Friday, November 20, 1998
School pride drives Bruins
RIVALRY: Expressing spirit for UCLA involves going to all games,
upstanding loyalty
By Melissa Brown
It’s now 7 a.m. on Thursday, and the Rally Committee is sitting
outside Gate 15 at Pauley Pavilion passing out priority numbers.
Our submission for the Daily Bruin on school spirit is due in
exactly three hours, so we’re all wracking our brains, trying to
think of what we could say about UCLA spirit. Being a fourth-year
student and a four-year member of the UCLA Rally Committee, I’ve
been able to witness and be a part of UCLA spirit at its best.
One of the best and most fun ways to show your UCLA pride is
road-tripping to away football games. School spirit is eight people
crammed into a mini-van, hurling across the Arizona desert at 75
miles per hour, traveling to watch the UCLA football team take on
the Arizona Wildcats in their first Pac-10 road game of the season.
It’s 30 people in a charter bus headed up to Berkeley and staying
in a one-star motel to cheer our team to victory over the
California Golden Bears.
It’s driving 24 hours straight to Dallas to see the Bruins in
the Cotton Bowl and then turning around and driving another 24
hours back home after the game. Braving rain, cold or heat, loyal
Bruin fans are always ready to cheer our team to victory no matter
where they may be.
We wait until their home stadium is quiet after we score to do
the loudest eight-clap ever. We wear our UCLA T-shirts, sweatshirts
and jackets around their town, so that everyone knows what school
we’re from.
School spirit is driving the UCLA helmet vehicle down the 101
freeway to the football game and waving to everyone on the road who
honks at you and gives you a thumbs up sign. It’s taking the UCLA
airhorn to every UCLA football game, home and away. I know that I’m
carrying on a 45-year-old tradition of blowing the airhorn to
celebrate every UCLA score. The feeling of standing in front of the
UCLA rooting section at all the away games and blowing the airhorn
is something I’ll always remember about the time I spent here.
UCLA spirit is staying up into the wee hours of the morning on
Friday nights before home football games to finish preparing for
the traditional halftime card show. Rally Committee checks 3,000
card packs and hand stamps 3,000 instruction cards, because we love
UCLA and want to keep this 75-year-old tradition alive. School
spirit is watching the student section put on the largest, most
complex card stunts of any university in the country.
School spirit is participating in "Beat ‘SC" week and realizing
how deeply rooted this rivalry is. It’s about cherishing UCLA’s
most prized emblem, the UCLA-USC Victory Bell (which, by the way,
we’ve had for the past seven years and plan on keeping for a long
time to come.) The bell is the perpetual trophy between our two
schools and is awarded to the winner of the football game every
year.
Spirit is chanting "Beat ‘SC" in Husky Stadium after watching
the football team win its ninth-straight game of the season. It’s
knowing that we change the eight-clap from "fight, fight, fight" to
"Beat ‘SC" during the game. On the Thursday of "Beat ‘SC" week,
it’s attending the annual "Beat ‘SC Bonfire and Rally," where you
can see a Tommy Trojan effigy go up in flames. During basketball
season, it’s having UCLA fans outnumber the ‘SC fans at the Sports
Arena.
It takes real school spirit for students to camp out all night
at Pauley Pavilion to get an arena level priority number to sit on
the floor during the games. Spirit is standing throughout the game
no matter where you’re sitting. It’s wearing blue to all the games
and knowing the words to the alma mater and to all the fight songs,
and being able to sing along with the UCLA band as they play them
during the games.
Some of the best ways that the Rally Committee has promoted UCLA
spirit haven’t involved elaborate planning. We attended the Pacific
Soccer Classic to watch our men’s team defeat Indiana University,
taught a group of elementary children the eight-clap and led them
in "Go Bruins" cheers. We organized a card show at a women’s
volleyball game and got everyone in our section to cheer for the
Bruins.
In this article, I was asked to write about whether or not I
thought that school spirit was important. Of course I do!
Whether you attend athletic events or not, you should take pride
in your school because you all worked hard to get here.
No matter how you choose to show your school spirit, be proud of
the fact that you attend one of the best universities in the
country.
In closing, I’d like to encourage everyone attending Saturday’s
game at the Rose Bowl to wear blue and be loud.
Let’s all show the Trojans what real school spirit is all
about.
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