Civil War football game 2001 season. Ducks quarterback Joey Harrington takes a knee to run out the clock on his final snap in Autzen Stadium. Oregon wins 17-14, and has a date with the Fiesta Bowl, but Harrington realizes as he's leaving the field that he doesn't want the day to end.

"We're walking back up the tunnel and through my career I'd noticed that the band director made that 'O' symbol with his hands to signal to the band that he wanted them to play the fight song," Harrington said. "The crowd is loud, so you can't yell, 'Play the fight song!' so instead, he'd come up with the 'O' symbol and he'd give the symbol and the band would play the song."

Bruce Ely, photographer at The Oregonian, is on the field, too. In the initial minutes after the game Ely begins tracking Harrington. The Ducks senior quarterback hadn't had a particularly great game. Harrington was 11 of 22 passing for only 102 yards. He fumbled deep in Ducks territory in the final two minutes, leaving the door open for Oregon State. The Beavers threw an interception on the ensuing possession.

Ely pulled the negatives of the photographs he took in the minutes after the game.

"I remember Joey was yelling at me to get out of his way," Ely said. "You know how chaotic it always is at the end of those games. Fans are jumping in, I'm always trying to find the player who is most important at that time. And at that time, it's Joey. This is his last game. It was kind of like Marcus Mariota's last game. There's this scramble at the end, everyone is elbowing each other, it was pretty rough out there."

Harrington waded through the crowd he said, "I'm walking toward the tunnel for the last time and I had one of those nostalgic moments. I wanted to hear the fight song one more time."

Harrington stood in front of the band, which was playing another song.

"I made the 'O' signal," he said. "I wanted to hear it one more time."

The band stopped what it was playing, and immediately started playing the fight song --- Mighty Oregon.

Ely was in position, and captured the image. So did Eugene Register-Guard photographer Thomas Boyd, now with The Oregonian.

"I remember calling editors and telling them it would be a cool picture for the front page," Ely said. "It took off from there. I think Tom and I are the only two people that happened to be in position."

The photograph of Harrington making the 'O' signal ran on the front page of The Oregonian the following day. Harrington made the signal again at the Fiesta Bowl. In the last 13 years, players and fans have continued the signal, fashioning the 'O' with their hands. Nike gloves, and other swag and memorabilia, have been made printed with the 'O'. It's become a universal non-verbal rally cry for the university.

"Did I invent the 'O'?" Harrington said. "No. Was I the first player to use it in that fashion? Yes. But it's not for the purposes that everyone does it today."

Former Oregon Band Director Todd Zimbelman said, "It was hard to communicate. We had all these different hand signals. We used 'A' for 'All Right Now,' and 'O' for the fight song. When Joey ran over, he threw that up and we just kicked off the fight song."

Zimbelman served as the band director from 1999-2005. He's now the band director at West Salem High and said he believed the 'O' signal originated with Steven Paul, who was band director at UO from 1983-89. That's backed up by Phil Hodapp, a clarinet major who played in the Ducks band from 1979-81. Hodapp said the hand signal didn't appear until the Paul-led Oregon bands were playing.

"You can't hear a clarinet in a stadium, so I played saxophones or whatever they needed," said Hodapp, who happened to be sitting in the stadium as a spectator during the 2001 Civil War. "I was sitting right by the band that day. Joey came over, and made the sign and the band just stopped playing whatever it was playing and started the fight song."

The symbol turns 13 this week. It's a teenager. And even as the Oregon players and some fans don't know the origin, they raise two hands on game days, a symbol invented by a band director and thrust into program culture by Harrington.

Zimbelman said, "It didn't catch on until Joey started doing it. It became stadium-wide after that moment."

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