Media Credit: Blake Hamilton At each home game, Nike will away a free pair of sneakers to the Oregon student who comes up with the best sign. The promotion hopes to inspire students to get more creative, and appropriate, with their material. [Click to enlarge]

The University of Oregon and the Pit Crew sustained a black eye from last week's UCLA game. It's been well-documented that the fans were unruly and University officials didn't do much to quell the obscenities.

The behavior improved during Saturday's game against USC after Oregon coach Ernie Kent addressed the fans before the game and University officials spoke to members of the Pit Crew, encouraging the students to tone down the vulgarity.

Now the reparation work to Oregon's image begins - on several fronts.

Oregon Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny left messages apologizing to UCLA coach Ben Howland, UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero and Stan Love, father of UCLA center Kevin Love, who was targeted for most of the game.

Howland said the matter is behind them now, according to the Associated Press.

And the Pit Crew hopes to keep the matter behind them too, while hoping that it doesn't become its legacy.

"We've already moved on," Pit Crew President Daniel Cogan said. "What happened happened and I don't anticipate having those problems again."

He and the rest of the group's leadership are making efforts to avoid a repeat performance and will test out ideas to limit individual fans creating chants that reflect poorly on the entire group.

"Just because it's a basketball game doesn't mean you're excluded from the rules of society," Cogan said.

That's what happened against UCLA, according to senior Ryan Hodges, who has been a part of the Pit Crew for four years. He said a few intoxicated fans started some of the chants and were so vocal that they got a good majority of other students to join in.

Continued...

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