Were you to travel to a certain neighborhood just outside of Harrisonburg, Virginia, you would find, in front of a tan two-story house, the flags of two schools flying side by side: the University of Oregon and James Madison University.
This is the Volpi home, where the wife is a dedicated Ducks fan and the husband backs the Dukes. Their allegiances are rooted in their employment — Jen Volpi with the UO, Joe Volpi with JMU — so they’ll be on opposite sides of the UO-JMU College Football Playoffs game Dec. 20 at Autzen Stadium.
“When we moved to Virginia, my son kept asking, ‘When is JMU going to play Oregon?’” Jen Volpi said. “And I kept telling him, ‘They’re not going to play.’ So now . . . we’re just really excited.”
Responding to a call from Workplace for story ideas ahead of the big Ducks-Dukes dustup, the Volpis described how the contest has rendered theirs a house divided.
Jen Volpi joined the UO in 2006. A public health specialist, she has worked on the Eugene campus and remotely in multiple positions, including as a member of the Monitoring and Assessment Program during the pandemic.
Joe Volpi also has UO ties. He’s a 2010 human physiology alum who later served as team physician while completing a sports medicine fellowship at the university. He was with the Ducks for their 2024 Fiesta Bowl win over the Liberty Flames in Glendale, Arizona, and was the on-site physician for NCAA track championships at the UO. He also served on the board of the UO Alumni Association.
The Volpis were in Eugene in 2024 when Joe was hired by James Madison as chief medical officer and head team physician for all student-athletes. That prompted the move to Harrisonburg, with Jen again returning to remote work, as research communications project and content manager in the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation.
Because the Ducks and Dukes are in different conferences — not to mention time zones — it was easy enough for the Volpis to spend Saturdays at JMU games, then catch the UO on TV and root for them, as well. They were secure in the belief a UO-JMU matchup seemed altogether unrealistic.
But that’s exactly what has happened, as the ascendant Dukes earned a spot in the 2025 playoffs and are coming to Eugene.
The Volpis will be here, too: Joe on the sidelines with the Dukes, of course, and Jen in the stands with their son, Wes.
“When the game was announced, our phones blew up — I think for two hours straight,” Joe said. “People were texting, colleagues from back at the U of O, people reaching out and saying, ‘Who would have thought this?’ It’s crazy.”
Now, the calmest head in the household may belong to Wes Volpi, 9, who is perhaps most excited about eating at Cafe Yumm! and Abby’s Legendary Pizza. But for Jen and Joe, it’s game on.
Jen bleeds green and yellow. She’s been known to listen to Jerry Allen, the voice of the Ducks, in earphones while at JMU volleyball games. She’ll be, she said, “100 percent” behind Oregon.
That’s because of the friendships she has built with colleagues and her appreciation for a university that has consistently accommodated her need to work remotely while balancing family obligations.
“The university’s flexibility and understanding is outstanding,” Jen said. “My supervisors and colleagues are amazing. Across the university, no matter what role we fulfill at the U of O — staff, student, faculty — it’s recognized everyone is a person, first. There are challenges to being remote but that value that everyone shares — everyone’s a person first — is one of the reasons I choose to stay.”
For Joe, it’s more complicated. He’s got a lot of love for the Ducks and a school that helped him get where he is today. But he’s a Duke now, so of course he’ll be in purple and gold Saturday.
“We’re going to play our best,” he said, “. . . and hopefully Oregon does OK, too.”
There is, above all else, a collegiality to how the Volpis are preparing for the imminent clash of their beloved teams. They’re a family first — there’s been no taunting, no chest-thumping. No bets over the result and who will be forced to wear the other’s colors to work Monday.
The Volpis are confident, in fact, that this sentiment of sportsmanship will also prevail throughout Autzen Stadium, among Ducks and Dukes alike. They noted that Harrisonburg’s nickname is “the Friendly City,” after all.
“Until we play the game, Dukes and Ducks are going to be friends,” Joe Volpi said. “The fan bases are very similar in that they are very welcoming. But I’ve been telling my colleagues to bring earplugs. Because it’s gonna get loud.”
—Matt Cooper, University Communications