—By Sarah Bathke, BA ’25 (journalism), UO Alumni Association communications generalist
Long before Darren Des Roches became a UO student, he adopted the Ducks as his own. The UO parent and owner of the Seattle Ducks watch party venue has spent his life blazing his own path—including that of a nontraditional student. Des Roches emigrated from Canada to California in 2003 with his wife, an American citizen, and his daughter Isabella Des Roches, BS ’23 (human physiology). Before the move, he’d spent years working his way up the ranks in the restaurant and hospitality industry. He started as a restaurant manager right out of high school, and eventually, owned and operated a chain of fine-dining Mediterranean restaurants.
After moving to California, he built a career from the ground up again and discovered the Ducks. While Des Roches was working on shift at a restaurant, a Ducks football game was playing on the TVs.
“I watched the vibrancy of the team play, and there was something about that I liked so much,” he said.
His passion for the Ducks, he said, blossomed after the Des Roches family relocated to Seattle in 2014 and his daughter became interested in attending the UO. It was the last university they toured, and while he tried not to influence her decision, Des Roches said he was drawn to the UO’s Eugene campus.
“When we got to Oregon, we were there for all of half an hour and it felt like home,” he said.
Isabella’s experience at the UO reinforced Des Roches’s commitment to Oregon as a friend and fan of the university. Through his experience as a UO parent, he fully adopted his own identity as a Duck.
“The school did right by our family . . . They looked after our kid and her safety [in the pandemic], but most of all, the University of Oregon really made her thrive as an individual. She knew what she wanted to do, but it really opened up a lot of doors and opened up her mind,” he said.
Building community in Husky territory
Back in Seattle, Des Roches took his blooming passion for the Ducks and started attending Seattle Ducks football watch parties. In connecting with the UO alumni community, he floated an idea: the chapter hosting events at his arcade and bar, GameWorks.
Des Roches “stumbled into” the entertainment side of the hospitality industry when he began working with GameWorks Entertainment in 2012 and rose to Chief Operating Officer of the national chain by 2018. But in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, crippling much of the industry. He was forced to liquidate the company, except for the GameWorks location in Seattle, Washington, where he took over as owner. Whether by fate or coincidence, the Seattle location was the first to open in 1997 and is still standing under his leadership. He said keeping the entertainment center going is a lot of pressure, but it’s also a lot of fun.
“I love it . . . A lot of adults come in here and they go, ‘I remember playing Donkey Kong, hanging out when I was a kid in the mall, putting quarters in there,’” he shared.
When it comes to game days and watch parties, he pulls out all the stops. Every staff member wears UO gear, there are special Duck-themed drink specials, and the whole space is decked out in green and yellow. Des Roches sees it as a way to give back to the community and create an experience that helps people connect with one another.
"You have every walk of life coming here to play and have fun, and when you couple that with food and drink, it's a community that brings people together. That's what keeps me going with it . . . I enjoy talking to and learning about people and sharing experiences,” he said.
Forging a Duck family legacy
Over decades of experience in the hospitality industry, Des Roches felt he was missing something. He started working as soon as he graduated high school and never had the resources to pursue a college degree. Now, at 58 and as a proud Duck dad, he’s embarking on a new journey as a non-traditional student at the UO.
“This is super special to me,” he said, tearing up. “When I got accepted to the University of Oregon, I just cried. It means so much to me because I'm on this healing journey, and getting this degree will now make me feel complete [and] heal stuff that couldn't happen when I was a kid.”
Being in the business of fun, he’s pursuing a degree in geography and a minor in business for the fun of it, too. Des Roches attended his IntroDUCKtion student orientation session over the summer.
"I've always been very passionate about geography and maps and how people fit into different parts of the world, [as well as] landscapes, culture, and topography. Now it's fun to learn more [and] open up my mind because no one is past learning,” he said.
There are many parts of being a UO student that he and his daughter get to share, like attending IntroDUCKtion, Week of Welcome, and keeping up with their degree requirements; he’s taking Spanish to meet his language class requirements with the side benefit of improving his “kitchen Spanish” so he can understand his staff better. But as a non-traditional student, he’s also enjoying the differences.
“I like sharing my wisdom as an adult learner. I love sharing the life lessons that I've learned with the younger students. . .and I get to learn stuff from them too,” he said. “I have recently been introduced to slang from younger classmates such as something being 'lowkey' or 'fire.' I'm not sure I’ll be that cool to the younger students, but I’m learning!"
A Duck through and through
Des Roches’s passion for the Ducks bursts out of him, bridging the distance from Eugene to Seattle. He participates in the Eugene Marathon every year, and his favorite watch party memory is with his father-in-law, who became a Ducks fan supporting his granddaughter. During the 2019 face-off between the Ducks and the Washington State Cougars, the score went back and forth all game, finally resulting in a two-point win for the Ducks.
“It was heart attack football, and my father-in-law was just exhausted, [but] he was smiling and laughing and being like ‘I'm never coming again because that's heart attack football.’ He did come back, but it just it fills me with so much happy emotion of him and us doing that as a family,” he said.
Des Roches keeps the Ducks close to his heart in a literal sense, too. He has a tattoo of the Duck on the left side of his chest.
“I'm a Duck through and through . . . I love the camaraderie and the spirit and the acceptance that is broadcast far and wide by the University of Oregon. It doesn't matter where they come from or what they believe in. That to me is super special because of my belief in community,” he said. “It just feels like home.”