Rose Bowl will Determine The National Championship, Making Pasadena College Football's Crown City

MONROE, Ore. — This is more than a story about a state, two universities and a town divided.

It's also about a coffee shop divided.

The Chat-N-Chew restaurant in Monroe, population 480, is situated off Highway 99W, smack-dab between Eugene and Corvallis.

Monroe?

Think of Mayberry with a lumber industry.

From her hub at the Chat-N-Chew, owner Von Buss can peek through window blinds and keep tabs on town affairs.

"The bank gets robbed about once a year," Buss says as she motions across the street to Klamath First Federal. "We all watched it last year. When we see a guy with a mask come through Monroe, we know something is going on.

"The last robber was from Springfield."

Dramatic pause.

"Probably a Duck fan."

The remark cannot go unchallenged.

Jim Kohl peers up from his cup of coffee. The retired Monroe High principal is honest-to-gawd seated on the side of the restaurant closer to Eugene.

"Biggest news about Oregon State so far is, they have nobody in jail," Kohl deadpans.

It isn't even noon yet, and already plenty of breeze has been shot.

"It's more chat than chew," Buss confesses of her establishment.

For roughly 100 years, Oregon versus Oregon State was a local story, a timber tale, but no longer.

Monroe has become the battleground town in a "Civil War" that has gone national. Three million Oregonians have chosen sides, some of them sides of coffee shops, and for the first time in memory, people outside the state are eavesdropping on the conversation.

How far has it come?

In 1983, the schools played to a 0-0 tie in an odorous affair many consider to be the worst college football game ever contested.

In 2001, Oregon and Oregon State may be playing Dec. 1 for a spot in the national championship game at the Rose Bowl.

Both schools boast legitimate Heisman Trophy candidates--Oregon quarterback Joey Harrington and Oregon State tailback Ken Simonton.

Oregon has been picked to win the Pacific 10 Conference title for the first time . . . ever. Oregon State is tabbed to finish second.

The state is so football full-of-itself that Oregon Coach Mike Bellotti and Oregon State Coach Dennis Erickson both rejected offers to coach USC, one of college football's most storied programs.

Oregon has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into a promotional campaign, no move more audacious than paying $250,000 to plaster a 100-foot poster of Harrington on the side of a Manhattan building, not far from Heisman Trophy headquarters.