The trio will be celebrated at the USC football game.

EUGENE, Ore. – The “Voice of the Ducks” and student-athletes from football and women’s soccer have been selected to receive the University of Oregon Athletic Department’s distinguished alumni awards, athletic director Rob Mullens announced Monday.

Jerry Allen, who has been announcing games on the Oregon Sports Network since 1985, is synonymous with “The Pick” – his enthusiastic call of Kenny Wheaton’s program-altering, 1994 interception against Washington. Allen is the recipient of the 2025 Order of the O honorarium.

Offensive lineman Michael DeLaGrange has been named the recipient of the 2025 Leo Harris Award, while soccer goalkeeper Sarah Peters has been chosen to receive the 2025 Becky L. Sisley Award.

Both Allen and DeLaGrange are from Grants Pass, Ore., while Peters is from Woodinville, Wash.

Ceremonies for the three awards will be held in conjunction with the Nov. 22 USC football game.

Leo Harris Award

The Alumni Athletic Award was originated in 1967 by the late Leo Harris, former UO director of athletics, and his family and was later renamed the Leo Harris Award in his honor. It is presented to an alumni letterman on the basis of at least 20 years of achievement and service since his final varsity season.

A member of four Oregon bowl teams, including the 2002 Fiesta Bowl, Michael DeLaGrange was a mainstay on the offensive line during an era of unprecedented success for the Oregon football program. He was inducted into the Oregon Athletic Hall of Fame in 2014 as a member of the 2001 football team.

The four-year letterman played in 35 games and started 21 for coach Mike Bellotti. He helped lead the Ducks to not only the Fiesta Bowl, but also the 2000 Holiday Bowl, the 2002 Seattle Bowl and the 2003 Sun Bowl as Oregon ran its streak of consecutive bowl appearances to nine.

He blocked for two 1,000-yard rushers, Onterrio Smith in 2002 (1,141) and Terrence Whitehead in 2004 (1,144), as well as two of the most prolific passers in Duck history, Joey Harrington and Kellen Clemens.

Following his college career, DeLaGrange returned to Grants Pass to help run his family’s insurance business. After several successful years of growing the insurance brokerage, he decided to pivot to an innovative, consumer-centric approach that made insurance more accessible and easier to buy.

DeLaGrange became the founder and CEO of this new endeavor, Insurance Lounge, creating a retail model resembling an “Apple Store” experience for insurance. This groundbreaking model seamlessly integrated an accessible online marketplace with the personal experience of a traditional brick-and-mortar agency. Insurance Lounge has expanded to five locations in the West and has raised over $25 million in outside funding, marking one of the largest capital raises for an Oregon-based business.

Concurrently, DeLaGrange founded the nonprofit Oregon Athlete Foundation, an organization dedicated to helping student-athletes transition into the professional world after college. The organization’s mission is to support and empower athletic alumni while giving back to the community.

The Foundation accomplishes this through job placement programs, professional development workshops and engagement with current student-athletes navigating the emerging NIL landscape. The Foundation serves the community through organized sports camps, provides youth with elite coaching and mentorship by Oregon student-athletes and creates service initiatives such as food donations and other volunteer programs.

DeLaGrange also founded a second nonprofit, 100% Tip, to foster generosity and random acts of kindness with the goal to create an environment of hope and positive change in communities. Participating businesses and individuals commit to random giving each month.

DeLaGrange and his wife, Ashley, and their children, Gavin and Emma, are avid fans of all Duck sports. The family holds season tickets to multiple Oregon sports and donates regularly to the Duck Athletic Fund and Women in Flight. DeLaGrange also chairs the Alumni Football Golf Tournament, held annually in conjunction with Oregon’s Spring Game weekend.

Becky L. Sisley Award

The Becky L. Sisley Award is named after the University’s first director of women’s intercollegiate athletics and is awarded to a former female student-athlete to commemorate community involvement, career development and support of University ideals.

A three-year starter at goalkeeper for the women’s soccer team, Sarah Peters’ name can still be found throughout the Oregon record book for saves, wins and goals against average. She’s also the only goalkeeper in program history to register two assists.

After redshirting in 1998 and playing sparingly her freshman year in 1999, Peters became the Ducks’ starting goalkeeper as a sophomore and stayed there for the remainder of her career. She made 131 saves in 2000, which still ranks as the second-best mark all-time at Oregon.

Her best season in net was in 2001, when she led the young soccer program to its first .500 season. She made 101 saves and allowed just 1.45 goals per game as the Ducks went 8-8-2. She made a program-record 15 saves in the Ducks’ 1-1 tie at No. 13 Washington. Two other keepers have since made 15 saves in a game, but no one has eclipsed that mark. Additionally, she notched two rare goalkeeper assists that season – versus Gonzaga and at Arizona.

Peters played in 57 career matches, starting 53. On the UO career top 10 lists, she ranks second in saves with 334, seventh in wins with 13 and ninth in goals against average at 2.08.

Peters graduated from Oregon in 2003 with a degree in exercise and movement science. She then accepted a graduate assistant position as goalkeeper coach at Central Michigan and earned her Master’s degree from CMU in 2010.  While there, she was selected to play on the Republic of Ireland’s Women’s National Team. During her career with Ireland from 2005-07, she competed against some of the highest ranked teams in the world including the United States, Germany and France, and helped Ireland to a fourth place in the World Student Games held in Bangkok in 2007.

Following her time at CMU, Peters embarked on a career as an emergency responder, first as a volunteer firefighter in St. Robert, Mo., and Chesterfield, Va., and later as an EMT in Killeen, Texas, where she obtained her EMT license and served the local and surrounding communities as an emergency medical services provider/emergency medical technician from 2012-14.

While in Killeen, she volunteered in Fort Hood’s Santa’s Workshop, which provides the opportunity for lower income military families to get Christmas gifts for their children. She also served on the Red Cross Central Texas Board at Fort Hood.

Peters returned to the state of Oregon to serve as an assistant soccer coach at Lane Community College from 2014-17. While at LCC, she volunteered at Luvable Dog Rescue in Eugene and was a medic for Pink Buffalo Racing, a running competition company. At the same time, Peters enrolled in the nursing program at Lane and earned her Registered Nurse license in 2017. She also served on the Board for UO Fellowship of Christian Athletes while at Lane.

For the past eight years, Peters has been an emergency department registered nurse. She first worked at Mckenzie-Willamette Medical Center in Springfield, Ore., from 2017-20, and has been at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend, Ore., since 2020. While at St. Charles, she also volunteered as the goalkeeper coach at Summit High School in Bend from 2022-23.

In 2025, Peters was one of just 30 individuals nationwide selected for the Critical Care Transport Academy through the Association of Air Medical Services. CCTA is a seven-month academy that provides education and training, developed and presented by flight crew members from around the country, with the goal of helping graduates find a flight program career that is the best fit for them.

Peters has stayed connected with the University of Oregon through Women in Flight and other community endeavors.

Order of the O Award

The Order of the O Honorarium is given annually to an individual who has made a contribution to the University of Oregon Department of Intercollegiate Athletics over an extended period of time, but was not a varsity letterwinner at the UO.

Named the 2017 Oregon Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sports Media Association, Jerry Allen’s voice has been on the radio in the State of Oregon for more than 50 years. He has called two national championship football games, 31 bowl games 28 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament games, a Final Four and the first baseball game at PK Park on the Oregon Sports Network.

The first to admit he wears his heart on his sleeve for Ducks, Allen is the only radio voice many Oregon fans have ever known.

Growing up in Grants Pass, Allen developed a passion for sports. While in high school, he worked at radio station KAGI, gaining his first broadcast experience doing weather reports. Within a few weeks he became the youngest disc jockey in Southern Oregon.

After high school, Allen attended Southern Oregon College where he studied for a teaching certificate. In 1969, SOC started radio station KSOR and Allen manned the inaugural broadcast for the new station.

For the next three years, Allen worked for KSOR while pursuing his undergraduate degree. In 1972, he moved to KYJC radio in Medford, doing play-by-play for Medford High School football and the Medford A’s – a minor league affiliate of the Oakland A’s – among others. Medford television station KOBI hired him as its sports anchor in 1977.

Allen’s first experience with Oregon as a play-by-play announcer came with the men’s basketball team in the fall of 1985, when the Ducks needed a substitute to call basketball games while the regular announcing crew traveled with the football team to play USC in Japan.

Impressed with his work for the basketball team two years earlier, University of Oregon athletic director Bill Byrne called Allen in the spring of 1987 and offered him the play-by-play job with the Ducks. He has been the “Voice of the Ducks” ever since.

In addition to football, Allen also called men’s basketball games for three decades and was Oregon’s first play-by-play announcer when the baseball team was reinstated in 2009. Through 2024 season, Allen has called 471 Duck football games.

Over the past 38 years, Allen’s voice has been synonymous with the biggest moments in Oregon history.

Best known for his radio call on “The Pick” during the 1994 Oregon-Washington football game, the unbridled excitement as Allen yells “Kenny Wheaton’s gonna score! Kenny Wheaton’s gonna score!” will live in Oregon lore forever. It is the soundtrack to a play that irreversibly changed the course of the football program at the University of Oregon.

Yet, there were other more subtle moments where Allen skillfully captured the collective psyche of an entire fan base. In the final moments of Oregon’s 37-20 win in the 2010 Civil War that sent the Ducks to their first national championship game, the emotion of a long-time dream finally made real came through the radio as his voice cracked and wavered on these words:

“They’ll celebrate in the stands as the team heads down to the end zone. And fans everywhere, 114 years they’ve waited…10 seconds on the clock…and Oregon is going to play in the national championship game…two…one…It’s official; Oregon is going to be in the BCS Championship game. Can you believe the magical season this has become?”

Allen was also on the mic in 2017 when Oregon’s basketball team beat Kansas in the NCAA Elite Eight to return to the Final Four for the first time since 1939 with a call perfect in its simplicity.

“Oregon is going to win! The Ducks are going to the Final Four! You can book your tickets…final score, Final Four!”

When he wasn’t broadcasting Oregon games, Allen hosted a morning radio show on KUGN in Eugene for three decades.

Allen has been involved with Children’s Miracle Network and Muscular Dystrophy Association. His service to the University includes countless assignments as emcee for banquets, fundraisers and recruiting events, as well as providing voiceover work virtually every sport at Oregon.

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