of Seymour's restaurant, a favorite Green and Yellow hangout.

Immediately, all UO fans were identified and thrown out. Pots and pans from the restaurant's kitchen were used to beat back Duck supporters trying to enter through a back entrance. Known today as the "Siege of Seymour's," the police arrived and a trust was forged between the warring parties, but not before the tussle had reached a local millrace where both Beavers and Ducks were unceremoniously sent for a mud bath.

In 1953, a carload of Oregon students came to Corvallis in the dead of night and before they were finished, a large "O" had been burned on the lawn of the Memorial Union and another started in front of OSU's historic Benton Hall.

The word "started" is used here because the students from Eugene never got to light a flame to their giant letter. They were caught red-handed by a rapidly growing crowd of Oregon State students, and what happened next is for the ages. The UO kids were stripped to the waist and painted Orange and Black. So too was the car they had used to drive to Corvallis. It was moved to the MU quad and, how do we say this delicately, it was "taken care of." All four tires were flattened, and top-to-bottom, the vehicle was given a new paint job. You guess the colors.

Maybe the most ingenious stunt of all took place in 1957 when four Oregon student athletes, all members of Theta Xi fraternity, decided one night (when they were all bored out of their minds) that wouldn't it be clever if they could show up at Oregon State's Homecoming game with Washington State and actually kidnap their Homecoming court.

Which is exactly what they did. Posing as reporters from the Seattle Post Intelligencer, allegedly sent to Corvallis on assignment to do a story on OSC's game with a Washington school, the three ladies of the court accompanied the "reporters" for a short car ride to Avery Park south of town to shoot photos. Almost right away, the car began heading north toward Salem.

Above: A pair of "journalists" interviews the OSC Homecoming Court just before revealing their true identity as University of Oregon kidnappers. Left: The Homecoming Court is released from custody at the Benton County line. Photos originally appeared in the Corvallis Gazette-Times.