The Barometer Online

Issue date: 2/10/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Cory Reed Members of the Oregon State men's crew team cheer for the No. 10 gymnastics team in their meet against Arkansas and California. The crew team paints letters across their chests at each meet and support all of Oregon State's teams.

The men's crew team at Oregon State has developed their own special way of combining recyclables and fan enthusiasm at other school sporting events.

Men's rowing team captain, Ian George, was coming in from fall practice with his squad during last football season when the topic of upcoming home football games came up.

That was the day he coined the idea of a "chainsaw" chant for the football games. He had hopes that it would become a stadium-wide activity to go along with the classic Reser Stadium sound effects.

Reser is the only Division I football facility in the country where fans hear the roaring of a chainsaw at every home game. Before the Beavers take the snap on critical downs, the sound is played throughout the stadium, while chainsaw graphics flash across the "Dam Cam." The crowd pumping noise resembles a chainsaw being started. This has been used as a form of amusement for the fans at Reser as well as a way to create support for the players on the field. All the crowd is expected to do is cheer loud during that play, but no form of synchronized cheering or chanting had ever been established - until now.

"It's not everywhere that you can hear something like the chainsaw," George said. "It just seems like people would have already started doing something like this."

During the Beaver's football victory over Southern California last fall, members of the crew squad (who were in the stands) decided to put more enthusiasm into the chainsaw tradition by adding their chant along with it. From that day forward, they made an effort at every game to bring as many fans into the chant as they could.

Not long after the original plan of just chanting "chainsaw," senior Campbell Woods and his friends noticed something peculiar across the stadium during the Civil War at Corvallis.

Continued...

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