This Year's "Other" Big Games

The other big game Cal Fans have been looking forward to all year long is the Cal v. USC game, while the rest of the nation looks forward to the Ohio State - Michigan matchup (Go Blue & Maize!). The Berkeleyan has a good article to check out - Bring us the Head of Tommy Trojan. Kind of a "fair and balanced" checklist of who is better - Cal or USC.

Heading into what has been traditionally Rivalry Weekend, pundits have been deriding our "Big Game" as a big game - mostly due to its lack of importance in college football this year. USA Today apologized to Cal and the farm for using the term to describe the Big 10 matchup; Newsday conceded the title; the Washington Times noted: "Please, no meaningless Pac-10 tea party (Stanford-Cal) deserves the superlative yet simple nickname. This isn't croissants in Cali before a little good-natured contact."

Even a Daily Cal writer had this to say earlier this year (I guess his "big game" was Cal-UCLA):

We come to Berkeley with built-in Stanford scorn, and for what?

Because we’ve heard stories?

Because the Rally Comm is still living their lives through 1982?

Guess what?

“The Play” already belongs to Cal. Yeah, it was probably, as Joe Starkey called it, “the most amazing, sensational, traumatic, heart rending ... exciting thrilling finish in the history of college football,” but we’ve only seen a YouTube version.

Many of us witnessed last year’s ESPN Instant Classic in Pasadena and can account every detail of Drew’s 82-yard punt return that gave the Southern Branch its first lead.

That’s what matters.

Forget tradition. Rivalry is something that an individual has to find for himself.

Don’t hate Stanford because the books tell us to. Hate UCLA because our pride and overly excessive fanaticism force us to.

Call me old, but I don't advocate the use of the word "hate". My wife and I always tell our son that you can "strongly dislike" something...OK, we're talking semantics here...but the real Big Game is really a celebration of the meeting of a world-class university and a lesser, but very well-known, university. A time to appreciate another competition between the institutions where Nobel Prize winners hang their laurels. To admire the accomplishments of these fine institutions of higher learning that helped California, the Bay Area - and even ourselves - become what they and we are today.

So let's continue to celebrate the Big Game as what it represents overall, rather than looking at it as unimportant to the college football rankings. And I will continue to strongly dislike the farm.

OK - off my soapbox. Go Bears! Let's beat USC!