KEITH ENRIQUEZ/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Internet message boards
allow people to converse about Bruin sports ““ a topic that
fans and haters alike are more than happy to discuss.
By Diamond Leung
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
[email protected]
Brandon Huffman just can’t get enough of it. At work he is
on the computer, looking at the stuff all day. At home he is on the
computer, once staying up until three in the morning to get the
latest on whether one of the hottest 17 year-olds in the nation
would be attending his alma-mater ““ UCLA.
His co-workers don’t understand his obsession. His wife
can’t explain it, either.
But when it comes down to it, it’s what gives the man
pleasure.
“I keep one window on it all day, and I’ll refresh
the page 50-60 times all day,” Huffman said.
“There’s an aura about it, and it makes me feel
good.”
Apparently, Internet message boards for UCLA sports can have
that effect. Web sites such as BruinReportOnline.com and
BruinZone.com provide forums for Bruin lovers and haters alike to
banter back and forth, bringing together a virtual community of
thousands.
The rules are simple: You can post anything related to UCLA
sports and do so anonymously. You can be offensive, but up to a
point.
“There is a decorum that needs to be maintained,”
said Tracy Pierson, moderator of the message boards on BRO.
“If someone is posting libelous things, I’ll delete
them and ban them from posting.”
On the message boards, things do tend to get ugly.
Oft-frustrated UCLA fans can be critical and downright mean toward
the men’s basketball and football teams ““ the two most
popular topics of conversation. And anyone ““ students,
alumni, recruits, boosters, coaches, players and athletic
department administrators ““ has access to these unadulterated
exchanges.
Huffman, who posts up to 20 times per day on Bruin Zone and BRO
using the handle “SonsofWestwood,” is one fan who is
not afraid to post his mind.
“I’m a diehard, so if I think so-and-so sucks,
I’ll post it,” the 1998 alumnus said. “My wife
likes Brandon, but she thinks SonsofWestwood is crazy.”
“¢bull; “¢bull; “¢bull;
“Kristy” is a notable Bruin Zone poster because many
have fallen head over heels for the cyber celebrity.
“I actually think she’s some 50-year-old bald
guy,” said Huffman, who admitted to flirting with her
anyway.
Posters say that for the most part, what they do is all fun and
games. To them, there is nothing better than living in a fantasy
world that revolves around UCLA sports. Eric Moore, a 2000 alumnus
and former Daily Bruin electronic media staff member who uses the
handle “Bruin4LifeEric,” said that he posts for the
camaraderie.
“Saying I’m a Bruin is like saying I’m an
American,” he said. “It’s the need for belonging
to something greater than yourself. There’s a sense of
brotherhood, and it’s empowering.”
With handles such as “luvdbruins,”
“LAVINSMASHER” and “ih8sc,” the message
board community allows for a wide array of opinions, as people post
their analyses of UCLA teams. Some post to support, giving the
teams words of encouragement before, during and after games. Others
post to embarrass the status quo, bashing everything from athletic
director Peter Dalis’ age, football coach Bob Toledo’s
gut and men’s basketball coach Steve Lavin’s
hairstyle.
“They all think that they know more than Toledo and
Lavin,” Huffman said. “These guys are probably 3-foot-2
and have never played ball, and they’ll talk all the
crap.”
“Everyone wants to be the smart ass,” Moore said.
“But people have to realize that when they post,
they’re not doing it from a position of power. They’re
doing it from a position of perception.”
When it comes to Lavin, there are two distinct sects on the
message boards. Lavin supporters are known as Lavinistas (formerly
Branch Lavidians). Lavin bashers are simply known as trolls.
Alan Elliott, known for his anti-Lavin Web site, is the
consensus king of all trolls. He started posting three years ago as
“Earl Jones,” and almost every poster despises him for
his constant barrage of apocalyptic rhetoric toward Lavin.
Pierson has banned Elliott ““ technically. He said he has
banned over 30 handles that Elliot uses, but the troll still finds
a way to voice his opinion.
“If I tried to keep him 100 percent off the boards, I
would need to employ someone for a 40-hour work week,”
Pierson said.
Elliott claimed that the most posts he ever made in a day was
10. Pierson claimed that Elliott once posted 500 times in one
night.
“Earl Jones would be one of the candidates as the
devil,” Huffman said. “He’ll turn anything into
an anti-Lavin post. He’s a freakin’ moron.”
“He is an anomaly of some kind,” Moore said.
“He spews venom. Even those who disagree with Lavin and
Toledo vehemently hate Earl Jones 100 times more.”
“¢bull; “¢bull; “¢bull;
Sports information director Marc Dellins has read the Lavin
lashings, the trash talk about Toledo, the daggers directed at
Dalis. What he finds irritating is the lack of accountability on
the message boards, with many posters opting to express themselves
anonymously.
“Someone can go on there and post whatever they want,
accurate or not, without having any name affiliation to it,”
he said. “The exchange of ideas is good, but for the people
who want a coaching change, why not use your names? If you feel so
strongly about it, why the anonymity?”
Pierson maintains that the Athletic Department, fearing bad
publicity, takes the message boards too seriously. He believes that
people who read the negative posts are intelligent enough to judge
their merit themselves.
“If a random anonymous fan says, “˜Bob Toledo
sucks,’ then Bob Toledo has to understand that it’s not
going to affect his job status,” Pierson said. “Get
over it.”
Dellins could conceivably do just that, but he has seen the way
posters can affect the team. During fall football practice in 2000,
one poster watched from the stands and posted for all to see that
the team was practicing a trick play ““ a wide receiver pass
utilizing senior Brian Poli-Dixon.
Poli-Dixon’s mother saw the post and notified Dellins.
UCLA ended up running the play successfully in a game, but Toledo
closed practice to the public after the game.
“There are just certain things you don’t write
about,” Dellins said. “I don’t think the person
posting that was necessarily being malicious. He just wanted to
show, “˜Hey, I know something that no one else knows.’
He was excited that he knew something.”
Toledo closed practice for the rest of the year. He also closed
spring practice earlier that season and fall practice this season,
citing the Internet rumors on the message boards.
“They make statements on the Internet that aren’t
true,” Toledo said. “The only thing I can do is close
practice.”
Dalis, too, has grown weary of message boards.
“I don’t know what kind of lives they live
in,” he said. “You’ll get postings for the whole
night, a one-liner every six minutes. Many of the things people
post are fallacious, and a lot of things are posted to create an
irritant.”
For example, when the football team lost four games in a row
after winning its first six this season, fans on the message board
called for the boycott of the regular-season finale to show their
discontent to Dalis.
Dalis has also seen the message boards at their absolute worst
““ when Lavin had his life threatened. According to Pierson,
the post read, “˜Let’s cap Lavin.’
“The Internet is very deleterious to running an
operation,” Dalis said. “Like my wife says, “˜Some
people feel better when they make you feel bad.'”
“¢bull; “¢bull; “¢bull;
Huffman, Moore and a clan of message board posters were out in
full force at this year’s spring football practice. Toledo
was well aware of it.
“There are a lot of people out here saying things on the
Internet when they don’t know what they’re talking
about, and that really bothers me,” Toledo said.
“That’s why I’m going to close practice again
this fall.”
His voice rose.
“I’ve closed it because of them,” he
continued, gesturing toward the stands. “Because of the
Internet. They say too much, and I won’t allow it.
They’ll talk about the plays we run and put it on the
Internet. I don’t need them seeing (defensive back) Matt
Ware, for example, throwing a pass.”
Toledo claims that he does not read the message boards. Director
of football operations Randy Taylor, however, said that Toledo
receives printouts of what is said about him from a relative.
“We all kind of read it,” Taylor said. “People
say they don’t, but we read it. More do than say they
do.”
Even players get into the message boards. Former Bruin long
snapper Jeff Grau, taken in the NFL draft this year, is a frequent
poster. The freshman Ware, meanwhile, is wary of the boards.
“I try not to look at that stuff,” he said. “I
looked as a senior in high school. Some people say really good
things about you, and other people are saying bad things. I
don’t need any of that in my head.”
He hears about it from his mother, who posts on BRO.
“She practically runs that Bruin Report Online,” he
said.
Does Mrs. Ware get upset when people criticize her son?
“Yeah. I tell her, “˜Mom, who cares? It doesn’t
matter what they say.'”
Ware wasn’t completely letting on to his involvement with
message boards. He didn’t just look in high school. He once
posted.
On BRO, he angrily responded to published statements from USC
recruit Marvin Simmons, who Ware considered a friend. Simmons had
said that UCLA recruits African American players “from
Malibu.”
The post ended up receiving the most hits of any post on BRO in
the Web site’s history, according to the Los Angeles
Times.
Huffman, not surprisingly, took notice of Ware’s post.
“We saw the fire that he had, and we knew that he was
going to be a star,” he said.
Huffman and Moore, of course, know that the Athletic Department
isn’t exactly happy with what they have to say. They even
understand why Toledo has banned them from fall practice.
But”¦
“This is our way of bonding as fans,” Moore said.
“We’re the hardest of the hardcore. It’s too bad
the Athletic Department only chooses to see Earl Jones, not us
lovable losers.”