Ducking the real world

EUGENE, Ore. -- Joey Harrington nearly chose Stanford over Oregon, a notion that makes him smile with relief now.

The thought of giving up his lifestyle in laid-back Eugene -- with the five roommates in the well lived-in house, wearing his fuzzy red wig to Ducks basketball games -- for the private-school maturity of Palo Alto seems as silly as the idea of one day changing his name to the more adult-sounding "Joe Harrington."

"Makes me feel like a kid," Harrington said of his boyish first name. "I've been Joey forever; I'm not changing. That's me. The day I change to Joe is the day I change it right back to Joey, because I'm taking myself too seriously."

Harrington is the starting quarterback for the sixth-ranked Ducks, who finish their season next Saturday at home against Oregon State in the 105th Civil War. Oregon (9-1, 6-1 Pac-10) already has clinched a share of the conference title and a trip to the Fiesta Bowl, but the team is ranked No. 5 in the BCS standings and still has an outside chance of rising into the top two and getting to the Rose Bowl for the national championship.

Oregon success

Harrington, a fifth-year senior, led the Ducks to a school-record 10 victories last year, including a Holiday Bowl win over Texas. Harrington is 23-3 as the starter for the Ducks, eclipsing players like Dan Fouts and Norm Van Brocklin and Bill Musgrave as the most successful quarterback in school history.

Yet Harrington is ever the fun-loving eccentric, unfazed by the "Joey Heisman" billboard in Manhattan that brought him nationwide attention, as well as criticism for its excess. In the Ducks' preseason media guide, when posed to finish the sentence: "What people don't know about me is," he responded: "I'm a dork."

In many ways, he is, but exactly so. He's a confident 23-year-old who sometimes acts years younger and loves it. While teammates get pumped up for games with heavy metal, Harrington geeks out on Herbie Hancock. He plays jazz piano, but still likes Britney Spears despite the grief it brings him.

"I just love being a goof, enjoying college, not getting so bogged down with the fact that I'm graduating now, and I've got to enter the real world," he said before the season. "I love being in college, I love just hanging out and having a good time and not worrying about what other people think. That's a lot of the way how I play out on the field. I play with emotion, I don't worry about how people see me."

Harrington almost chose Stanford in 1997, but made his decision after visiting a Cardinal practice. He thought it was odd that the team finished its workout by huddling up and saying, "Win." At Oregon they say, "Ducks, Ducks, Ducks," -- more of a team unity thing.

Oregon coach Mike Bellotti "smiles and laughs, and you can joke around with him," Harrington said.

He said he doesn't know if he ever saw Stanford coach Tyrone Willingham "even crack a smile. It was just a much more serious environment."

It's no small irony that Harrington chose a good time at the expense of a win-first attitude, yet has helped build Oregon into a national power. He didn't get off the bench in 1998, when Akili Smith was setting season records. The next year, Harrington won the starting job from A.J. Feeley and led Oregon to six straight wins, starting with a 44-41 victory at Arizona and ending with a a 24-20 Sun Bowl victory over Minnesota. His performance in those games started his reputation as a player who could get it done in the final minutes.

"Joey is one of the greatest competitors I've known, and I say that whether it's tiddlywinks or a balloon toss or throwing the football," Bellotti said. "He competes in everything he does, and he thrives on winning. His charisma and leadership basically elevate the level of play of everybody around him."

Oregon might have been firmly in the national championship picture if not for a bitter 49-42 home loss to Stanford. The Ducks had won 23 straight games at Autzen Stadium, but they gave up 21 straight points in the fourth quarter, with the winning score following an interception by Harrington.

Resilient Ducks

The Ducks bounced back to beat Washington State, then Arizona State, then went down to Los Angeles and beat UCLA 21-20.

"We're a resilient team, and that comes back to how close we are," Harrington said. "I think a really good example of this is UCLA. We lost and we got stronger, UCLA lost and they crumbled."

Another loss still eats at Harrington -- last year's 23-13 defeat to Oregon State, in which he threw five interceptions and lost one fumble. Next Saturday, he will try to focus on eliminating those mistakes, yet still try to take in the sight of the home stadium one last time.

"I really don't think it's going to hit me until I'm in the tunnel," he said. "Autzen's been so great to me. It's just an amazing place to play. To think that after next Saturday I will never ever play in that stadium again, it's a weird feeling. But it has to happen. There's nothing I can do to stop it. Just enjoy it."

After Oregon's bowl game, he'll start thinking about the NFL draft. But first he'll go back to the well lived-in house, which is across the street from where his father John -- who quarterbacked the Ducks in the late 1960s, right before Fouts -- lived with six other guys. And he'll keep on being Joe College for a little longer.

"Talking to all my friends who graduated last year, they're telling me, 'Don't leave. You're just going to have to start working.'

"I'm lucky. I've had a great time."