CORVALLIS — As the sun set over the Oregon Coast Range on a cool Saturday evening, the rattle of an oxygen machine reverberated against the walls of room 452 at Quail Run Assisted Living in Albany.
Two bouts of pneumonia in the last six months have made the oxygen a necessity when Marjorie Marsh sleeps, pumping from one of seven tanks through a tube that runs across the carpeted floor to her bed.
The remainder of the room operates as an ongoing shrine to all things Oregon State basketball – blankets, photo collages, slippers and more. A pair of orange and black headphones rest on the slatted wood television table next to her armchair. The facility does not get the Pac-12 Network, so she leaves the radio set on 1240 AM for games when the team is on the road.
Marjorie Marsh turned 100 years old last September, one year after becoming a great-great grandmother. She has attended nearly every conference game at Gill Coliseum for almost four decades and integrated herself into the fabric of the program through its most intense peaks and valleys.
The ups and downs of the last two seasons have been as stark as ever. OSU ended its lengthy streak of NCAA Tournament absences last season, only to suffer through a season in which little has gone right.
But through every game, Marsh continues to find her spot near the bench, providing unconditional support rarely matched in the results-dependent sports world.
“My mother taught me to say, ‘I don’t love what you’re doing, but I love you just the same,'” she said Saturday. “And that’s the way I am with the boys here. Some days they don’t do as good as they could. But I love them just the same.”
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Armed with a dedicated staff frequently checking on Marsh, the Quail Run facility has been a godsend for the last three years, the family says. It is also a place of persistent loss.
On the night she left to see the Beavers host Cal on Jan. 21, donning an orange vest she crocheted years ago, she picked up a cheese sandwich to go and moved past a table near the building’s front entrance. It featured a sign memorializing 91-year-old Leora Draper, who had passed away four days earlier, flanked by a single candle on one side and white gardenias on the other.
Marsh witnessed both Gary Payton and Gary Payton II play at Oregon State, the latter of whom signed a picture that sits in her room.Danny Moran/Staff
The losses make developing long-lasting friendships a challenge. Instead, many have been formed at Gill Coliseum with trainers, ball boys and security guards, who have received coasters and other orange-and-black trinkets done by needlepoint.
Gill Coliseum has long provided a venue for Marsh to carry on in the face of grief.
A Missouri native raised in North Dakota, Marsh moved out west with her family and husband, Lee, in the early 1930s. She and Lee became saw filers in Seattle, Roseburg and Corvallis, opening their own shop in each of the two Oregon cities during the high points of the state timber industry.
A customer once took his saws away at the thought of a woman repairing them, while many more marveled at her skill. Her path changed when she nearly lost the ability to walk when she contracted polio at 33 years old, which led to her spending significant time in an iron lung.
Marsh recovered but never returned to work. It was when her four children reached high school that Oregon State basketball became a staple. But the games took on a new meaning in 1988 when Lee Marsh died unexpectedly of a heart attack at the age of 72.
To cope with her husband’s sudden passing, Marsh became a house mother at the Alpha Gamma Roh fraternity at Oregon State. She intended to stay one year to help move past her loss, yet continued for 10.
Perhaps the most common unifier of countless relationships spanning 60 years was basketball.
It has been nearly 20 years since her time as a house mother stopped, yet those cross-generational relationships continue.
On game nights, her granddaughter, Jody Eaton, arrives roughly two hours before tipoff in a silver Dodge Grand Caravan installed with a wheelchair ramp. She and Marsh need to get to the arena 90 minutes early or risk losing out on one of the few handicapped parking spaces in front.
As a bevy of 8 p.m. tipoffs have rankled fans, Marsh has become only more resolved to still attend.
“I’ve got time to sleep — any time,” Ray Marsh, 78, recalled his mother saying. “But there will be a time that I won’t be able to go to a game.”
Early this season, a panic-stricken longtime team manager hustled across the Gill Coliseum floor. It was Johnathon Hoover, who saw an empty space in the wheelchair accessible seating area near the Beavers’ bench.
“Where’s Grandma?” he asked frantically.
Johnathan Hoover (right) meets with Marjorie Marsh before every Oregon State home game.Photo courtesy of Jody Eaton
Born with cerebral palsy, Hoover found himself in the same seating area as “Grandma” when he first started coming to games in 2010 as a student at Linn-Benton College. “Grandma” is Marsh, who struck up a friendship with Hoover by asking about his life, friendship with Roberto Nelson and even about intricacies of the team’s defensive strategy.
“She said she just loved the Beavers and she’s always going to be here,” he said. “I said, ‘All right, I’ll be here, too.'”
Before every home game, when OSU takes the floor for the final time before tipoff, Hoover finds Marsh so that the two have time to catch up. After not seeing her, he was soon relieved to hear from Marsh’s granddaughter that she was OK, only sitting out a game to battle an illness.
“When she came back, it warmed my heart,” Hoover said. “Just hearing her voice is always good enough for me.”
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While rare, it is not unheard of for Division I programs to go from the NCAA Tournament one season to a single-digit win total the next, a fate now likely to befall OSU. Recently it happened to North Carolina and Penn State in the early 2000s, Indiana and Oregon in the late 2000s.
But rarely has there been such a rapid high and low like what Oregon State basketball has gone through in the past year. The Beavers snapped a 25-year drought last season, the second-longest among major college programs and an absence that lasted six full-time coaches and one interim.
Marsh and Eaton must get to each Oregon State game roughly 90 minutes before tipoff to park in one of the handicap spots outside Gill Coliseum.Danny Moran/Staff
Marsh got a close-up view of each one. She saw the high points of the program under Ralph Miller in the 1980s, when her favorite players included A.C Green, Ray Blume and Steve Johnson. The Beavers piled up wins, but she recoiled at the name-calling she witnessed from the brusque coach who is now immortalized on the Gill Coliseum court.
“I think they played out of fear more than anything,” she said.
The first coach she got to know personally was Jim Anderson, a longtime Miller assistant who took over in 1989. As tipoff neared when the Beavers hosted Cal, Anderson greeted Marsh courtside with a hug and kiss.
“Loyalty — that’s the greatest thing about her,” Anderson said. “Loyalty is the greatest thing about Oregon State, to be honest with you.”
Even as losing seasons piled up, her report remained steadfast. Marsh developed a close relationship with Craig Robinson during his six seasons in Corvallis from 2008-14 and respected the way he treated players.
“But he wasn’t a coach,” she said with a smile.
The latest in the line of coaches has been Wayne Tinkle, who greets Marsh at her courtside seat before every home game, wrapping both hands around one of hers and letting her know how glad he is she has arrived again.
Last season, the family had questions about Marsh’s health. She takes enzymes to treat pancreatic cancer and deals with macular degeneration in one eye.
Ray Marsh’s season tickets were moved from the lower bowl to upper portion of the arena. It left a bad taste, and he hasn’t “gotten it all spit out yet,” attending only one game this season.
Word that it could be Marjorie Marsh’s last season filtered to the head coach, who presented her with flowers before a final home game. Tinkle leaned over as he presented the flowers.
“Something’s telling me this isn’t going to be your last year at our games,” he whispered.
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As OSU played Cal, Marsh spent her initial minutes in the arena watching Tres Tinkle shoot one-handed, as a cast still covered his broken right wrist. She was soon blunt in her assessment of the Beavers.
“They’re going to lose tonight. I’m sure,” she said. “But they’re going to try hard. … They take it to heart.”
Wayne Tinkle (right) greets Marjorie Marsh before the Beavers’ game against USC on Dec. 28. “We love her loyal support,” Tinkle said.Scobel Wiggins/Oregon State Athletics
Marsh is not without her critical views of the team. She was “disgusted” after the team lost to Stanford on Jan. 19, mustering only 46 points as Drew Eubanks battled through a deep thigh bruise. Their losing streak has since increased to 11 games and they have lost 20 for the eighth time in program history.
But character has been a redeeming factor that she can see up close, noting body language throughout the bench as the Beavers sift through one of their most challenging seasons ever.
Marsh was afraid last year amid her son’s season-ticket issue. She thought it could mean the end of her own streak of games, until he arrived at Quail Run one day with tickets in hand. Now she tells Ray that whatever bad taste he has with his season-ticket situation, he must spit it out by next fall.
“Next year, it’s going to be a really good team,” she said.
At 100 years old, Marsh is already looking forward to next season. She envisions the time when Tres Tinkle’s wrist is no longer confined to a cast, the roster around him has improved with experience and she can keep her word to Hoover that she would always be there.
“I’m a very optimistic person. And think that’s one reason why I’ve lived so long,” she said. “There’s going to be a better tomorrow.”
— Danny Moran
dmoran@oregonian.com
@DannyJMoran
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