By Chris Petersen
Title: Tom Gabel Collection of Oregon State Athletics Photographs, 1916-2000
Predominant Dates: 1927-1995
ID: P 336
Primary Creator: Gabel, Thomas R. (1948-)
Extent: 0.3 cubic feet. More info below.
Arrangement: The Tom Gabel Collection of Oregon State Athletics Photographs are arranged into five series: 1. Baseball, 1939-1976; 2. Basketball, 1927-1995; 3. Football, 1916-2000; 4. Track and Field, 1927-1975; and 5. Assorted Athletics, 1931-1964. The collection's prints are arranged chronologically within each series.
Date Acquired: 00/00/2017
Languages of Materials: English [eng]
The Tom Gabel Collection of Oregon State Athletics Photographs consist primarily of black and white images documenting football and basketball at Oregon Agricultural College, Oregon State College, and Oregon State University. The collection likewise contains documentation of Oregon State baseball, track and field, and rowing, as well as a handful of photographs of Athletic Department staff and Oregon State alumna Jean Saubert, who claimed silver and bronze medals in downhill skiing events at the 1964 Winter Olympics.
More than three-quarters of the collection is devoted to Oregon State football and basketball, and the majority of the images in each series are portraits of athletes or coaches formally posing or re-enacting game play for the camera. The collection also includes journalistic imagery from actual games. Notable figures depicted in the collection include Heisman Trophy winner Terry Baker, OSU basketball greats Mel Counts, Steve Johnson, Charlie Sitton, and Gary Payton, high jumper Dick Fosbury, and famed Oregon State coaches Slats Gill, Tommy Prothro and Ralph Miller.
Nearly all of the photographs were taken by news services and many are heavily annotated. Attribution information as well as the text of the original annotations have been included on the item level within this finding aid. A small number of color photographs are available in the collection. The photographs were compiled and donated by collector Tom Gabel.
Intercollegiate athletics have been a component of campus life at Oregon State University and its antecedents since the school's football team kicked off for the first time in November 1893. In well over a century of competition since, university teams have claimed national championships in cross country (1961) and baseball (2006, 2007 and 2018), and individuals have won national titles in crew, gymnastics, golf, track and field, and wrestling.
In addition to football (1893), the sports depicted in this finding aid trace their Oregon State origins to the following years: baseball (1907), basketball (1901), rowing (1926), and track and field (1895). Roseburg native and Olympian Jean Saubert (1942-2007), who claimed two medals in skiing events at the 1964 Innsbruck games, completed her OSU degree in education in 1966.
Oregon native Tom Gabel has collected sports-related photographs for many years. The photos described in this collection were once held by the Oregonian newspaper as a component of their sports archive. When a private company acquired the archive, Gabel subsequently purchased photographs related to OSU and University of Oregon athletics, as well as the Portland Buckaroos (ice hockey), Portland Beavers (baseball), Portland Trailblazers (basketball) and other images related to sporting endeavors in the state of Oregon.
More Extent Information: 1 box containing 284 photographs
Statement on Access: Collection is open for research.
Acquisition Note: The collection was donated to the Special Collections and Archives Research Center by Tom Gabel in 2017.
Related Materials:
The Special Collections and Archives Research Center's holdings include a great many photograph collections documenting athletics at Oregon State. These collections include the Baseball Photographs (P 007), the Basketball Photographs (P 006), the Football Photograph Collection (P 004), the Intercollegiate Athletics Photographic Collection (P 031), the Rowing (Crew) Photograph Collection (P 015), the Track and Field Photograph Collection (P 010), the Women's Athletics Photographic Collection (P 009), and the Women's Recreation Association Photographic Collection (P 171). Harriet's Photograph Collection (P HC), the Beaver Yearbook Photographs (P 003), and the Richard W. Gilkey Photographs (P 252) are also rich sources of imagery for reseachers interested in the history of Oregon State athletics.
Components of several relevant archival collections have been digitized into the OSU Athletics set, which is available online via Oregon Digital. Digitized copies of OSU's Sports Media Guides are also available online.
Preferred Citation: Tom Gabel Collection of Oregon State Athletics Photographs (P 336), Special Collections and Archives Research Center, Oregon State University Libraries.
Processing Information:
We acknowledge that materials in SCARC collections and the language that describes them may be harmful. We are actively working to address our descriptive practices; for more information please see our SCARC Anti-Racist Actions Statement online.
The archivist-prepared description of this collection uses the phrase “Civil War” to refer to the long-standing athletic rivalry between Oregon State University and the University of Oregon. A history of this athletic rivalry, and use of the phrase “Civil War” to describe it, is available online in The Origins of the "Civil War" Football Game blog post.
In June 2020, Oregon State University President Edward J. Ray announced that the term “Civil War” will no longer be used by either university because it “represents a connection to a war fought to perpetuate slavery.”
We acknowledge the racism represented by the use of this phrase and the harm it may cause our users. In order to provide historical context and to enable standardized searching and access across our collections, we have retained the use of this phrase in the collection description.
[Date of acknowledgement: November 2021]
Gabel, Thomas R. (1948-)
Associated Students of Oregon State College
Ball Studio
Baker, Terry, 1941-
Baseball players--Oregon--Corvallis.
Basketball players--Oregon--Corvallis.
Coleman, Ralph O.
College sports--Oregon--Corvallis.
Corvallis (Or.)
Football coaches--Oregon--Corvallis.
Football players--Oregon--Corvallis.
Miller, Ralph, 1919-2001.
Oregon Agricultural College--Baseball.
Oregon Agricultural College--Basketball.
Oregon Agricultural College--Football.
Oregon State College--Baseball.
Oregon State College--Basketball.
Oregon State College--Football.
Oregon State College--Rowing.
Oregon State College--Track and field.
Oregon State University--Baseball.
Oregon State University--Basketball.
Oregon State University--Football.
Oregon State University--Sports.
Oregon State University--Track and field.
Oregon State University. Athletics.
Payton, Gary, 1968-
Prothro, Tommy
Rowing--Oregon--Corvallis.
Track and field athletes--Oregon--Corvallis.
Track and field coaches--Oregon.
University History
Photographic prints.