Oregon Duck Mascot Loses Head After Getting Clobbered By Player Who Wasn’t Paying Attention

Oregon went into West Lafayette and put a beatdown on Purdue. Although it was a successful night for the Ducks, The Duck was on the wrong end of an unfortunate incident prior to the college football game.

He lost his head during the team runout.

The Duck first came to exist in the late 1890s. The University of Oregon did not have a mascot at the time. A local sportswriter referred to the team as the ‘Webfoot boys’ in a preview of its game against Pacific University. One thing led to another and the name totally stuck.

However, newspaper editors often needed to shorten their headlines so they began to use a much shorter word in place of the ‘Webfoot boys.’ That word was ‘Duck.’ The Oregon Duck was born.

There were a lot of attempts to find a better mascot during the 1900s but the Duck prevailed. And by the 1940s, Oregon received permission from Walt Disney to use Donald Duck’s likeness as its mascot.

Fast forward to the 60s and the Duck received the nickname ‘Puddles.’ Oregon made it abundantly clear in 2014 that its mascot does not have a name. He is just, ‘The Duck.’

Call me Duck, call me Mr. Duck, call me the Oregon Duck, call me for dinner, for a game of ping pong, for a snack…call me often…just remember that I’m not Puddles.

— The Oregon Duck on Facebook in 2014

Whatever you want to call him, the Duck is one of the most recognizable mascots in the entire world. He is always up to something. You never know what kind of shenanigans he is going to get himself into but it never fails to provide tremendous entertainment.