The Far West Classic Returns to Portland in December
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Friday, May 15, 2015
Hank Stern, GoLocalPDX Contributor
College basketball fans and nostalgics in Portland got a piece of good news recently.
The Far West Classic is returning this December to Portland, at least in a slimmed-down form from its long-ago heyday.
For those who don’t remember the original version of the Far West Classic, it was an eight-team college basketball tournament that included Oregon and Oregon State. Teams played between Christmas and New Year’s in Memorial Coliseum, starting in 1960 when the building opened.
And for those of us who were teen-agers when the Portland tournament still drew large crowds in the 1970s, a ticket package to the Far West Classic marked the perfect Christmas stocking stuffer complete with games played in the afternoons and evenings.
The tournament eventually withered away as an eight-team tournament by 1989 as schools didn’t like the idea of absorbing three potential non-conference losses and fewer fans attended, thanks to more competition for the sports eyeball with the explosion of cable TV.
Even as a smaller four-team tournament, the Far West Classic finally faded completely by 1996.
What’s returning to the Moda Center on Dec. 18-19 is a four-team Far West Classic Invitational featuring Oregon State, the University of Portland, the University of Tulsa and Cal-State Fullerton.
Unlike the old tournament, where teams advanced into a championship bracket or fell off into a consolation bracket, this version will have the two participating Oregon schools playing each of the non-Oregon schools on Friday and Saturday nights.
Yes, the University of Tulsa and Cal-State Fullerton don’t compare on the notoriety scale to powerhouses such as Michigan State when the Spartans won the 1978 Classic with Magic Johnson en route that season to their national championship, or North Carolina when the Tar Heels won the 1977 Classic with Walter Davis and Phil Ford en route to the Final Four that season.
And yes, it’s disappointing the event is designed so that the Pilots and Beavers don’t play each other. Or that the University of Oregon couldn’t find a way to be involved (long-time Ducks fans will recall fondly one of the few times Oregon won the old Classic in 1974 came after Ducks guard Ronnie Lee went head to head with future Trail Blazers guard Lionel Hollins in the semifinals when Hollins played for Arizona State).
But all of the above are small quibbles with the chance to see two back-to-back nights of Division I doubleheaders in Portland.
Good on the Pilots for getting involved and trying to gain more of a presence in the Portland market beyond the band of loyalists who go to the Chiles Center.
“The Far West Classic brought an excellent brand of college basketball to the City of Portland and we are excited to be a part of its rebirth,” University of Portland athletic director Scott Leykam said in a news release announcing the return of the tournament.
And good on the Beavers for giving fans in Portland a chance to see them more than once in the state’s largest city—a throwback to days gone by when the Beavers coached by Ralph Miller regularly came to Portland and won the Far West Classic.
“We’re thrilled to be bringing back the spirit of this historic event,” Oregon State coach Wayne Tinkle said. “The FWC was such a competitive tournament for so many years, and we wanted to make it a priority to play in Portland for Beaver Nation fans that live in that area.”
On the heels of the NCAA tournament playing early-round games at the Moda Center three times since 2009 -- and in advance of preparations for major Nike colleges such as Kentucky, Gonzaga Michigan State, Ohio State, Georgetown, Duke, North Carolina, Florida, Stanford and Texas coming in 2017 for an in-the-works Nike Invitational in honor of Phil Knight’s 80th birthday – the Far West Classic may seem a small piece of news.
Perhaps, but it’s also a welcome piece.
A native Oregonian, Hank Stern had a 24-year career in journalism, working for more than a decade as a reporter with The Associated Press in Oregon, New Jersey and Washington, DC. He worked seven years for The Oregonian as a reporter in east Multnomah County, Washington County and Portland’s City Hall. In 2005, he became Willamette Week’s managing news editor and worked there until 2011.
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