The Daily Clog recommendation

The Daily Cal blog - the Daily Clog - is encouraging students to attend the Bonfire Rally (for us old timers, we'd prefer to call it the Axe Rally since we have the Axe).

For those of you who have experienced a bonfire rally before, you'll enjoy this choice quote:

For those of you who will be attending their first bonfire, the Clog encourages you to sit as close to the pit as possible in order for the most intense experience. You can thank us later.

The Play revisited again

Yeah, you all know it:

25 years...

Ruined Elway's last college game...

Starky's excited voice can be found anywhere in cyberspace - YouTube, mp3, transcript (I'm surprised I couldn't find it in a ringtone)...

So let's do something different...selected photos and newspaper shots from that historic day.

1982 Program

Front page - Oakland Tribune

Back page - Oakland Tribune

Sports Page - Oakland Tribune

Photo of the Axe and the exuberant crowd

Front page of the Berkeley Gazette

Go Bears!

The Axe - It's Ours Again!

Not a real pretty game. But we won. Cal now the victor of five Big Games in a row. Fans stormed the field after the end of the game.

An incredibly windy day in Strawberry Canyon, so much so that the California Banner needed to be brought down from its flag posts - it appeared that the Banner may have damaged the one of the flag posts and security did not let anyone sit in a vulnerable section of the student seating. Not a great shot (cell phone camera), but you can tell from the photo that the Banner is missing, as well as a few flags.


Rally Committee, for some reason, took the Banner from the Cannon Platform and placed it just below the UCRC section; I'm assuming the Main Banner was damaged as well. Trivia: the replacement Banner was originally flown at the 1982 Big Game as the main Banner (see the photo of this Banner in an earlier posting), and when it retired, was presented as a gift to Chancellor Tien in the 1990's. Later, it was seen in the lodge of Camp Gold at the Lair of the Bear. Somehow it got back into UCRC's good hands.

Go Bears!

The Axe

The Stanford Axe. We have it. They want it. Originally stolen in 1899.

Archie J. Cloud, Class of 1900, and one of the original Cal men who liberated the blade:

It should be abundantly clear that this fantastic feat could not have been pre-planned. Look at the extraordinary breaks - or coincidences - only through which did the coup succeed:

1. The exit from the baseball park of three Stanford men only, leaving the Axe unguarded, and these men unsuspicious;
2. The non-interference of the police at the start;
3. The sudden and perfectly timed arrival of the great sprinter, [Billy] Drum;
4. The unexpected appearance of the "girl" or "young lady" near the Ferry Building at the exact moment when the "jig" seemed to be up.

Moreover, in view of the razor-like edge of the blade, it seems almost miraculous that no one of the several participants incurred serious injury.

Without loss of time, the dramatic saga of the original seizure of the Stanford Axe hit the first editions of dailies in San Francisco. It splashed over from the sports columns to the front pages as a stirring feature story, setting the stage for the birth of a great, and then greater, college tradition. - Archie J. Cloud, The Stanford Axe

Go Bears! Let's keep it!

Football Statue all Dressed Up

From the UC Berkeley News Center - the Football Statue was all dressed up today.


Photos at right by Steve McConnell



Douglas Tilden's Football Statue (officially called "Football Players") was the precursor to the Axe. San Francisco Mayor James Phelan promised to award the statue to the winner of two of the three Big Games of 1898, 1899 and 1900. Cal won the first two, thereby winning the statue.

Go Bears!

We've Got The Axe!

You all know the story.

But if you need a quick refresher course, check out a brief history summarized by the Berkeleyan a few years ago.

Go Bears!