Some duck fans have seen it all

Are you serious?

Never missed a Duck game at Autzen? Ever? In 43 years?

“I don’t think we have,” says Tim Wenzl, a die-hard UO football fan who, for the past 30 years, has run the game clock for the Ducks from the press box. “I can’t think of a game we’ve missed.”

Suddenly, though, his wife, Judy, remembers that she was in the south of France with “girlfriends” when the Ducks beat USC on Oct. 27, 2007.

“But I almost didn’t make the trip because I saw what game I was going to miss,” she says.

Today’s UO game against Portland State marks the 250th game at Autzen Stadium since the facility opened on Sept. 23, 1967, when the Ducks took on Colorado in front of a crowd of 27,500.

“What I remember is there weren’t very many people there,” recalls Don Essig, the Ducks public address announcer since 1968, of that Colorado game, a 17-13 win for the Buffaloes in a game regionally televised on ABC. Not very many people by today’s standards, anyway. Autzen had a capacity of 41,000 back then, but the 27,500 crowd was still the most to ever see a football game in Eugene at the time.

After a 2002 remodel, Autzen now seats about 54,000, but with standing-room-only tickets, more than 59,000 have been known to fill the place. Today’s game will be the 70th straight sellout at Autzen, dating to 1999, as rabid Duck fans have quietly begun whispering about national title game possibilities after a 2-0 start to the 2010 season that has seen No. 5-ranked Oregon outscore its first two opponents by a combined tally of 120-13.

More than 9.7 million fans, albeit some of them the same folks game after game, have come through Autzen’s gates for Duck football games the past 43 years. That means all-time attendance for UO games at the stadium will likely surpass the 10 million mark for this season’s final home game against Arizona on Nov. 26.

Tim Wenzl, 69, a retired general manager at Square-Deal Lumber Co. in Springfield, is predicting a perfect 12-0 season.

Not only has he seen every game at Autzen, Wenzl remembers watching Hall of Fame quarterback Norm Van Brocklin lead the Ducks at Hayward Field in 1948 when Wenzl was 8 years old.

He took Judy to her first Duck game at Hayward Field in 1962, the year they were married. Judy remembers returning to Eugene from her honeymoon and Tim and several of his six brothers said they were heading to a game.

“I just said, ‘I’m going to a football game,’ ” she recalls. “And I’ve never regretted it. It’s been a fun ride.”

While Tim Wenzl works the game clock, Judy sits with her son, David, 45, and her two grandsons, Tim Comstock, 16, and Aidan Comstock, 10, her daughter Michele Comstock’s sons, in Section 34 in Autzen’s southeast corner.

Tim and Judy had four season tickets in Section 12 on the stadium’s north side for that first season at Autzen in 1967. And they’ve been season ticket holders ever since.

Tim Wenzl is among 133 individuals or businesses listed in the UO Ticket Office database as being season ticket holders for UO football since that inaugural season at Autzen, UO sports information director Dave Williford said.

As the Wenzls and their son watched the UO football team come out of the tunnel Friday after its day-before-game walk-through, fellow fan Gary Bertlesen was nearby, setting Ben & Jerry’s smoothies on a table for players and coaches to enjoy. It’s a Friday ritual for Bertlesen, 41, who operates the Ben & Jerry’s franchise in Eugene. He’s had a deal with the program for about five years now, he said. Bertlesen wasn’t born yet when the Ducks christened Autzen in 1967 but his father, Roger Bertlesen, was there for that Colorado game. And he, too, believes he’s never missed a game at Autzen.

“When my daughter got married, it had to be on a Saturday when there wasn’t a Duck game,” said Roger Bertlesen, 68. He usually helps his son hand smoothies to the players on Fridays before home games but came down with a virus this week.

Does that mean he’ll finally miss a Duck home game today?

“Oh, he won’t miss the game,” son Gary said. “No way.”