4-2-21 Emerald Media - Week of Welcome

APRIL 2, 2021

Week of Welcome

Emerald Media

Two high school state championships. 10,000 passing yards. 100 touchdowns. Now, quarterback Ty Thompson will play for Oregon.

OREGON’S NEXT STAR NEWS

COMMENCEMENT PETITION PG 2

OPINION

SPORTS

STUDENT MENTAL HEALTH TRAINING PG 7

ANTHONY HALL LOOKS TO CEMENT ROLE PG 10

A&C

COMMON KOI’S RETURN PG 14 F R I D AY, A P R I L 2 , 2 0 2 1

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NEWS

ONLINE PETITIONS FOR RECONSIDERING COMMENCEMENT GAIN GROUND Over 1,700 people have signed a petition asking UO to consider alternate options.

VOL. 122, ISSUE NO. 43

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ON THE COVER

(Courtesy of Ty Thompson)

BY JANE GLAZER • TWITTER @JANEGLAZER After the University of Oregon decided June 12 to hold its spring 2021 commencement ceremony virtually, some seniors have organized to request that UO consider in-person graduation alternatives.

UO said its decision for a virtual commencement was made with “great care” and in accordance with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health officials.

In response to this decision, UO senior Ally Grimaldi created a petition asking the administration to include UO students in reconsidering possible commencement alternatives.

The petition lists a few alternatives: hosting commencement outdoors in spaces like Autzen Stadium or Hayward Field; vaccinating spring 2021 graduates or postponing graduation events until summer 2021.

The petition has 1,700 signatures as of April 1.

“The Olympic Trials are still being held six days after our virtual commencement ceremony,” UO student Daniel Paulsen commented on the petition. “Make it make sense.”

In an email sent to students on March 18, UO said that they might be able to add an in-person activity to previous commencement plans.

Paulsen also quote tweeted the university’s tweet about the cancelation, saying that if UO made this decision in respect to safety, then UO should pull out of hosting the Track and Field Olympic Trials. In response, UO tweeted that UO is working with TrackTown USA, who is working with state and county health officials, to ensure that the Olympic Trials follow public health guidelines.

Paulsen said in an interview with the Emerald that he viewed this response as a “cop out.”

Other supporters of the petition said that it is an unfair use of students’ tuition money, suggesting that graduates get vaccines and that it is unfair to host the U.S. Olympic Team Trials a week later.

In an interview with the Emerald, Vice President for Student Life Kevin Marbury said that hosting the U.S. Olympic Team Trials was an obligation signed many years ago.

“If they’re able to safely hold the event, we’re obligated to honor that contract,” Marbury said.

Paulsen said that he wishes

UO would have offered free caps and gowns or another amenity for students in lieu of an inperson graduation to “lessen the backfire.”

The university said it will waive the separate commencement fee that the university traditionally charges to students this year. The UO Alumni Association is covering the cost of diploma covers.

Paulsen said that he found this decision to cancel in-person commencement to be premature.

“I think with the athletics being in person, with a lot of the more recent vaccinations ramping up on a federal level, I think it’s, a) very premature but, b) showed that the university just didn’t really have the time to plan something like this, which doesn’t really sit well when you spend four years at a place, give them a lot of money and spend four years thinking about graduation,” Paulsen said.

The university said that it chose not to make a decision later in the term because it determined that it is unlikely that gatherings of more than 50 to 75 people will be allowed, making an inperson event highly unlikely according to its commencement webpage.

On March 26, Lane County moved into the low risk level. This means that indoor spaces can hold 50% capacity, and outdoor gatherings have increased to a maximum of 300 people.

In the email sent to students on March 18, the UO said students will be notified as soon as any new graduation plans are confirmed due to the risk level change.

Paulsen said that while the petition “obviously was great,” he does not think that the decision will change due to the amount of work it takes to plan a graduation ceremony.

Despite this reality, he said he saw the petition as showing camaraderie among his class.

“We have all learned throughout college that you have to use your voice to stand up for what you want,” Paulsen said. “I think this is a good example of how on the same page we all are as a class.”

Editor’s note: UO senior Ally Grimaldi works for the Daily Emerald as a copy editor.

She was not interviewed for this story and was not involved in the editing of this story.

Daniel Paulsen, 2020 University of Oregon graduate, voiced his opinion on the university’s decision to host Olympic Trails over commencement. (Kimberly Harris/Emerald)

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Around OR REGIONAL AND STATE NEWS COVID-19 VARIANT FOUND IN WASTEWATER OF 2 OREGON CITIES: Wastewater testing showed the B.1.1.7 variant of COVID-19 is present in McMinnville and Grants Pass, OPB reported. The variant was first detected in the United Kingdom and is 50% more contagious and causes more severe illness.

Researchers at Oregon State University have been testing wastewater around the state and said there are also faint traces of the variant in Albany and Forest Grove.

– SILAS SLOAN SPRING FOOTBALL BEGINS: With the end of mens and womens basketball seasons, the spring football schedule began this week. The Ducks’ football team, composed of a collection of returners and newcomers alike, took the field this week to begin practicing and hashing out a starting lineup. While it’s only late March in Eugene, fall football has peaked over the horizon for the first time in 2021.

– CHARLES GEARING

(DL Young/Emerald)

‘TRIGGERED LIFE’ EXPLORES CHILD ABUSE: Keith Mascoll, a Portland-based actor and advocate, produced “Triggered Life: A Requiem of Healing,” a livestreamed one-actor, twocharacter theater piece that explores a heavy topic: the sexual abuse of minors. The piece is based on Mascoll’s own experiences as well as his conversations with others who have experienced abuse. It will be regularly live streamed through the Portland Playhouse through April.

– SARAH-MAE McCULLOUGH

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NEWS

GTFF RELEASES OPEN LETTER ABOUT UO COVID-19 PRACTICES UO graduate employees call on Oregon Gov. Kate Brown to hold UO accountable for unsafe COVID-19 practices.

BY KATHERINE WINELAND • TWITTER @KATWINELAND The Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation at the University of Oregon have released an open letter to demand better working conditions at UO, claiming the need to hold the university’s “administration accountable for their ineffective and unsafe management” after February’s spike in COVID-19 cases.

While the letter acknowledges UO providing more testing opportunities for students, it also claims that this response was not enough.

The letter states that UO failed to protect the campus community because of its lack of effective PPE for the entire community, and lack of effective communication for campus users. The letter also states that UO has failed to take accountability for the COVID-19 cases off campus, as well as the lack of safety in the residence halls and dining halls.

The letter includes five demands for immediate attention from the Oregon government, as well as Eugene and Springfield officials.

These demands include safer experiences for residence hall employees such as PPE, hazard pay, vaccination priority and using current COVID-19 case amounts to establish boundaries from a rising campus population.

The letter also demands consequences for large student gatherings and heightened accountability and transparency from the UO administration — including disaggregated

data from MAP testing, PPE availability and protocol. Lastly, the letter floated a potential policy requiring vaccines for public universities.

Rhiannon Lindgren, the GTFF vice president of organization, said that this has been an issue for a while, citing a press conference last fall about UO simply tracking cases, not minimizing them.

“We want people to recognize that the UO has the power and the capacity and the money to provide much better protections and mitigation strategies for COVID,” Lindgren said. “And why are they not doing so?”

For Lindgren, transparency is the real issue at stake.

Wanting to know the plan for mitigating COVID-19 cases, as well as locations of higher density cases as well as how many cases in Lane County are coming from UO. In response to these claims, UO spokesperson Saul Hubbard said that the UO Monitoring and Assessment Program has had a robust effect in mitigating COVID-19 spread on campus.

Additionally, with the MAP testing, Hubbard said that the weekly testing for students in residence housing catches positive cases quickly and allows for students to be moved to isolation housing. Hubbard said that UO was anticipating a spike in cases at the beginning of winter term after the holiday break.

The statement did not mention anything about offcampus students.

Rachel Hampton, then-VP of operations at GTFF, uses a sign as her voice. Following the vote to authorize a strike, the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation holds a rally to demand a fair contract at Johnson Hall on Oct. 18, 2019. (Marissa Willke/Emerald)

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The Daily Emerald is joining more than 20 student-run newsrooms for a nationwide fundraising competition.

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OPINION

STUDENTS NEED MORE ROBUST MENTAL HEALTH TRAINING

UO first-years should receive a mental health talk just like they do with the sex-ed program, Get Explicit.

BY BELLA ZUROWSKI (Eleanor Klock/Emerald)

College is a wonderful experience that brings adventure, joy and excitement. But it’s also a huge transition into adulthood that can bring uncertainty, exhaustion and fear. Students are met with change left and right, and that can result in some difficult emotions. The stresses of college can exacerbate and magnify the struggles of those with previous mental health problems as well as bring out mental health issues in students who have never dealt with them before.

Nonetheless, talking about mental health is stigmatized in a way other health issues aren’t. Students are told what to do and where to go if they break their ankle, get pink eye or contract the flu. It’s expected that a student will get a cold and need to go to the health clinic. They are prepared to get physically ill and have all the resources to get better. But students aren’t told that they might experience waves of depression or a panic attack. They aren’t told that experiencing insomnia or feeling emotionally exhausted is a very common experience in college.

This lack of dialogue regarding mental health is detrimental to students’ well being. The stigma around mental health struggles is one of the biggest factors that prevents people from getting help. In reality, if a student doesn’t struggle with mental health issues, they at least know someone who does.

Research supports this. A 2011 study found that 66% of all college students report exposure to trauma and 9% have post-traumatic stress disorder. A 2012 survey by the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors found that about 41% of college students have anxiety and about 36% experience depression.

The association also reported that 21% of students experience severe mental health concerns and another 40% have mild mental health concerns.

Over the past year, we have seen how UO prepares for potential widespread physical illness. The UO took preventative steps, mandated mask-wearing, set up testing centers, made treatment widely available and communicated about COVID-19 constantly with the student body. If a student contracted COVID-19, they were never supposed to bear the burden in solitude and silence. The same thing

needs to happen with mental health struggles.

Get Explicit is a great program that helps prepare students for healthy relationships and normalize talking about consent. It helps students to become comfortable talking about boundaries and educates new students on the facts surrounding sexual assault. A plethora of resources are discussed and shared. That’s exactly what UO needs to do with mental health.

First-year and transfer students should be given a mandatory mental health talk as part of their orientation. Students should be made aware of the mood swings and struggles that can come with college and normalize the array of emotions that students will likely feel. There should be an entire discussion about the resources that are available for when strong emotions arise. Knowing there is support when you are struggling is a huge part of recovery.

It’s vital that UO arms its students with resources to help themselves and their friends so they can have the healthiest and happiest college career possible.

Bella Zurowski is an opinion columnist at the Emerald.

She writes about body image, sex and relationships, and how to tackle the challenging parts of college. Follow her Twitter @bellazurowski

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COVER

TY THOMPSON AND THE N HIS FOOTBALL CAREER Coming back from 2 scores down in the state championship is not an easy task, but Thompson pulled it off.

BY KAI KANZER

(Courtesy of Ty Thompson)

Down 14 heading into the fourth quarter is never an ideal situation, let alone in the state championship.

Quarterback Ty Thompson, former Arizona player of the year and two-time state champion, will tell you that he lives for moments like these.

Thompson lives to defy odds, come back and win.

On the opening possession in the fourth, Thompson drove down the field and cut the deficit to seven, powering his way into the endzone on a threeyard QB draw. Despite trailing in the final minutes against a team with only three losses, Thompson had full faith in himself, his team and his coaches to grind out a victory.

“I’ve come back and won 10 games in my career over the past two years,” Thompson said in an interview with the Emerald.

This wasn’t his first game with fourth-quarter magic. In his last seven playoff games, he had put together five game-winning drives.

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Winning a state championship is the dream of all high school athletes, but for Thompson it was a job.

With just 40 seconds remaining, Thompson lined up inside the five-yard line. With thousands of people in attendance, Thompson was locked in and the field was silent. He dropped back and delivered a strike to the endzone for six. Mesquite trailed, 38-37.

Mesquite went for the two-point conversion with the game on the line. As soon as the ball was snapped, a defensive lineman was all over Thompson. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his favorite target, receiver Eric Lira, open. Forced to throw off of his back foot, Thompson connected with Lira and sealed the game.

“It felt like I was out there playing youth football again,” Thompson said. “I was in full control and had the game in my hand. I knew what was coming before it was coming.”

That game wasn’t just won in the fourth quarter. It

was months in the making.

While other teams weren’t training over the offseason because their gyms and schools were closed due to the pandemic, Thompson rallied his team to be the best they could be, practicing wherever and whenever they could. His goals were nothing short of winning a second state title.

“Whether it was the back field at our school where no one could see us or parks five minutes down the road, we had to do what we had to do because they weren’t allowing us to practice,” Thompson said. “So I had to get the team together because I knew we needed to throw the ball around.”

Thompson is a natural-born leader. Those close to him describe him as an incredible athlete, teammate, student and person, both on and off the field. He is the type of person to work from sunup to sundown and make everyone around him better. He has a way of making people feel special and valuable.

COVER

NEXT STAGE OF

(Courtesy of Cory Cross)

“Ty was on an elite 7v7 team, and on that team, there were at least 10 power five division 1 athletes,” Ty’s father, Dirk Thompson, said.

On a team visit to UCLA, while the rest of the team was playing around with each other, Ty and his dad shared an intimate father-son moment.

“He picks up a football, and I just happen to be somewhere near him and he looked at me and flipped it to me and we started to play catch,” Thompson’s father said. “It warmed my heart because he could’ve chosen to play catch with any of those guys. I thought that was special… he made me feel special.”

To Thompson, his relationship with his father has always been important.

“He’s the person that I care about the most,” Thompson said. “He’s the one who pushed me so hard to get me this far and supported me so much that the least I could do was spend a little time and energy with him instead of some of these big named guys. It didn’t come to my mind to throw with anyone but my dad.”

Thompson’s presence and impact are felt wherever he goes, even if it’s unintended.

Being caring is something that is second nature to Thompson. It’s not hard to do, but it’s something that he does and will continue to do.

(Courtesy of Ty Thompson)

“My son was the ball boy when he was in sixth, seventh and eighth grade when Ty was here,” Ty’s high school coach, Scott Hare, said. “Ty made him feel really special and really important. It was something I didn’t expect him to do, he just did it on his own. It’s the little things that nobody sees or knows of. I don’t even think Ty knows to that degree, what kind of effect he has on the people around him.”

Peers describe Thompson as the type of individual who always strives to do the right thing at the right time. If he’s not the first one at practice and the last to leave, then he’s watching film or in the gym working out. His leadership by example shows others how dedicated he really is and motivates them to work just as hard.

“Ty is a very goal-oriented young man, who is going to really work to achieve his goals,” coach Hare said. “He’s a good-natured, genuine hard worker and that’s what people are going to look up to him for.”

The Arizona phenom signed with Oregon in March 2020, making him the first-ever five-star quarterback to sign with the Ducks.

Thompson is the top-rated player from the state of Arizona, according to ESPN, and the No. 2 ranked dual-threat quarterback in the nation, per Rivals.

With a resume like that, you’re going to receive

a ton of offers from schools all around the nation.

Thompson turned down almost 20 top-flight Division 1 schools, including the 2020 national champions LSU. But for Thompson, Oregon was the place to be.

“The atmosphere at Autzen on Saturdays is unmatched,” Thompson said. “We compete for the Pac-12 every year and we’re in a position to put ourselves in the conversation for college football playoffs. I think we’re going to be a special team for years to come.”

Before his family even left the tour, Thompson knew he wanted to go to Oregon.

“We went on a lot of visits,” Dirk Thompson said.

“But the culture at Oregon was palpable. You can just feel the energy when we went to Oregon. We went to that place and the energy was just second to none.”

“I love it, I’m having a blast,” Thompson said. “I love the guys, love the coaches, love everything we’re doing.”

Thompson finished his high school career with 9,891 passing yards and 100 touchdowns, while also rushing for 1,145 yards and 20 touchdowns.

Thompson is one of five quarterbacks in Oregon’s quarterback room. If Thompson is able to bring his disciplined work ethic and high skill level to Oregon, he will elevate the football program for years to come.

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SPORTS

ANTHONY HALL LOOKS TO

CEMENT HIS ROLE THIS SEASON

With lots still to prove, Anthony Hall turns to lessons of his past to guide him through obstacles in the present.

BY AARON HEISEN

Ducks outfielder Tanner Smith (31) is ready at home base for an incoming pitch from Seattle. Oregon Ducks baseball takes on the Seattle University RedHawks at PK Park in Eugene, Ore., on Feb. 28, 2021. (Ian Enger/Emerald)

The Oregon baseball team has shot out to an 11-6 record on the back of a deep roster. However, after 17 games, freshman outfielder Anthony Hall is still searching for a starting role, despite contributing as a pinch-hitter.

In 2020, Hall started 12 of the Ducks’ 14 games before the season was canceled, but this year he’s only appeared in the starting lineup seven times.

Hall is no stranger to overcoming obstacles.

During his junior year at Point Loma High School, he watched from the sideline as his teammates competed on the field. Missing the entire year after hurting his arm during the USA baseball tournament the summer before. The injury required Tommy John surgery and a full year of recovery.

“Anthony would show up in a brace and act as a coach,” Point Loma High School baseball coach Jeff Solis said. “If he couldn’t demonstrate a drill he would be talking to younger players.”

For high school baseball players, a successful junior year is crucial to attracting interest from college scouts, and Hall missed out on that opportunity. Although Hall couldn’t leave his mark on the field that year, his presence as a coach and a mentor for the younger players was invaluable.

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field helped Hall prepare for his return the following season. When he returned for his senior season, the center-fielder did not miss a beat as he led his school to a record 24 wins.

The accolades kept coming for Hall during his senior year. Even before schools regained interest in the centerfielder, he heard his name called at the major league level during the 2018 MLB draft.

“There wasn’t a ton of hope going into the draft,” Hall’s father, Tony, said. “On the third day my phone lit up and my friend said, ‘Your kid just got drafted.’”

The Atlanta Braves drafted Hall in the 35th round. He attended multiple prospect camps in Atlanta with their fellow draft picks before deciding that he would attend college rather than go straight to the MLB. Although Anthony chose to go an alternative route, being drafted was a culmination of all his perseverance.

“He’s been through a lot and came all the way back,” Tony said. “Just the fact that he got drafted was rewarding to us all.”

Once Hall decided to attend college the offers started to pile up. He determined that college was the right path late in his senior year. Therefore, by the time high school graduation came around, Hall had not committed to a school.

“Everything changed when Coach [Wasikowski] got hired at Oregon,” said Tony. “The phone rang and he

said, ‘You need to get up here.’”

Hall and his father made the trip up to Eugene the following week and on their flight back home Hall said, “Oregon checked all the boxes, and I feel like I belong here.”

Hall made an immediate impact on Oregon baseball as he hit the first home run of his college career during the team’s tournament in Hawaii just a week before the 2020 season was canceled due to COVID-19 concerns.

Hall has also become a role model for his former high school teammates who hope to play college baseball in the coming years.

“When the Ducks played UC Irvine, some of the seniors went up to watch the game to watch Anthony and congratulate him,” Coach Solis said.

His on-field achievements have inspired his teammates and helped Oregon win baseball games.

But it is his growth off the field that has made his dad proud.

“I really want him to understand what he’s capable of and where he fits in,” Tony said. “I want him to figure out who he is on the baseball field and off.”

As the Oregon baseball season progresses, Hall will continue to prove why he deserves that starting spot.

Even without a consistent role, his time at Oregon has helped him grow, both on the field and off of it.

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SPORTS

DEPAUL TO HIRE OREGON’S TONY STUBBLEFIELD AS HEAD COACH

BY CARLY EBISUYA • TWITTER @CARLYEBISUYA Oregon men’s basketball’s lead assistant coach is leaving to become head coach.

DePaul University is hiring Tony Stubblefield as its next head coach, the Chicago Sun-Times reported on Wednesday. He replaces former head coach Dave Leitao, who was released on March 15 after six seasons with the Blue Demons.

DePaul only has two winning seasons in the past 16 years and has not reached the NCAA Tournament since 2004.

In his 11 seasons with Oregon, Stubblefield helped build the program under Dana Altman. The Ducks made

(Emerald Archives)

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an NCAA Tournament appearance seven times under his tenure, including a trip to the Final Four in 2017.

Known for his prominent recruiting skills, Stubblefield helped recruit several five-star players over the years such as Payton Pritchard, Bol Bol, Troy Brown Jr. and more.

Before his role at Oregon, he spent four years serving as a recruiting coordinator for the University of Cincinnati from 2006 to 2010. Before that, he also spent six years as assistant coach at New Mexico State, with one year as interim head coach for Lou Henson.

This is the first coaching change under Altman’s staff in seven years.

A&C

IN DEFENSE OF ‘RIVERDALE’

Despite becoming the laughingstock of teen TV, “Riverdale” has a lot to offer.

BY JENNAH PENDLETON • TWITTER @JENNAHPEN

“Riverdale” by vagueonthehow is licensed under CC BY 2.0

“Riverdale” is the CW’s modern reimagining of the Archie comic franchise, and it is nothing short of a spectacle. Throughout its five seasons, the show targeted at teens has indelicately stumbled its way through a staggering number of plotlines involving serial killers, gangs, cults, gay conversion camps, incest, mobs, student-teacher “romances” and much, much more.

Despite premiering to positive critical review, the show has not only declined in popularity, but it has become decidedly infamous for its nonsensical dialogue and plot. By now, it has become a laughing stock, and a quick Google search of “Riverdale cringe” will prove it. But those who see these out-of-context clips and think the show is bad are not in on the joke: “Riverdale” is peak camp.

To some, it may be blasphemous to consider a CW Network TV show targeted at teenagers as camp. Many would say that “Riverdale” isn’t camp at all, that it just failed to achieve its highly aspirational goal of revealing the dark underbelly of the wholesome American culture that the original Archie comics portrayed.

While I am no expert on camp, “Riverdale” does demonstrate some of the key aspects of camp as described in Susan Sontag’s near-definitive essay on the topic, “Notes on Camp.” When viewed this way, “Riverdale” is no longer seen as a failure, but as successful in its goal to relish in its own excesses and

to have fun along the way.

Over the course of its five seasons, it has become the object of ridicule among the very audience it targets. Clips from the show demonstrating its cringe-inducing dialogue (see: Jughead’s “I’m a weirdo” speech or Archie’s remark about “the epic highs and lows of high school football”) have gone viral, inspiring endless tweets and TikToks bashing the show’s writing.

Now, it cannot be argued that these scenes are “good” in the sense that they challenge us or reflect on the human condition in the way that high art does, but this isn’t the goal of camp. “The whole point of camp is to dethrone the serious,” Sontag wrote. “Camp is playful, anti-serious.” The scenes are exceedingly effective in what they were written to do: to bask in the absurdity of a world in which teenagers that look like full-grown adults can simultaneously be worried about unmasking the local prolific serial killer and taking their SATs. Camp is also committed to lush and unusual aesthetics. “Camp taste turns its back on the goodbad axis of ordinary aesthetic judgement,” Sontag wrote. “Camp doesn’t reverse things. It doesn’t argue that the good is bad, or the bad is good. What it does is to offer for art and for life a different — or supplementary — set of standards.”

Almost no other teen television show has focused so highly on aesthetics (with the exception of “Twin Peaks,” the David Lynch show that undoubtedly highly influenced “Riverdale”), a key feature of camp.

If “Riverdale” excels in any way to a viewer who does not appreciate the conventions of teen television, it is in its visuals. Through costuming, set design and cinematography, “Riverdale” manages to achieve a modern, but preternatural look: a landscape in which time itself is ambiguous. In “Riverdale,” the cars, restaurants, uniforms and gangs are straight out of the ‘50s, while the neon lighting is decidedly ‘80s and the plotlines are modern but influenced by the neonoir film genre. This devotion to aesthetics is a key element of camp.

This argument is not to say because “Riverdale” is camp, “Riverdale” is good. But I do hope to highlight how the show’s more absurd traits can be evaluated under an alternate framework. “Riverdale’s” outrageous reflection of American life is not only deliciously fun, but feels liberating in the era in which all television attempts to be “prestige TV.” “Riverdale” haters can have their gritty, slow-burning dramas, but I will sit down every week to watch a colorful catastrophe of the hottest people I’ve ever seen saying the dumbest things I’ve ever heard, and I will love it every single time.

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A&C

COMMON KOI’S TRIUMPHANT RETURN After a pandemic year full of reflection, solo projects and song writing, the Eugene band is back and stronger than ever.

BY EMERSON BRADY

Common Koi plans to release new music in 2021. Local Eugene band Common Koi is one of the only bands to play a livestream show in the University of Oregon’s EMU Ballroom during the 2020-2021 school year. (Ian Enger/ Emerald)

“THE WAY THE ENGINEER AND EVERYBODY KIND OF TREATED US IT FELT LIKE WE WERE A REAL BAND – LIKE WE WERE MEANT TO BE THERE. WE WEREN’T JUST SOME KIDS OVER OUR HEADS ANYMORE.” STEPHEN STRONG

Common Koi drummer

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Eugene rock band Common Koi is kicking the dust off its shoes. After months of forced time apart due to the pandemic, the band has reunited, recorded a new song professionally and played its first virtual show in February. Common Koi has maintained the ambitious and excited energy it so clearly captured in its premiere last fall, but it’s impossible for a band to not change after a pandemic-induced separation. It’s been a year of reflection, solo projects and songwriting, and Common Koi is back but different — and that’s a good thing.

Common Koi launched into the Eugene music scene in the fall of 2019.

Its story makes forming a band seem effortless. The four members are all from various locations in Oregon and Northern California and met at the University of Oregon. Frontman Skyler Coy asked now-drummer Stephen Strong if he wanted to start a band. At the time, Coy and Strong were hardly acquaintances, but Strong was stoked.

He got his roommate, Jack Keith, involved, and a couple of weeks later they found Kira Gelbaugh at a hip hop ensemble. They wrote their first song, “Cloud,” the same night Gelbaugh joined.

The group romantically reminisces about its first two weeks together as a band. “I had never been with a band where everyone’s talent came together so quickly,” Gelbaugh said.

The band’s excitement created a quick turnaround period, and a couple of months after its inception Common Koi played its first show in front of “at least 200 people,” Coy said. Common Koi also credits this quick turnaround period to the immense support from local bands like Laundry and Novacane.

Common Koi’s process has shifted since it’s early days. Initially, “when we got together our songs came together in one practice, and then the song would exist,” Coy said. “We were focused on pure energy and vibes.

The lyrics didn’t have to make sense.

We were just so goddamn hyped to be playing.”

During COVID-19, there’s not as much pressure to create a 45-minute set in one week for a crowd of hundreds. As artistically frustrating as a pandemic is, it aged Common Koi faster than a typical band.

“Now things have kind of become a little more methodical, they’ve slowed down a little bit,” Coy said. The group used to write a song in a day, but “now

we spend months on songs,” he said.

“You know, it is through a very slow process where I come to them all excited like, ‘I wrote one more line, guys!’”

The band’s lengthier and more collaborative songwriting process is reflected in its newer music. Its recent song “Off my Mind” isn’t the typical run-of-the-mill mosh song one might expect at a house show.

The song doesn’t abandon indie rock entirely, but certainly peppers in blues guitar with a little bit of edge. The varying musical influences are gelled together in a way that presents variety without being distracting. Common Koi’s music reflects the wide array of talent and influence coming from each member of the band.

Drummer Strong is drawn to hip hop and beats of his own on Soundcloud. Gelbaugh’s been playing bass for ten years and has dabbled in most genres. Coy started out playing guitar to get girls and ended up falling in love with blues. Keith was a jazz band kid but gravitates towards indie rock now.

“I mean, personally, that’s my favorite part about this band. Our best songs are just perfectly all of our tastes, which are so incredibly different,” Keith said.

Common Koi’s focus on authenticity in creating music has gained the band enough traction to be recognized by an advertiser that wanted to use its music in a project. This past year, Common Koi booked it to Oakland to record in 25th Street Studio, one of the nicest studios on the West Coast.

“The way the engineer and everybody kind of treated us it felt like we were a real band — like we were meant to be there,” Strong said. “We weren’t just some kids over our heads anymore.”

Common Koi played shows for hundreds and earned its place in a big studio all within the span of a year — a year half spent isolating in a global pandemic. When asked where they see themselves in five years, the band members agreed on touring across America and playing on the biggest stages they can get.

But ultimately, “as long as we’re writing and playing music that we enjoy, that’s kind of the essential factor for me,” Coy said.

Emerson Brady is a sophomore studying journalism at UO and is a freelancer for the Emerald.

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