My multimedia piece that I presented was about the ongoing fight in the Eugene community to restore Civic Stadium, which is one of Eugene’s older landmarks. I was desired to report about Civic Stadium because of my passion for sports and my love for baseball. My initial goal was to create this great multimedia piece chronicling the past, present, and potential future of Civic Stadium. However, that goal quickly deteriorated as I realized I might be biting off more than I could chew.

The first obstacle I faced was getting accessed into the stadium. In the past, I was able to gain access inside of the stadium with ease. However, Civic Stadium has dealt with recent break-ins inside of the stadium. People have been entering the stadium and stealing bleachers and copper wire. When I went to Civic Stadium to begin to shoot for my multimedia piece, I was attacked by a guard dog and didn’t realize until then that people need permission from Friends of Civic Stadium to gain access to the ballpark.

The second obstacle I faced were the days I was granted inside of the park. I was only able to gain access for two days and the first day, my interviewee only granted me 30 minutes to shoot because he had a meeting with the city about Civic Stadium. I was able to complete the interview portion of my piece but I was hoping I would be able to take pictures on that day. Unfortunately, I had to wait until the following week to capture my B-roll but of course, it began to rain. I couldn’t use any A-roll from the interview because the bright, sunny background from the interview wouldn’t correlate with my rainy photos. If I was granted more time, I would’ve gone back to Civic Stadium on a nicer day but I was only able to gain limited amount of time inside of the stadium’s walls.

Finally, the third obstacle I faced was realizing the narrative I wanted to capture was unrealistic. I tried to make my piece like a sports documentary seen on ESPN. I wanted to capture the past, present, and future of Civic Stadium not realizing that I was limited with sources. Capturing the beauty of Civic Stadium past with photos wasn’t going to be enough to move the audience emotionally and everyone I talked from Friends of Civic Stadium had little to no video footage of past Civic Stadium games. The present Civic Stadium is basically a junkyard and it is impossible to capture Civic Stadium’s future because it hasn’t happened yet. If I realized that sooner, I would had an easier time transitioning to a more achievable piece, like capturing photos and video of the huge impact Civic Stadium had on Brandon’s life. Shifting the piece to capture the story in Brandon’s eyes would’ve been more powerful rather than trying to make a piece all about Civic Stadium.

Overall, I’m still satisfied with my work. Was it as amazing as I initially thought it was going to be? No. But I gave it everything I had to make it a presentable multimedia piece. I went into all, if not most of the available office hours to give updates on my current status of my project, work tirelessly on fixing the footage, and was happy I was able to present a piece on sports. I’m almost happy that this project didn’t go according to plan because so far at the University of Oregon, I was able to work on journalistic projects where everything did fall exactly into place. Unfortunately, that isn’t how life works and you will deal with obstacles even worse than the ones I felt. The only difference is the deadline isn’t going to be 11 weeks, its going to be 11 hours. This project taught me important life lessons about preparation that I would learn the hard way in a working environment. This project wasn’t the walk in the park I originally intended it to be, but nevertheless, I accomplished it and the sun still rose the next day.

Thank you for a great term Alaina and have a terrific summer!!!

By: Kyle Hebel

Christina Watkins, a senior computer science major at the University of Oregon, took an unusual path to land in Eugene. Unlike the majority of UO students that are from Oregon, Washington or California, Watkins left her hometown of Hilo, Hawaii to become a Duck.

Born in Seattle, Watkins’ family moved to Hawaii when she was seven to be closer to her mother’s side of the family. As a kid, she dreamed of one day returning to Seattle to attend the University of Washington. Unfortunately, even with the help of scholarships, tuition was still too expensive. Watkins decided it would be in her best financial interest to find another school.

Watkins heard about UO from her friends that left Hawaii to go to college in Oregon.

“When I first realized that I wasn’t going to be able to go to college in Seattle, I was pretty disappointed,” says Watkins. “However, a couple of my friends, who were a year ahead of me, came to UO and fell in love with everything the school had to offer. I ended up applying, receiving a scholarship, and I guess you can say the rest is history.”

Watkins dove in headfirst when it came to approaching the unknown. She had very few connections to anyone from Hawaii in Oregon and had no checklist on how to tackle the life of a college student. Her approach to the situation was to try as many activities as possible because “why let fear hold you back”. That approach eventually led her to join the Chi Omega sorority.

“I wasn’t a huge fan of Greek life at first,” says Watkins. “Seeing it on TV and how the girls can be portrayed in a negative light put a sour taste in my mouth.”

After a little debating, Watkins decided to rush Chi Omega in the Fall of 2010. Her ignorance about Greek life ended up being her biggest advantage. She had no idea about the tricks of the trade, the history of Chi Omega, or kissing up to her future sisters. She had no idea what in particular they were looking for in a future Chi Omega member, so she was able to fully be herself. This wasn’t more apparent than when she went in for her initial interview.

“I had no idea we were suppose to dress up in our best dresses, expensive shoes, and put on tons of gorgeous makeup,” says Watkins. “I came into the interview with a ragged, old sweatshirt and my UO sweats. I thought I made a huge mistake but they appreciated the fact that I was being myself.”

Watkins adds that since she didn’t try to win the approval of her sisters by dressing up and trying to impress them with a fake persona, she was able to quickly gain their trust. A couple days later, she received her bid to become a member of Chi Omega.

Four years ago, Watkins would have settled for familiarity. Now, as graduation day approaches, she is looking forward to discovering all aspects of the unknown. She recently accepted a job at Fast Enterprises and has no idea where they will potentially locate her until July. She’s crossing her fingers that they locate her in a big city like New York or Boston, but is looking forward to exploring a new area, regardless of the location.

The unique characteristic of embracing fear allows Watkins to approach any situation with an open mind. She started a new chapter in her life four years ago with that mindset and is now taking the exact same approach as she enters this next stage.

“Adapting to a new culture can always be scary,” says Watkins. “However, if you let fear control your decisions in life, you will never be able to discover who you truly are. Broadening my overall perspective and expanding my horizons outside of my comfort zone, allowed me to realize that maybe the world isn’t as big as we all believe it to be.”

This newspaper article, posted by the Register-Guard, talks about the deadline instituted on February 19, to save Civic Stadium. Those in support to renovate the historic landmark, have six months to raise $3 million. This proposal is the last chance for supporters to save Civic Stadium. If they fail to raise enough money, the stadium will not be saved and city of Eugene will have to say good-bye to their beloved ball park that has been a proud part of the city’s culture since 1938.

Agreed Terms to the Proposal:

People of Eugene showing their support to save Civic Stadium from potentially being demolished.