UO E-clips, March 20

Portland crowds snatch up tickets for Obama visit (The Oregonian): Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama hasn't arrived yet, but he's already drawing crowds and creating traffic jams. Lines for tickets to his Friday morning rally in Portland stretched around the block Wednesday afternoon outside a hastily assembled campaign headquarters on Southeast Division Street. Traffic backed up several blocks as hundreds of people sought a chance to hear the Illinois senator speak. ... Obama will speak at Memorial Coliseum in the morning, hold a town hall meeting at 1 p.m. in Salem and end the day in Eugene at a 9 p.m. University of Oregon rally.

Mean-spirited fans (The Indianapolis Star): Even in a nation where free speech is embraced as an ideal, it's difficult to accept the contention of some mean-spirited sports fans that their taunts, rants and obscenities at games are a form of free expression protected by the First Amendment. From college hockey games at the University of Maine to Big Ten basketball in Champaign-Urbana, to Pac-10 hoops at the University of Oregon, fans continue to cross the line of civility as they shout expletives at opposing players and even throw food at the families of opposing players.

Bank deal will mean more name dropping (Boston Globe): Call it the TD Something Garden. An otherwise routine name change for a sponsoring bank has again put the name of Boston's well-known sports and entertainment venue up in the air. Yesterday, TD Banknorth Inc. said it will change its name to TD Commerce Bank following its $8.5 billion purchase of a New Jersey institution, Commerce Bancorp Inc. ... But a small name tweak could prove costly, $1 million or more, just to change signs and graphics inside and outside the building, said Dennis Howard, a professor at the University of Oregon who studies the business of sports.

Note worthy man (Register-Guard): When most people think of a portrait, they imagine a painting or photograph -- something you can hang on the wall. But when Jay Bowerman wanted a portrait done of his late father, Oregon track icon and Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman, his mind turned first to music. Jay Bowerman, after all, is a musician himself. He plays stringed instruments in a bluegrass band called Quincy Street, which performs regularly in Bend. More to the point, his father had been a clarinet player as well as an athlete. Bill Bowerman was a man who so loved music that he gave almost three-quarters of a million dollars to the Oregon Bach Festival in 1993 alone.