When you’re making your Ron Washington mistake tonight and doing drugs and drinking to excess, make sure to spill some of your 40 for Iron Mike Bellotti and Duckfighter Illustrated.

The mercurial, mustachioed former strongman of the Oregon Ducks announced his retirement today from his position as Athletic Director at Oregon.

Bellotti, who is famous for adding phrases such as “it only rained on our side of the field”, “the best team on the field didn’t win” and “Washington only starts quarterbacks from Washington” to the sporting lexicon will take his doctored UW depth charts and head for Bristol to join the Great Satan as a broadcaster.

Bellotti’s wife Colleen will join him once she completes her sentence for assault on a sportswriter who said bad things about soccer and the men who coach it.

The Bellotti’s separated and got back together during Mike’s time in Eugene. While no official reason was ever given rumors ran rampant that Colleen refused to be Mike’s dirty girl who would suck, wait, that was another Nike icon, Tiger Woods.

The El Paso City Council is voting tonight on a resolution to raise a statue of Bellotti outside Sun Bowl Stadium, where the Ducks enjoyed their greatest success under Mediocre Mike, who followed a Rose Bowl losing coach and who had a Rose Bowl losing coach follow him. In fact, two of the last three Oregon coaches have lost a Rose Bowl, but Bellotti was unable to secure a berth in Pasadena despite being the legendary, greatest coach in school history because of his knack for destroying cupcakes and finishing third in the Pac Ten when he wasn’t overseeing late season collapses.

We would be remiss to not mention the stirring Fiesta Bowl victory over a bad Colorado team, a mere year after Oregon State got there first and also won the Fiesta Bowl.

Bellotti burst onto the national scene in a humiliating Cotton Bowl loss to Colorado who was coached by his arch rival and life long foil, Rick Neuheisel. The slick Neuheisel called a fake punt with minutes left in a blow out win starting a decade of whining and crying by Oregon fans.

When Mike uttered his famous “the best team on the field didn’t win” line after another beat down by Rick, the urbane Neuheisel countered with “Scoreboard Baby!” and Oregon fans descended into madness for all time.

And in a cruel twist of fate, it was after a rainy day at Autzen, when Rick led his Washington Huskies to a 42-14 win over Oregon, that Bellotti noted the one sided nature of the rain that only hurt his team.

Bellotti did win an almost, media vote, if Dixon didn’t get hurt national championship and of course, looked nattily attired in his letter jacket as he pretended to want a shot at the Vaunted Canes in the 2001 National Championship game at the Rose Bowl.

We couldn’t find a picture of Mike, but this will do.

Bellotti ended his career as a broken and bitter man, cast aside for a snot nosed punk, and wandered the sidelines talking to any reporters he could find, still game planning to the end, until the rampant criminal behavior at Oregon got to him and he stepped down to spend more time with Erin Andrews.

Enjoy your retirement, Mike. You earned it!