Growing up in the United Kingdom, American football was a foreign language to James Hathway, but that didn’t stop him from giving it a go. As a student at Loughborough University in the Midlands of England, Hathway decided to try the sport, playing on the school’s team. He quickly grew to love the game and was looking for a fandom to adopt when he stumbled upon the Oregon Ducks in a newspaper in the mid-1990s.
“It was pretty random. Because I played the sport, a weekly newspaper would be published, and our game reports would be included. There'd be articles on what was going on in the NFL and college sports and things like that. I read about them and I was like, you know what? I'm going to pick a team to follow. And that's how it happened.”
From across the pond, Hathway remained a fan of the team, catching up on the latest news through articles and occasionally, catching a game on TV or over the radio. After he and his wife, Emma, moved to Vancouver, Canada, in 2007, supporting the Ducks in person became a possibility.
In 2011, the Hathways ventured down to Eugene for the first time to watch the season home opener. It was this first experience at Autzen Stadium that sealed the deal: they were Ducks fans. All it took was meeting fellow fans and watching then true freshman running back De’Anthony Thomas, class of 2017, score on multiple long passes. After that one game, the couple decided to purchase season tickets.
“Obviously, we'd seen games on TV, but to actually be a part of it was really an experience. It's hard to quantify.”
During the couple’s first in-person experience with the Duck community, they were taken aback by the hospitality and warm welcome they received from fellow fans. Hathway said one fellow Duck even offered them a place to stay in their home, after having just met.
“The people that were two rows in front of us had been season ticket holders for 25 years, and there was the grandma, granddad, the kids, and then the grandkids. The grandma turned around to us—it was around the second quarter in the game—and she said, 'If you ever need somewhere to stay, I've always got a spare room.’ [At first, we thought,] ‘this is odd,’ but we came to learn that Oregon is a very welcoming state.”
As new season ticket holders, the Hathways continued making trips down I-5 to Eugene. It was just a few weeks before they felt they were part of the welcoming community, themselves.
“When you roll into Eugene, you instantly know it's a game weekend . . . We were surrounded by cars with streamers and bumper stickers and magnets stuck on the cars, and it's like we realized that we were becoming part of something more than just a fixture on a schedule . . . We felt, probably by the second or third game as season ticket holders, that we were part of the Oregon family.”
Now, having recently completed their 13th year as season ticket holders, the Hathways are committed Ducks fans, through and through. It’s not just the exhilarating atmosphere of Autzen that keeps them coming back, but the hometown feel of Eugene.
“[Eugene feels] incredibly familiar, almost like [Loughborough] . . . the town where we went to school. It was an elite sports university; the track program would turn out Olympians by the dozen.”
With roughly an eight-hour drive between their Vancouver home and Autzen Stadium, Hathway says they’ve developed a strategy for their trips. When the Ducks have two home games in a row, they’ll often stay through the week in Eugene and work remotely in between. Otherwise, they drive down on a Friday and return home on Sunday. The couple doesn’t just have a method to their madness, but a reputation back home as well.
“We'll see neighbors whom we haven't seen for a long time, and one of the first things they'll say is, 'Oh, how are the Ducks doing?’ [When] I go into the office one day a week, [my coworkers will ask,] ‘are you going to the game this week?’”
Having committed so much time and energy to supporting Ducks on the field, Hathway decided to do so for Ducks off the field too. In 2024, he spoke to industrial and product design students about life as a professional industrial designer. Additionally, both James and Emma joined the UO Alumni Association as Life members.
“We proudly refer to ourselves as Ducks. Mine and my wife’s alma mater is back in the UK, and I'm still proud to have gone to that university. But when it comes to my situation now, I'll consider myself a Duck.”
—By Olivia Arciniega, class of 2026, UO Alumni Association student writer