Oregon vs. Oregon State Rivalry is Civil but Quirky One CORVALLIS, Ore. - In the broadest, most stereotypical sense, one of the oldest rivalries in college football pits Ducks against Beavers, hippies against farmers, liberals against conservatives. It is defined by proximity and mediocrity, by civility and acrimony, by close games and foul weather and the last 0-0 tie in Division I. The Civil War, they call it. The series started in 1894, when Oregon State University, then known as the Oregon Agricultural College, defeated the University of Oregon, 16-0. It will continue Saturday when two top-20 teams meet here for far more than local bragging rights. For years, the programs seemed to lack a central ingredient to any rivalry: something to win. There was no Golden Egg (Mississippi and Mississippi State), no Keg of Nails (Louisville and Cincinnati) and no Apple Cup (Washington and Washington State). This brings us to a mystery, to the story of the Platypus Trophy, once missing, stolen and lost - "I've heard rumors," Oregon offensive lineman Nick Cody said - now found. "I haven't seen this since 2007," Warren Spady said as he surveyed his handiwork this week. Spady drew the platypus assignment in 1959, as an undergraduate at Oregon. He bought two blocks of wood and began to carve, using a stuffed platypus for inspiration. He worked day and night for a month, with four mallets and six chisels, until his forearms ached, until the beak resembled a Duck and the tail looked like that of a Beaver. While he sanded the trophy smooth, the game approached. He never did finish the feet. In the early 1960s, the trophy went missing for months, then years, then decades. In 1986, while on sabbatical at Oregon, Spady bumped into the platypus, his platypus, in a water polo trophy case on Oregon's campus. Then it disappeared again. In 2004, the sports columnist John Canzano wrote a column in The Oregonian about how the Civil War needed its own trophy. Spady called Canzano and told him there was one. An administrator at Oregon who read the column searched for and found the trophy in a storage closet. This week, the trophy rested in Oregon's student alumni association office, a piece of football's Civil War history, indicative of the odd nature of the rivalry itself. It served as a reminder that this was not your normal rivalry, with two teams consumed by hatred, although there is some of that. This is a rivalry bound with a certain degree of Oregonian friendliness, an annual encounter that for the longest time, in some quarters, put the "civil" in Civil War. Two factors contributed to that: the two biggest universities in the state were separated by some 40 miles, and for decades both won infrequently, if at all. Paul Swangard, managing director at the University of Oregon's Warsaw Sports Marketing Center, lived through much of that futility. He was born 200 yards from his current office. His sister went to Oregon State. "That game was the only thing to really look forward to in most seasons," he said. It was for the right to live in the state of Oregon. It was the way in which we defined the rest of the year. Such division is natural and frequent. Roughly halfway between the universities, the Nill family runs Guaranty Discount Chevrolet in Junction City. Each year, Herb Nill, an Oregon graduate, bets against his son, Shannon, who graduated from Oregon State. They do these bets in local commercials, which Shannon said increased business by 20 percent during rivalry weeks. Last year, Shannon lost, and a local barber shaved an Oregon "O" into the back of his hair. This year, the loser will receive a Gatorade bath, orange or green. "Around here, we probably have about 50-50 Ducks and Beavers," Shannon said. One Beaver is Steve Preece, who played at Oregon State in the 1960s and became a color commentator for Beavers football broadcasts. When Preece starred at Oregon State, he said, "it felt like we were fighting for our way of life." Then his daughter, Whitney, decided to attend his rival university. Each check he wrote to Oregon "killed me," Preece said. "I always say I'm the smart one in the family," his daughter countered.