For those of you not familiar with the issue, the ceremony was originally moved up before finals week to accommodate the NCAA Track and Field Championships (red the original Emerald article about it here). Then, it was moved back (read about that here). Here’s some history on the issue:

Here’s an e-mail Provost Jim Bean sent out over the Human Relations mailing list. I can’t glean a clear reason for the change from it. I’ll post a larger story later when I know more.

Colleagues:
We have just completed a wonderful Summer Commencement.  This is noteworthy as it was President Lariviere’s first commencement at Oregon, and each graduate was able to march and shake the President’s hand.  It is now time to turn our attention to the Spring 2010 Commencement.  As we announced, we  have moved the Commencement back to the days following final exams.  This will be a very exciting weekend on campus hosting both Commencement and the NCAA Track and Field Finals.  For the past year a committee has been studying a renovation of the Commencement exercises to make them even more celebratory for our students and their families.  We also have the advantage that new venues, such as the lawn behind the Knight Library, are back on line.

The Commencement team including (Commencement Director) Amber Garrison, (Vice Provost) Karen Sprague, (Vice President for Student Affairs) Robin Holmes and others have been working closely with the Faculty Advisory Committee, Track and Field, and Lane County Travel to design the weekend.  I am very excited about the resulting pageant. To summarize, a few of the 38 Commencement exercises will take place prior to the main event, as is currently the case.  The primary festivities will begin Sunday afternoon, June 13.  Families can arrive in Eugene at a leisurely pace that day and attend celebrations on Campus, a cookout, or just hold family events in town.  Monday the 14th will begin with a redesigned, primary ceremony that we hope to develop into a “must-see.”  The unit ceremonies will then take place over two time blocks in early afternoon and late afternoon.  Other activities on campus will add to the celebration for those not immediately engaged in a graduation ceremony.
I would like to thank the Commencement committees, the FAC and the Track and Field staff for their great sense of innovation, collaboration and commitment to our students and their families in developing this plan.  I can’t wait to see it.  We will release more details as the year progresses.
Regards, Jim

More will soon follow.

He is now set to run at the World Championships in Berlin in August for the United States.

McCrea tore her anterior cruciate ligament, medial collateral ligament and meniscus during the NCAA West Regionals, when she went down after attempting her second throw. Able to continue walking, McCrea continued the competition but did not throw further than her first attempt. She finished eighth in the regional but was an at-large qualifier for nationals.

McCrea threw a personal-best of 172 feet, 2 inches during the Oregon Preview, the 12th-best throw in the nation this year.

Cyrus Hostetler continues to rack up individual titles, though the distance isn’t ideal for the gravity of the meet. Hostetler’s fifth throw traveled 239 feet, 8 inches, besting Boise State’s Pontus Thomee by five inches. USC thrower Corey White, whose duel with Hostetler at the Pac-10 Championships was one of the early meet highlights, finished third with a throw of 237-7.

Alex Wolff finished fourth after throwing 233-5 on his fifth attempt. Oregon’s Britton Nelson threw 200-3 to finish outside the top 10.

Oregon jumper Vernell Warren hit a personal-best mark in the long jump on his fifth attempt, jumping 25 feet even to finish in third place, his spot at nationals secure. Vernell came into the regional ranked ninth in the long jump but got some help from the wind, blowing at 3.7 meters per second (non-legal).

Also, Oregon hurdler David Klech is nowhere to be seen for his 400m hurdles preliminary race. Klech finished a disappointing fourth in his heat at the Pac-10 Championships, and these may be linked.

Melissa Gergel wanted to prove that her Pac-10 Championship clearance of 14 feet, 2 inches was “no fluke”, and she did just that today, winning the pole vault competition with a clearance of 14-1 1/2.

Having talked with people around the team in the last three days, I believe I know the answer, but frankly, no one can comment on the matter because Lananna asked all team members to not talk to the media about it at a team meeting Monday. So that’s where we stand right now. 

If you don’t know the backstory to this latest post, I wrote on Sunday that Acosta confirmed he was suspended indefinitely for a role he played in an alcohol incident involving freshman Luke Puskedra (who could score major points at the West Regional and NCAA meets in the Duck men’s title run) although Acosta was not present when Puskedra fell and needed stitches on his head, which I learned this week from several sources who wished to remain anonymous because of Lananna’s mandate to stay silent on the matter. 

So we have Acosta who said he was on Sunday, and Lananna who says he is no longer. Who would like to clear up the gray area in between, on the record?

Check that: 90 points. The Oregon men finish seventh in the official results, after it was ruled that the Arizona relay team passed the baton outside of the appropriate zone between the second and third legs. Seventh place it is for the men.

MEN’S 1,500m FINAL: The second major men’s final of the day may well be the most exciting of the meet. Oregon’s Matthew Centrowitz, Galen Rupp and Andrew Wheating made huge pushes in the final 200m for a 1-2-3 finish in the event. Centrowitz finished in 3:51.00, Rupp in 3:51.18, and Wheating in 3:51.27. Wheating’s legendary kick and Rupp’s recent speed work were on full display.

Jordan McNamara finished in ninth place, just out of scoring range.

Your updated team scores: Oregon 114, UCLA 55, Stanford 49, Arizona 43, Washington 40.

MEN’S 110m HURDLES FINAL: Oregon freshman Eric Hersey just beats out a Stanford runner to eke out a fifth-place finish and four more points for the Oregon men. Hersey has a habit of clipping the top of every hurdle, but he shows a lot of room for improvement.

Updated team scores: Oregon 118, Stanford 70, UCLA 56, Arizona 48, Arizona State 48, Washington 40.

MEN’s 400m FINAL: Boase knows speed: Washington’s Jordan Boase convincingly won the 400m final in 45.64. But Oregon keeps charging; Ashton Eaton finished third in 46.34 (seventh-best in school history) and Chad Barlow finished sixth in 46.87 for nine team points.

Updated team scores: Oregon 127, Stanford 71, UCLA 56, Washington 50, Arizona State 48, Arizona 48.

MEN’S 100m FINAL: There are no Oregon runners in this race, but there was an unusual circumstance: the two eighth-place runners had an unbreakable tie in their preliminary times, so two heats were run. The first heat consisted of the two runners, and the final heat consisted of the remaining seven runners.

Even more unusual, both runners — Allante Battle of Arizona State (10.49 seconds) and Joseph Turner of Washington (10.62) — ended up scoring six points and one point, respectively. USC’s Ahmad “Don’t call me Bobby Moore” Rashad won the race in 10.13.

Updated scores: Oregon 127, Stanford 71, UCLA 60, Arizona State 59, USC 57, Washington 51.

MEN’S 800m FINAL: Even an Olympian can use a little luck.

Andrew Wheating found himself in a photo finish with USC’s Irek Sekretarski, coming out just ahead by a torso in 1:49.83. Sekretarski finished in 1:49.85.

The race had shades of last year’s NCAA 800m final for Wheating, who lost by .01 seconds to Jacob Hernandez of Texas in that race.

Check back with this thread for continuous updates.

Unlike yesterday, when Purvis hobbled off the track holding one of her shoes after the 100m and the relay almost didn’t qualify after nearly botched handoffs on two legs, the transitions were flawless from our angle today. With 60 meters to go Youngblood was even leading the race from the inside in lane one, before ASU and USC held her off. 

UCLA was fourth in 44.82. Stanford, Oregon’s competition for the day, was fifth. Oregon women 73, Stanford 62 through eight events.

Women’s 1,500m: Alex Kosinski was third and Nicole Blood fourth to get 11 points in a spirited run down the final 100 meters to Stanford’s 13 points overall in the race. In a slow pace of 4:26.62 (won by Follett of Washington) the pack never separated until the final 150 meters. Follett was in a race for her life for the win with Stanford’s Alicia Follmar, but out of the middle of the pack emerged the two Ducks, whose 11 points were more than expected. Kosinski’s time was 4:27.87, Blood followed in 4:27.87. Oregon 84, Stanford 75 through nine events.

Women’s 100m: Amber Purvis of Oregon did not look good yesterday when she came off the track with her left shoe off, and now we know why. The broke a toe on her left foot, and had others still sore after she said a UO football player stepped on them. She finished a disappointing eighth in the 100 after breaking the school records in the 100 and 200 earlier this spring, and didn’t even contest the 200. 

Women’s 5,000m: Nicole Blood stuck…and stuck…and stuck behind Laurynne Chetelat for of the race until the final 150 meters, racing past the Cardinal runner in a symbolic end to the meet…until Lauren Centrowitz came out of nowhere to eclipse the Oregon junior and defending champion in 16:15.86,to Blood’s 16:16.58.

The women have won, we heard at about 3:50 p.m. today. They had 151.5 points to Stanford’s 130 after the 5,000m. All that’s left is to tabulate the results from the women’s discus and the 4×400m relay, but neither will get Stanford close enough, it appears.

JAVELIN: Alex Wolff, Cyrus Hostetler and Britton Nelson somehow were all placed in the same heat for the men’s javelin finals. Wolff fouls on his first throw. USC’s Corey White uncorks his first throw 248 feet, 5 inches; he competed in the 2008 U.S. Track and Field Trials in Beijing, so he will certainly push Hostetler, whose throw of 272-5 from the Pepsi Team Invitational is second-best in the world. Hostetler throws 233-7, a pedestrian first attempt.

Wolff outdoes Hostetler’s first throw with his second attempt, recording a distance of 235-5, a new personal best by just over a foot. Hostetler fails to improve on his second throw; Wolff fails to improve on his third throw. White exhibits an interesting tendency to get a lot of air underneath his javelin, but he does not improve on his initial throw. Hostetler falls forward after his third attempt and fouls; could he be trying a little too hard?

Hostetler’s fourth throw in this finals is an unimpressive 213-5. Wolff follows with a throw of 215-3. Nelson steps on the line and fouls.

The last time Hostetler hit the runway after releasing a throw, he fouled. This time, he unleashes a throw of 236-1, second-best in the competition thus far. It’s debatable as to whether or not anyone will top Corey White’s first throw. Wolff again fails to improve; White’s fifth throw doesn’t come close.

The crowd is loud for Hostetler’s sixth and final throw, and it’s a beauty. The video board catches him smiling; no doubt that he got everything to go right for him with this one. He seizes the lead from Corey White with a distance of 250-5; the crowd erupts. Wolff receives a similar ovation on the runway, but he fouls to the right and will likely finish in third place. White uncorks another high, beautiful throw on his final attempt, but it just isn’t enough to top Hostetler at 243-1. Hostetler is your second Pac-10 champion thus far for the men of Oregon.

Oregon receives 17 points from the event: 10 from Hostetler (1st), 6 from Wolff (3rd) and 1 from Britton Nelson (8th).

POLE VAULT:

MEN’S 1,500m: In the first heat of the men’s 1,500m, Oregon’s Jordan McNamara and Andrew Wheating face a talented field that includes Stanford’s Garrett Heath; indeed, all three Stanford runners (like with the women in the 1,500m trials) push to the front of the pack, holding each other’s pace. Wheating makes his signature kick while McNamara is caught in the pack; Wheating finishes second to Heath (3:43.00) in 3:43.06; McNamara finishes fifth in 3:43.36.

The second heat is loaded, with Oregon’s Matt Centrowitz, J.K. Withers and Galen Rupp against Washington’s Austin Abbott, UCLA’s Marlon Patterson and Stanford’s Elliott Heath, Garrett’s brother. Rupp, who was in seventh place after 200m, bolts to the front of the pack with Centrowitz, heading 1-2 into the finish line. Rupp wins in 3:46.05; Centrowitz runs 3:46.26, and J.K. Withers finishes sixth in 3:47.75.

The men’s final takes place tomorrow at 1:25 p.m.

HAMMER THROW: Every point matters in the Pac-10 Championships, and Oregon just got three of them courtesy of Jordan Stray, whose third hammer throw of 200 feet, 11 inches was good enough for sixth place. Stray had fouled on his first two attempts and was in danger of failing to qualify for the final before making his sixth-place throw. He ended up fouling on four of six attempts.

MEN’S 110m HURDLES: Oregon’s Eric Hersey finishes third in the second heat with a time of 14.31, just .03 seconds off his regional qualifying mark set at the Oregon Twilight. He does become the last qualifier for the event final (1:45 p.m. tomorrow), so he could become a nice surprise for the Ducks, who might not have considered that extra point.

MEN’S 400m: Both Ashton Eaton and Chad Barlow qualified for the final in the event, to be held at 2:02 p.m. tomorrow.

MEN’S 800m: Travis Thompson of Oregon, entered into the second heat, stayed with the leaders early in the race. Finding himself squeezed into a pack, Thompson darted out of it, but not before Cal’s Sebastian Sam passed him on the outside for second place. USC’s Blake Shaw won the race in 1:50.80; Sam finished in 1:50.91, and Thompson claimed third in 1:51.43.

Oregon’s Andrew Wheating started his race in the back of the pack, starting his kick with 250 meters to go. He finished his kick after the Bowerman Curve, cruising into second place (1:51.32) behind Washington State’s Luke Lemenager (1:51.13).

MEN’S 3,000m STEEPLECHASE: Oregon’s Chris Winter, the prohibitive favorite entering the weekend, took a lead with 4 laps remaining and steadily widened it. He takes the Pac-10 championship and requisite 10 points in the event in 8:51.46. Winter is the first Oregon steeplechase champion since Micah Davis in 1999.

MEN’S LONG JUMP: Not only did Oregon junior Ashton Eaton pick up his 10 points for winning the decathlon, he stands an excellent shot at picking up another 10 for the Ducks in the long jump as the event favorite. Teammate Vernell Warren, however, is expected to make in-roads in this event.

Eaton’s first jump takes him 25 feet even for first place, and that’s without hitting the board. Warren flies 24 feet, 0.75 inches on his second attempt. In his second attempt, and with a thunderous ovation from the crowd, Eaton jumped 25 feet, 6 inches, a personal best and the 10th-best leap in school history. Warren slightly overshoots the board and fouls in his attempt following Eaton’s jump.

Though Eaton didn’t appear to like his third jump, he still leaped 25 feet, 6.75 inches, breaking his newest personal best.

Warren moved into fourth place on his fourth attempt, a jump of 24 feet, 9 inches, from fifth place.

Lest we forget that this is not just Ashton Eaton’s world, Arizona’s Luis Rivera-Morales makes a huge statement jump, leaping 26 feet even — fourth-best in the nation this year — and bumping Eaton to second place. Eaton, looking to answer, comes up with a non-improvement of 24 feet, 5.75 inches. Rivera-Morales then upped it to 26 feet, 3 inches, second-best among collegians this year.

Eaton, in his very next attempt, responds with a jump of 25 feet, 4.5 inches that wows the crowd but does not affect the standings.

Warren’s final attempt goes for 24 feet, 11 inches; it’s a personal best, but he needed an additional inch to challenge for third place.

Eaton gets one last attempt at Rivera-Morales, and he ends up running through it, giving Rivera-Morales the win.

MEN’S 400m HURDLES: Washington State hurdler and reigning NCAA champion Jeshua Anderson cruised to victory in his heat, winning in 50.73. Oregon’s Marshall Ackley placed third in the heat with a time of 52.28. Ackley is Oregon’s only runner qualified for the final in the event, however, as David Klech finished a very disappointing fourth in his heat in 52.80, looking strained in doing so.

MEN’S 10,000m: Oregon figures to score big in this race, with Galen Rupp, Luke Puskedra, Shadrack Biwott, Diego Mercado and Danny Mercado all threats to score.

Check back with this thread all weekend for continuous updates.

UPDATE 6:54 p.m.: OK, that’s it for the first-day action from Hayward. We’ll be here tomorrow starting at noon. 

Women’s 1,500m: Alex Kosinski of Oregon just won the first heat of the women’s 1,500 meters in 4:20.32. The fifth-place finisher, Oregon State’s Casey Masterson, a Sheldon High grad of Eugene, broke her school record with a 4:26 time despite nearly falling over with 50 meters left and had to catch herself. Not a pretty finish, but the time was great for her school’s standards. In the second heat Nicole Blood will advance to the final after placing in the top four in the second heat. Waiting to hear on Dana Buchanan’s final status. She was fifth in her heat, and will have to see if her time is one of the four best of the non-auto qualifiers.

Women’s long jump final: UO’s Kalindra McFadden fouled her first attempt. Then she fouled on her second attempt. She’ll have one more before finals. Conventional wisdom is to play it safe in a moment like this, but she doesn’t have the true long jumping distance to play it safe and still make it to finals. I didn’t catch her last jump, so I’m not sure if she’s going to get in. Flight two is set to begin in a few moments. The final will also be today. 

Second flight, first jump for UO’s Brianne Theisen, who won the Pac-10 heptathlon last weekend here. Her leap is 19-9.75, putting her in the lead for now. Stanford’s Aranxta King’s 20-8 jump is the first to break 20 feet today. She takes the lead on her first jump of the day. UO’s Jamesha Youngblood fouled on her second attempt, the second time she’s done that today. She’s in the same boat as McFadden now, looking to get a mark; however, she is good enough (21-plus feet) that she can play it ’safe’ and still make the final with room to spare. 

Jamesha ended up winning the women’s long jump with a school record of over 21 feet, and becomes Oregon’s first LJ champ since 1994, when Kelli Blair claimed that feat.  She fouled five of her six jumps. That one other? A school record, beating Julie Goodrich’s 1988 mark of 21-0.5.

“I think all my others that got scratched were probably better,” Youngblood said. “I moved back like a foot and a half just to get my jump.”

While she claimed the crowd’s support gave her too much juice and helped her foul on her first two jumps, her coach, Robert Johnson, said the wind’s gusts — her only jump had an illegal 3.5 mps wind behind her — and the crowd likely had something to do with it.

“She’s a little timid in that sense because hse’s always like, ‘No coach I don’t want the clap (Hayward’s fans rhythmic clapping) so I could see how that could scare her  but hopefully after a performance like this she’ll get comfortable,” Johnson said.

Her record jump was not a thing of beauty — she was surprised she even got the record — and she had to move back a foot-and-a-half just to get on the board. In total, she moved back even further during the competition.

“I started off at like 114 (feet from the board) and I just moved it back to like 123,” she said. “It was getting a little frustrating.” 

“I just thought it was a good jump to make it in to the final, I didn’t think It was the school record,” Youngblood said. “It was a surprise.”

Her technique during the jump didn’t give Johnson the impression it was that far, either.

 ”It looked like a 20-foot-4, 20-foot-5,” Johnson said. She has the potential, he said for a 22-foot jump. 

“Sky’s the limit,” he said. “I wouldn’t rule it out.” 

Women’s 100m hurdles: Lyndsay Pearson of Oregon finished in 14.00 seconds but won’t be making the final after her time was 12th overall. Kimyon Broom of Cal was first overall in 13.03, but the wind was a non-legal 3.3 meters per second. The final for that race is Sunday at 1:35 p.m.

Women’s 800m: Interesting that Oregon is running multi-event 8th place finisher Erin Funkhouser in the first heat of this race. She’s not an 800m runner, by far, but she held in the back of the six-runner pack for much of the first lap. Give her some credit, though, she finished in fourth after a runner dropped out, in 2:15.04. Second heat coming.

In the second, Krishna Curry won with 2:07.35, the best overall time of the day, and in the third heat Zoe Buckman of Oregon won in 2:08.75. Oregon will also have Alex Kosinski in the final after she finished seventh overall in 2:08.06.

Women’s shot put final: It wasn’t a surprise who won this one. Sarah Stevens took her third conference title in the shot put with a throw of 56-10 on her second attempt, beating the field by more than five feet. 

Oregon grabbed three points when Rita Santibanez finished sixth after her first throw of 45-5.25.

Women’s javelin final: Oregon senior Rachel Yurkovich, the three-time defending Pac-10 champ and the reigning NCAA champion, started off her prelim round with a throw of 180-3. Her second throw was a non-factor, but on her third, she uncorked a school, conference and meet record throw of 191-2, the furthest throw in the nation this year. That throw puts her in the top 23 in the world this year. We’ll get her reaction afterward, but you can imagine the relief off her back now that she got it.

She is the fifth woman athlete in Pac-10 history to win four titles in one event, and this is the second time it has happened in the javelin. 

Ashley McCrea of Oregon threw 164-0 on her sixth and final attempt to move her into third place. The Ducks expected her to be in that spot coming in according to the form charts. That’s a good development for the Oregon women. 

Both throwers called their best throws of the day “easy.”

“When you try too hard you get worse throws,” said McCrea, who downplayed the effect the headwind had on the competition.

Post-win Yurkovich, the senior from Newberg, Ore., had time to contemplate what it meant to be a four-time winner in the event. In the present, she was even happier that her team was finally in a race for a Pac-10 title after three years of being also-rans at the conference meet.

“It feels like there is a purpose,” Yurkovich said. “If you don’t do your job you may or may not be in the race anymore.”

The win was also about getting back to the simple things. She used her old, standby javelin on the throw, the one she said she’s thrown nearly all her personal bests with. Then she relaxed and made her best throw of her life look, and feel, “easy.”

“The official out there said, ‘That looked easy you should do that all the time and not make it look so hard,’” Yurkovich joked. 

The senior’s dominance at the conference level, as was shown earlier, is nearly unprecedented. From her entrance on the scene as a freshman she has ruled the javelin ranks. She goes out similarly on top.

“It means a lot also to go out with a bang,” she said. ” To know that I can still be on top.

“I still want more.”

Women’s steeplechase final: Oregon managed to grab three points with Claire Michel’s sixth-place finish in 10:27.29, but Marie Lawrence of Washington ran free of everybody in the 20-runner field, winning going away in 9:54.13, nearly 20 seconds faster than anybody else. She was so far ahead, in fact, that few realized she even won until she casually stepped off the track, catching even the meet announced by slight surprise.

Women’s 400m hurdles: This is the only event the Oregon women do not have a regional qualifier in. Then again, it’s not that surprising considering the best runner for the women in the event, senior Leah Worthen, is a converted 400m runner. She didn’t come to Oregon expecting to hurdle…in fact she hadn’t her entire life before her junior year. She finished fourth in her heat, and UPDATE gets into the final in eighth. She’ll score Oregon a surprise point tomorrow by virtue of just being in the race.

UPDATE again: Lyndsay Pearson’s time of 1:00.36 in the 400m hurdles is a regional qualifier, (she’s sixth overall in the event and makes the final) and gives the Ducks their first regional qualifier in the event. Oregon now has one in each event.

Women’s 200m dash: Charonda Williams of ASU had the fastest time of the day with a 23.21 in the second heat. Cherrelle Garrett of  Cal won the first heat in a time of 23.63, the second-fastest time of the day. Keshia Baker of Oregon is the only Duck in the final tomorrow with her fourth-fastest time of 23.53 seconds.

Women’s 10,000m: Mattie Bridgmon of Oregon takes fifth place in the race, but it was a runaway for Washington’s Anita Campbell  and Stanford’s team. 

Campbell won in 34:13.27, outdistancing second place by more than one minute. She had double-lapped several runners in the race by the end, creating an interesting wait to see who came in second and third.

Stanford runners took second, third, fourth and eighth in the race, getting 20 points even without scoring the race’s top runner. Kate Niehaus was second, Georgia Griffin third, and Stephanie Marcy fourth for the Cardinal.  That’s a big reason why the Cardinal went from being behind 54-38 to UO an event ago to now being behind 67-58. Amazing what depth will do for you. 

Women’s high jump: Inika McPherson of Cal won with a height of 5-11.25, beating Elizabeth Patterson of Arizona’s 5-10 mark. Jasmin Day of Arizona was third in 5-8.75 on misses, beating Oregon’s Jasmine Kelly, who also did 5-8.75.

The Ducks also beat Oregon Track Clube Elite…the event was, technically, a race after all.

The mile splits are as follows: Centrowitz, 3:59.53; Wheating, 3:59.60; Biwott, 4:05.21; Rupp, 3:58.93. Rupp and Centrowtiz had never eclipsed four minutes in a mile run during a sanctioned race.

More from the event in Monday’s Emerald.