July 2024 ~
From the looks of Mary Officer Christianson’s (Madison, 1973) bio on the PIL Hall of Fame website one might surmise that whoever wrote it thought they were being charged by the word. If not that, could it be possible Christianson was in a witness protection program at the time of her induction in 2003?
In the two decades between her induction and this profile, the space typically filled with a high school photo was occupied by a graphic announcing, “Photo Not Yet Available." And Christianson’s list of honors is all of one sentence long.
Sure, many of those came her senior year, when she claimed three track-and-field state titles. But that wasn’t her only year. Yet no mention of her PIL championships in the 100-meter hurdles and long jump as a sophomore? Not a hint about her again being PIL champ in both those events plus the 220-yard dash as a junior and senior? Nothing about Christianson playing basketball and volleyball and, in her final year, being the first female ever named Madison’s Athlete of the Year?
All this said, in conversation with Christianson one might also surmise she may bear some responsibility for the economy of words deployed on her behalf all those years ago. Exhibit A: At one point she describes her skills in the hurdles, the event she won all those PIL titles and a state championship in, as “not that great.” Exhibit B: Near the very end of the conversation, Christianson casually mentions she’s also a member of the University of Oregon Sports Hall of Fame almost as an oh-yeah-I-almost-forgot-about-this sort of thing.
Since it’s clear Christianson wasn’t majoring in self-promotion at the UO, here’s a little help:
She says she got her start in sports being “dragged to Little League games” to watch her older brother, Jim, sharpen the tools that would help him star at Madison in the late 60s, pitch six years in the California Angels minor league system and earn his own place in the PIL Hall.
“My family ran the snow cone machine at Little League games, so that’s what I did,” she says. “I also played basketball in grade school. I’m so old that I played when you had separate offensive and defensive teams, so you never crossed the center line.”
When field days came around, Christianson always found herself competing in running events, so that became her focus once she entered Madison. As a freshman, she ran on the Madison relay team that made it to state (“We didn’t do very well.”), but it would be another year before she tried the hurdles.
While Christianson excelled in the event in PIL meets her first two years, she faced stiffer competition once she got to state. Still, she finished third in the hurdles in both her sophomore and junior years. “There was a girl named Heidi Davidson from Churchill who was really good and another hurdler, from Sunset, Jo Rasmussen, who would place second to Heidi. By the time I was a senior, Heidi had graduated and everybody expected Jo to win. But I did.”
Christianson’s other wins at the 1973 state championships, where she scored all of Madison’s points, came in the 200-yard dash and long jump.
Earlier that year, Christianson had helped the Madison volleyball team win the PIL championship in the first year the sport was officially sanctioned. Prior to that, both volleyball and basketball, which Christianson also played, were club sports at the high school level.
“I guess I would have been considered a jock,” she understates. “When I wasn’t playing, I was doing a lot of work for the Madison athletic department. I sold tickets to events, videotaped games, sold concessions. I’d even get in a car and go pick up uniforms. I just really enjoyed being around sports.”
Ironically, it was her love of just being around sports more than her accomplishments in them that led Christianson to the UO track team. During the spring of her senior year, she was in Eugene to watch brother Jim play baseball for the Ducks at the old Howe Field, then located a stone’s throw from Hayward Field.
“There happened to be a track meet going on at the same time, so I left the game to watch the meet instead of the game,” she says. “As I watched the competition I remember thinking, Well, this would be great.”
Christianson enrolled at the UO, whose women’s program was a long way from the powerhouse it is today, then waited for track season to come around.
“It was just like high school,” Christianson remembers. “In February, anyone who was interested in joining the women’s team was invited to show up, and pretty much anyone who showed up was on the team.”
Most of the Ducks’ competition was regional, she says, with the Ducks taking on the likes of Washington and Washington State but rarely competing nationally. However, when they did, she did well. Or her in words, “I had pretty good success for my talent level.”
While Christianson says simply that the Ducks’ women’s program was starting to turn the corner about the time she completed her eligibility, the bio that accompanies her listing in the UO Hall of Fame, which she entered in 1993, credits her for helping kickstart that process. It reads:
“She is considered the pioneer for what has ultimately become one of Oregon’s strongest athletic programs. Proficient in a number of events, she was the Ducks’ highest finisher in the first official national track and field championship for women in 1975, leading the team to a ninth-place standing. At one time, she held school records in six events and her marks were still among Oregon’s best years later. She was second in the AIAW pentathlon as a junior and fifth in the 100 hurdles and anchored the sprint relay team to fourth in her senior year.”
As for life after college, Christianson, somewhat predictably, describes it as “pretty boring.” She worked for the telephone company for 15 years before turning to full-time parenting. She met her husband, Jim, when he was playing softball with the other Jim in her life, her brother. (She also has an older sister and younger brother.)
Married 38 years, they raised three children, Hanna, 32, Joseph, 34, and Nicole, who died tragically two years ago from a traumatic injury suffered in a fall. She would have been 36 in 2024. “It’s something I live with every day,” Christianson says.
She now lives a couple dozen blocks from her childhood home and spends much of her time co-parenting Nicole and her son-in-law’s 9-year-old while also enjoying her two other grandchildren whenever she can. Which in the case of the 6-month-old grandson she’s been watching four days a week lately, is a lot.
“I’m pretty much exhausted all the time,” she laughs. “But it’s a joy to be with my grandkids.”
Though she says she played sports because she loved them and not for any glory, Christianson also speaks with pride about the honors that have come as a result, starting with the Madison Athlete of the Year award, which had gone to her older brother four years earlier. “It’s one of my greatest achievements,” she says.
As for her inductions into the UO and PIL halls of fame, Christianson says both were completely unexpected, a response that was, of course, completely expected.
Do you know Mary Officer Christianson? If you’d like to reconnect, she can be reached at [email protected]
Photo Note: Click on a photo to see its caption.
~ Profile written by Dick Baltus (Wilson, 1973)
CyberMuseum bio: