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Canzano: Jim Bartko's journey back to the University of Oregon feels like a mission

It was just before kickoff, and Phil Knight slipped into the men's restroom at Davis Wade Stadium in Mississippi. I passed him on my way out. This was August 2003, and the Oregon Ducks were suited up for nationally televised game against Mississippi State wearing those unforgettable highlighter-yellow uniforms.

Jim Bartko was waiting outside the bathroom for Knight. This is not only where I met Bartko, then Oregon's Deputy Director of Athletics, for the first time, but also, where I badly misjudged him as some kind of fundraising bootlicker.

Bartko waited for Knight, and made small talk with me.