Thursday, October 15, 1998
Bruins must cheer team till turn blue
COMMENTARY: Now’s our chance to dispel rumors about West Coast
football
By Traci Mack
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
OK, so here’s the deal: we’ve finally got a football team that
can kick everybody else’s ass.
West Coast college football is gaining respect, and all those
ESPN analysts who have been kissing the butts of the SEC and Big-10
finally have to admit that UCLA football is not something that we
use to pass the time until hoops season starts. It is a powerful
entity on its own.
As a result of this newfound respect and recognition, national
television is on its way to the Rose Bowl.
ESPN GameDay will kick off its very first West Coast live-feed
broadcast from the UCLA-Oregon game at the Rose Bowl on Saturday.
For the uninitiated, GameDay features Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit
and Chris Fowler analyzing the week’s games and providing their
omnipotent viewpoints on anything and everything having to do with
college football.
Traditionally, they broadcast from a place such as Penn State or
Michigan – no Pac-10 school has been deemed worthy enough to have
Corso and Co. grace us with their presence.
Until now.
That’s why us Bruins have to wake our
hungover-from-Friday-night-partying selves up and get down to the
Rose Bowl at 8 a.m. on Saturday.
Let me go back and explain a little more for those of you who
have no idea what I’m talking about:
Millions of college fans crammed into the background screaming
their heads off, with giant letters painted on their half-naked
bodies. As a backdrop, GameDay regularly features university
students acting like complete morons, doing things like burning the
opposing team’s mascot in effigy.
Contrary to all common sense, this is the ultimate exhibition of
school spirit. People at home see those students sitting out there
with no shirts on at eight in the morning and say, "Those are some
dedicated fans."
Now picture the opening of the GameDay broadcast from the Rose
Bowl: the music is cued, the lights come up, and there’s
Herbstreit, Corso and Fowler sitting in front of the Rose Bowl. A
deserted Rose Bowl. No cheers meet the GameDay crew as they discuss
UCLA’s chances at a national championship. A lone tumbleweed blows
by every once in a while.
Perhaps that’s over-dramatizing, but the fact remains that it
will be a complete and utter embarrassment to the No. 1 jock school
in the country if we can’t muster up some Bruin Pride and show the
rest of the country what West Coast fans are really like.
This is our chance to dispel a decades-old prejudice, to help
support our team, to show them we appreciate being able to brag
about them.
So I’m asking all of you, football fans or not, to come out to
the Rose Bowl on Saturday morning and show your support. Let’s face
it, it’s a hell of a lot more fun than waking up for that 8 a.m.
history discussion, and you get a chance to get your mug on TV
besides.
Wear blue to the game on Saturday. It makes a powerful statement
when we get the nerve to show a little solidarity. No one should be
ashamed to step up and wear blue in support of our team.
Most of all, be loud and proud. Cheer at the top of your lungs,
make the Ducks jump offsides, make a complete and total fool of
yourself – all for the love of your team.
We all know that, nationally, we’re seen as a good team, perhaps
even a very good team. But there’s something we can all give to
help out the program, even if we’re not passing for 300 yards like
Cade or catching those passes like Danny. So let’s all do our
part.
Great teams win games, but great programs have die-hard
fans.
Comments, feedback, problems?
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