University of Oregon names new beach volleyball facility Duck Dunes

The University of Oregon has given its new beach volleyball facility a name, and a public identity to match: Duck Dunes. The June 2026 trustee vote puts a recognizable label on a project rising at 13th Avenue and Agate Street, on the former Hamilton Hall site, where the university is building a permanent on-campus home for women’s beach volleyball.

The name nods to the sand itself. University officials said a significant amount of the material for the competition courts is coming from Florence, Oregon, giving the venue a direct link to one of the state’s best-known coastal landscapes. Athletics officials told trustees the project carries a $3.5 million fundraising goal, with more than half that amount already raised.

The facility is expected to include three competition courts, a scoreboard and an equipment building. Campus planning records show the beach volleyball project went through schematic-design review and later added a separate scoreboard project, while a restroom and storage building was approved beside the courts in 2025. University documents say the complex is intended to give the women’s beach volleyball program an on-campus home after years of practicing and competing away from the main campus.

Duck Dunes is part of the broader Hamilton-Walton Transformation Project, which university housing materials describe as a three-phase housing modernization effort originally aimed at replacing older residence halls with three new buildings and roughly 1,800 student beds. Phase III began with the demolition of Hamilton Hall in summer 2024 and is expected to finish in fall 2025, with the former residence hall footprint ultimately converted into green space and an NCAA regulation sand volleyball court on the north end of the lot.

The naming arrives while the university remains embroiled in Schroeder v. University of Oregon, a federal Title IX lawsuit filed in December 2023 by current and former women’s beach volleyball players and women’s club rowing members. Court records show a federal judge paused discovery in February 2025 and later denied the university’s motions to dismiss in April 2025. University officials have denied the allegations, but the case remains active and keeps attention fixed on how Oregon allocates facilities and support across women’s sports.

For Oregon’s beach volleyball athletes, the new courts mark a significant shift. The program has long lacked an on-campus home, and reporting in 2021-22 identified it as the only team at a Power Five public school receiving no scholarship funding. That history helps explain why Duck Dunes is more than a branding exercise. It is a concrete investment in recruiting, visibility and the university’s commitment to women’s athletics at a prominent corner of the Eugene campus.