The Register-Guard has this cool report about Phil Knight’s plan to bring Douglas fir, incense cedar, coast redwood, giant sequoia, western red cedar and Canadian hemlock trees to the north berm of Autzen Stadium. In all, 39 trees between 35 and 40 feet in length are on their way to Autzen Stadium where they’ll eventually be joined by hundreds of saplings.

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The new NCAA College World Series tournament projections from Perfect Game are out, and both Oregon and Oregon State are projected as regional hosts — national seeds, in fact, so if the Ducks and Beavers both take care of business they’d both host Super Regionals.

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Will Chip Kelly’s offense work in the NFL? Hard to say. But Eagles tight end Brent Celek certainly likes what he’s seeing so far. ”From a communication standpoint,” Celek told reporters after practice, “it’s going to change the game. Just the way they can communicate plays and get us into the stuff, that’s pretty cool. It’s something I never even thought was possible in the NFL.”

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Finally, here’s the entire crowd at the Boston Bruins game last night singing the national anthem. Boston Strong, indeed.

Historically, men’s pro sports have made Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell look downright progressive.

There haven’t been many openly gay athletes in any major American sports league. Players hurl around gay slurs to emasculate opponents or antagonize officials. In Europe, fans have directed homophobic chants at opposing players. Supporters of one Russian club even released a manifesto saying they’d prefer it if their team was all-white and entirely straight.

Obviously, these are extreme cases. They don’t represent most athletes or most fanbases, but there are a depressing number of people who wouldn’t question the statement “There are no gay men in the NFL.” That’s what President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said about Iran.

It’s interesting how far apart men’s and women’s sports are on the issue. The Martina Navratilovas of the world have been leading the way on this for 30 years, but whether they should be or not, things are different in men’s sports and it’s because of the same misguided ideas.

You know how the logic goes: Guys are supposed to be tough and play sports. Girls are supposed to be cheerleaders. If a boy wants to be a cheerleader instead of playing sports, he must be gay, and if a girl doesn’t want to be a cheerleader because she wants to play a sport, she’s a lesbian (It makes sense if you don’t think about it.)

As a result of this, some kids grow up thinking that they need to hide who they are in order to pursue the sport they love, and that is a tragedy. Athletes grow up worrying that their on-field skills and the hours they pour into practice and film study might not be enough for them to realize their athletic dreams.

But it’s important to note that there is progress. FIFA has taken a stand against homophobia. Most leagues will hand out big fines and suspensions to anyone caught using a gay slur. Some athletes have even been outspoken allies, though some have gone on the record saying they wouldn’t be comfortable with a gay teammate.

Most notably, the NHL recently partnered with the You Can Play Project, an organization that fights homophobia in sports. The group’s message — one now endorsed by the NHL — is that if you can cut it physically, nothing else matters. The partnership was met with an almost universally positive response, and that too is encouraging.

It’s an incredibly powerful message on two levels. It’s a message to the countless kids in youth sports programs that if they’re good enough to go pro, that’s all that will matter. Maybe even more importantly, it’s a message to everyone else that intolerance won’t be tolerated anymore.

So much for small ball.

Scott Heineman — with just one career home run entering play last weekend — went yard for the third straight game, this time breaking a 1-1 tie in the ninth inning to lead Oregon to a 4-1 win over the Pilots. Heineman’s home run came with two outs in the ninth.

Fellow Southern Californian Ryon Healy opened the scoring for the Ducks’ two innings earlier with a homer of his own and then drew a walk to start the Oregon rally in the ninth.

Garrett Cleavinger got the win for the Ducks despite pitching just 1.1 innings, but the freshman was in the right place at the right time to earn his second career win. Jimmie Sherfy gave up a walk but then struck out the side in the ninth to earn his 12th save of the season, moving the All-American into a tie for first nationally.

Oregon welcomes No. 13 UCLA to the friendly confines of PK Park for a three game set starting this Friday, the first home game for Oregon since a March 30th win over Washington.

Former Duck runner Jason Hartman was among those who finished among the top competitors before the first explosion. (Emerald Archives)

Multiple current and former members of the Duck community participated in the Boston Marathon Monday and safely crossed the finish line before a pair explosions rocked Copley Square.

Former Duck runner Jason Hartmann finished fourth overall, turning in the fastest time by an American for the second year in a row. He finished in two hours, 12 minutes and 12 seconds.

Also in the top ten was Craig Leon, a member of Team Run Eugene and an administrative assistant at the University of Oregon School of Law, who finished in two hours, 14 minutes and 38 seconds. At least six others with ties to the UO were also on the start list for the race.

Fifteen up, fifteen down. It was that easy.

Oregon softball earned its first ever sweep of Arizona behind a perfect game from pitcher Jessica Moore. It was the third no-hitter of her career and her second perfect game, the other being a five-inning shared effort with former Oregon teammate Samantha Skillingstad in 2010.

“That’s the best I’ve seen Jess pitch,” Oregon head coach Mike White told GoDucks.com. “She was in control of every one of her pitches against a very good hitting team, and she deserved it. At the plate, we’re seeing the ball well, and our short game set our hitters up well, too.”

The senior All-American struck out six, improving her own school record career total of 835.

With Moore mowing down the Wildcats, the Ducks exploded offensively for nine runs, posting crooked numbers in every inning they swung the bats. Oregon cruised to a 9-0 win in five innings.

It was the second no-no tossed by an Oregon pitcher this week, after Cheridan Hawkins no-hit the Wildcats on Saturday. They were the first two Pac-12 no-hitters for Duck hurlers since 2006 and the fifth and sixth conference no-hitters in school history. She was in such a zone Saturday, that a teammate had to point out to her that she had in fact thrown a no-hitter.

Ryon Healy and Scott Heineman powered Oregon past Cal, beating them for the second time this week and fifth time overall. Heineman had four RBI thanks to two home runs and a run-scoring double, and Healy added a longball of his own in the Ducks’ 10-4 win.

The four RBI are a career high for Heineman, making it the second-straight week the outfielder has posted a career high. He entered the night with just one career home run.

While runs have been hard to find at times this season, Oregon found their bats from the first pitch, scoring five times in the top of the first and three more times in the second to take an 8-0 lead. Cole Irvin wasn’t perfect on the hill but rode the run support to the win to improve to 7-1 on the season; he gave up four in five innings.

Oregon goes for the sweep Sunday at 1 p.m.

PK Park has been a lonely place recently with the Ducks’ last eight games coming on the road, and George Horton and company are away on business once again this weekend, traveling to Berkeley for a three game set with the Bears. The Ducks enter on a two-game win streak after salvaging one of three against Arizona State and notching a Civil War in Corvallis on Tuesday.

The Ducks swept Cal last season at PK Park, and Oregon looks to be the favorite again this year, at least on paper, with Cal entering the weekend at 16-16 overall and just 5-7 in the Pac-12. The Ducks are expected to start Tommy Thorpe on the mound on Friday night against Cal’s Ryan Mason. Neither school has named a starter for the second or third game of the series.

What exactly have you done with your life? China’s Tianlang Guan, 14, has already made his Masters debut, shooting a +1 in the opening round at Augusta National.

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Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman — who was suspended for allegedly using the ADHD drug Adderall — was quoted earlier this week saying that “half the league” uses the stimulant. Sherman has since clarified his comments saying that many players take the drug legitimately with a doctor’s prescription.

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Here is a webgraphic that maps every college mascot in the country. It’s pretty cool.  

It won’t be officially announced until Thursday, but a state official told The Register-Guard that the Olympic Trials will be returning to historic Hayward Field in 2016 for a third-straight Olympiad.

According to the report, the announcement will be officially made in Salem tomorrow afternoon at a press conference featuring TrackTown USA President Vin Lananna, University of Oregon President Michael Gottfredson and several other state officials, including Governor John Kitzhaber.

The 2016 summer games will be in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Not quite ten months ago, before the fuzzy almost-memories of my 21st birthday, I covered Ashton Eaton’s world record decathlon at the Olympic Trials. I’ve seen a lot of cool sports stuff, but nothing quite like that. From the first event to the last, Eaton was brilliant, setting world decathlon records in the 100 meter dash and long jump – and I’m probably forgetting something.

The other part of what made the performance so magical, however, was Hayward Field. Seeing track and field in Eugene is like seeing a basketball game at Madison Square Garden, a hockey game in Montreal and a ballgame at Fenway Park all rolled into one. It’s one of those venues where the aura of history is tangible.

It’s a track and field venue where fans go crazier for the 5,000 and 10,000 meter races than they do for the 100 and 200 meters. Everybody in attendance understood exactly what Eaton needed to do in the 1,500 to clinch that record. But when Curtis Beach – a 1,500 specialist – started setting the pace he knew exactly what he was doing and willed Eaton to keep up until Beach eased up, allowing Eaton to cross the line first.

But the stakes don’t have to be that high. When a pack of distance runners rounds the Bowerman Curve and the rhythmic Hayward Field slow clap starts up it almost doesn’t matter whether it’s Mac Fleet, Galen Rupp or Steve Prefontaine on the track. Those moments are few and far between in sports.

Even when it’s as simple a moment as a run of the mill lap when Hayward’s historic track is open to the public twice a week, there’s a very real sense of history. It’s the very epicenter of American track and it will have the focus of the nation and the international track and field community over the next few months as it plays host to the NCAA championships and the annual Diamond League meet in Eugene, the Prefontaine Classic.

The otherwise unassuming grandstands at the corner of 15th and Agate are routinely joined by towering temporary seating structures for high-profile meets. The seating capacity swelled to the neighborhood of 20,000 for the Olympic Trials. If Portland is ever blessed by the sports gods with the Olympics, the track and field event would have to be at Hayward.

Until then, there is still plenty of world-class track going on over at Hayward. The men of Oregon have dominated the Pac-12 for what seems like forever, and this year alone Robert Johnson has guided the women’s team to cross country and indoor national titles. There are two more chances to see the Ducks this year in the regular season. If you’ve never given track a chance, just give it one. If you have, see you there.