Back in safe hands!

Go Bears!

Let's repeat this picture!

AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

1982 Revisited

I've pretty much ignored The Play this year, primarily because I posted extensively about it last year.

But people still - 26 years later - equate Big Game with The Play...in video...in print. Earlier this week: " 'The Play' embodies Big Game". Today's example from ESPN:

Don't you still chuckle when Cal's Kevin Moen crashes over the trombone player in the memorable 1982 Big Game?

In all of the thousands of times you've seen that play over the last quarter-century plus, have you ever changed the channel before it was over? Never. But every time I see "The Play," I always feel bad for my buddy Rod Gilmore. Rod, now one of our analysts as well as a top-flight lawyer, lost his first case that day.

Watch the tape long enough and you'll see Gilmore pleading his case to the officials. Surely, Dwight Garner's knee was down before his lateral. Sorry, Counselor Gilmore. His case was thrown out of court, although he might have found a more sympathetic judge in the court of the Final Verdict. (Shameless "College Football Final" plug). The Play ended the collegiate careers of Rod Gilmore and a QB by the name of Elway.

To fully appreciate once again...here it is:

Strangely silent week

I know I've been busy all month...probably working an average of 10-12 hours a day. I guess everyone else must be as well. Case in point:

• Rally Committee is still showing last year's Big Game week schedule.


• Except Axe Committee is worse, with most links going to "Page not found!"


• The Daily Cal this year has no "fire up" editorials (at least none I can find)


• I refuse to look any more at the stanfurd daily since they just proved again to me they are a bunch of whiney, lazy elites.


• The Stanford Football Haiku just posted an entry after a long silence, lamenting that its contributors may be "Afraid Cal will win?"

Perhaps the campus is looking fired up (I haven't been on campus for several weeks). At least the Alumni Association and the Athletic Department are on their game.

Go Bears!

Stanford Jonah on the Ukelele

The most unusual rendition I've seen...








Go Bears!

Phoenix Five - now 10 years

Daily Cal photo

The Daily Cal reminded me that it was 10 years ago that the famous Phoenix Five allegedly stole the Tree costume.

During the two-week hostage crisis, the "Five" released a proof of life video and several letters, including one signed by the mascot stating that the tree was no longer happy with its working conditions at Stanford.

But due to a house arrest of sorts that was subsequently placed on Oski Bear and threats made by the chancellors of both universities citing the illegality of stealing something estimated to be worth $1,000, the Tree reluctantly returned to its home, unharmed.

You can't have Big Game Week without Joe Kapp

Joe Kapp and son...Go Bears!

Former Cal quarterback Joe Kapp has taught his son a lot about football, including one rule that is especially important this week.

"From a young age, my dad always said, 'Kapps don't lose to Stanford,' " said Will Kapp, a backup fullback for the current version of the Bears. "He never lost to them when he was playing. He's told me so many stories about playing against Stanford and never forgets to point out that he never lost to them before."

Kapp, a redshirt freshman, doesn't figure to get on the field when Stanford visits Cal on Saturday for the 111th Big Game, but he still can provide a perspective on the game that arguably no other teammate can. Kapp was born in 1988, two years after his father's last season as the Bears' coach. But he still grew up totally entrenched in Cal football, attending games and learning about the history of the program.

Joe Kapp was a first-team All-American and led the Bears to their last Rose Bowl appearance in 1959. He also played basketball at Cal for the 1957-58 season (the Bears didn't lose to Stanford in hoops that season, either).

"I've been coming to games my whole life," Kapp said. "I've always known what the Big Game is all about. I know how important the game is. It's always been personal for me because I was such a Cal fan growing up."

Go Je'Rod!

To loosely follow up on the last post, Je'Rod Cherry plans to auction off his Super Bowl ring to raise money for hunger.

In the unofficial Big Game alumni salute, we have a runaway winner.

Je'Rod Cherry, the former Cal safety from Berkeley High who spent nine years in the NFL, is holding an online raffle. The prize: the Super Bowl ring he won as a member of the 2001 New England Patriots. The cost to you: $2 per ticket, minimum of five tickets.

The goal: end world hunger. All proceeds will go toward helping the charity Asia's Hope build an orphanage. Whatever is left will be spent, internationally and in the United States, on similar projects.

"The ring itself is the first one I won, it's the most precious one to me, it's the one I care most about," Cherry said by phone Wednesday from his home in Macedonia, Ohio. "It was definitely hard. The night I made the announcement, I was like, 'Wow, I can't believe I just did that.'

"That ring will do so much to give kids around our country and the world to give kids a chance."

[snip]
Cherry said he has raised $107,000 so far. The entry deadline is 6 a.m. Nov. 27 — Thanksgiving Day — with the drawing later that day. Buy tickets at www.celebritiesforcharity.org.

Differing ideologies

Photo from Wikimedia Commons by Tristan Harward

It's been a slow news week, unfortunately dominated with drivel and elitism coming from the stanfraud daily. Their basic theme this week [to be spoken in a whiney voice]: "Nobody told us that Big Game is on the Saturday of our weeklong Thanksgiving break! Nobody told us it was at Cal! The Jr. University is supposed to e-mail us! Boo hoo!"

Related to this, the blogger Tightwad Hill (and reprinted yesterday at The Bear Will Not Quit) had some perspective on the differing ideologies between the two campuses a couple of years ago:

[T]he ideology at play here is authoritarianism. Cal teaches its own to question authority by imposing a faceless, soul-crushing bureaucracy upon its students. No classes? Tough s***. No housing? There's always co-ops. Want the personal touch? Try getting to know your 1200 classmates in Anthro 1. Four years at Berkeley feels like a Kafka novel - you come out with a perhaps too-healthy skepticism of professors, administrators, Presidents and the like.

Stanford is a school next to a mall and some golf courses that is populated by cheerful authority figures who want to like you. They serve as your counselor, and help you choose your classes. They arrange comfy dorm rooms, and social events with your fellow fascinating students drawn from all parts of the country. They want you to succeed, because you're one of them - the few, the proud, the elites. Isn't it grand?

[snip]
You exit Stanford feeling really, really good about yourself. You exit Berkeley happy to have survived the experience. Berkeley is exhilirating; Stanford is pleasant. Both sets of alumni run the world, but only one group of alumni feels entitled to.

[snip]
Prominent Stanford alumni in the corporate world include Steve Ballmer, Phil Knight - uber-elites. Cal has Steve Wozniak, who did all the hard work at Apple and then retired to do philanthropy instead of press conferences, and the Haas family, noted for their pursuit of business ethics.

Cal has Alice Waters, Timothy Leary, Joan Didion - slightly kooky trailblazers in their respective fields. Stanford has Herbert Hoover, who couldn't be bothered with all that talk of a Great Depression, and Gray Davis, who never left his office to notice the State collapsing around him. Elites. Cal's Laura Tyson is famous for presiding over the great Clinton economic run of the 1990s as head of the CEA and NEC. Stanford's Condi Rice is famous for presiding over the collapse of the world.

Some may look on this as a false distinction between two privileged groups, but we disagree. The ideology that separates Cal and Stanford, Berkeley and Palo Alto, rugged individualism and elitist group-think is what brings the taste of bile to our lips every time we see that dancing tree.

A Comprehensive List of Big Game Pranks

This list is pretty good.

Farm bubble II

I clearly do not understand their logic. The Saturday before Thanksgiving has traditionally been Big Game day. Two Big Games in December do not a paradigm shift make. From the whining daily editorial to overscheduled and spoiled children of baby boomers (yes, I'm a baby boomer too):

The 111th Big Game played between the Cardinal and the Berkeley Golden Bears will occur on Nov. 22 at Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium. Big Game is historically each team’s last game, but this year, Cal plays Washington two weeks later. This, however, is not the biggest scheduling error. Rather, for Stanford students, this year’s Big Game falls on the first Saturday of Thanksgiving break.

Additionally:

...Stanford should have fought for a date when more students would be in town so as to avoid a significantly diminished Big Game fan base...The first email Stanford Athletics sent regarding Big Game on Oct. 15 simply advertised a rally bus and did not warn students that Big Game falls on Thanksgiving break.

And the final straw!

It did not even mention that the game is at Cal.

At least not all is lost. In the comment section:

Please stop whining and get your butts to the game and cheer on the team. It’s Big Game! What type of students are being admitted today? This is not good a thing.

Stop your whining, Stanford students! We didn’t even get a whole week off for Thanksgiving - we got Thursday-Sunday. You couldn’t stay one extra day to go to the biggest sporting event of the year, even when you had a whole week more of vacation right after that? If you care enough to whine, you should care enough to fly out on Sunday. I’m taking days off of work to fly home for Big Game. What happened to the student body?

I couldn’t agree more. What happened to looking at the football schedule on gostanford.com?

Seriously, can’t you just look online and find out all this in 2 min? Do you ask Stanford to wipe your bottoms too?

Happy 85th Birthday Memorial Stadium!

Ansel Adams photo

On November 24, Memorial Stadium will be celebrating its 85th anniversary of providing great memories to countless loyal Californians.

Here's a link to the California Monthly magazine from November 1998 describing the construction. A few excerpts:

[O]n November 24, 1923, with the smell of new concrete still fresh, the undefeated Golden Bears christened the oval by thrashing Stanford 9-0 in the 29th Big Game. Seventy-four thousand people came to that first contest, the largest crowd ever to witness a football game in the West.

[snip]
In California in the 1920s, there was a strong feeling that it would be appropriate to build a memorial to the many men from the state who had died in the Great War. An impressive stadium consecrated to the virtues of manhood was deemed a fitting memorial. At the same time, Cal was outgrowing its facilities. University architect John Galen Howard was fast replacing frame-and-brick buildings with modern structures designed to create Berkeley's Athens-like atmosphere. A classical stadium would complement Wheeler, Hilgard, and Gilman halls, the Library, Sather Gate, and the Greek Theatre.

[snip]
Memorial Stadium was dedicated to the heroic University dead of the World War by local civic and military leaders on Friday afternoon. Fifty Civil War veterans from the Grand Army of the Republic led a procession that included veterans of World War I and the Spanish-American War, and active members of all the armed services.

Robert Gordon Sproul turned the new stadium over to the UC Board of Regents with these words: "It was conceived by Californians, it was built by Californians, and is the property of Californians. And now that it is completed, I entrust it in your care. The stadium is complete. Possessed of the rare beauty of simplicity and a restfulness derived from perfection of unbroken lines, dedicated most nobly to the youth which fell in the war, the stadium is complete. It is ready for athletic contests, for academic gatherings, for conferences devoted to the highest ends of civilization."

But my favorite trivia concerning the stadium:

The main axis of the field was designed so that at 3 p.m. on the afternoon of November 20 (always within a few days of the Big Game), the sun would be exactly at right angles to the field of play.

A brief glimpse of life within the farm bubble

Raise your hands:

• How many of you knew which day Big Game is to be played this year?
• How many of you know that Big Game has been traditionally held about the weekend before Thanksgiving every year since before Memorial was built (except for the past couple of years)?
• Even if you didn't know the above, how many of you know how to look things up on the internet?

From today's farm Daily - faking news from the farm since 1892:

“Honestly, I’ve never seen any emails from Big Game this year,” ... “I don’t think the University has done a very good job of publicizing it.”

Other students feel like the problem with Big Game this year is its unfortunate timing. Many students will be home for Thanksgiving before kickoff.

“I didn’t know when Big Game would happen until this weekend,” ... “Last year, there were people everywhere talking about it. I got a lot more emails about it. I think the fact that the game is on Thanksgiving break is a reason [for that], and also it’s not at Stanford this year, so not as many people will be able to go.”

Big Game Predictions

Cast your vote on the Bears winning at the SF Gate website.

Bad Boys...whacha gonna do when they come for you?

The Stanfurd Store got a wrist slap for selling "Cal Sucks" T-shirts (hat tip - the Daily Clog...you'll also find a link to the Cal Student Store's own T-shirt):

Due to University licensing agreements, the Stanford Store has decided to replace the traditionally vulgar “Cal Sucks” T-shirts with a more G-rated selection — “Beat Cal.”

According to Bennett Hauser ‘10, general manager of the Stanford Store, the University handles its licensing externally through the Collegiate Licensing Company. Anyone hoping to sell Stanford gear is required to receive the licensing company’s approval.

“CLC is a trademark licensing agent,” said Susan Weinstein, manager of Stanford’s trademark licensing program. “This means that various universities and other institutions hire CLC to license their trademarks to third parties who wish to put them on T-shirts and other merchandise.”

Stanford’s contract with the CLC stipulates that Stanford merchandise cannot defame any other CLC client without consent from both sides. Since UC-Berkeley also licenses through the CLC, the “Cal Sucks” shirts were deemed a breach of contract.

“[Last year], we simply didn’t know that we couldn’t produce any garments defaming Cal,” Hauser said. “The CLC and both universities were understanding about our error last year, and let us off with minor penalties — a $1,000 fine, confiscation of extras and a royalty payment to Berkeley of eight percent of revenues. The repercussions would likely be much worse for those who do not regularly work with the CLC.”

The Student Store saw “Beat Cal” as the best alternative design to choose. Hauser actually expects the change to increase sales, citing the new designs as “inclusive” toward easily offended Stanford community members.

The LA Times visits Cal and the farm

A couple of articles appeared in the LA Times travel section today.

In fact, if you think the presidential race is the only enduring blue-red rivalry that will come to some resolution this month, think again. This year's Big Game, the 111th since Berkeley (blue and gold) and Stanford (red and white) started squaring off on a football field in 1892, is Nov. 22 at Berkeley. (And, I'm told, we shouldn't call it "the big game." It's just Big Game, like Big Oil, Big Pharma and Big Bird.)

Cal students warm up for it by lighting a huge bonfire and doing a war dance. The Stanford kids psych up by, um, staging a wicked musical theater production called "Gaieties." Say what you like about that...[the author then goes off on some irrelevant statistics on the series record]

and...

So what do we call this place? Cal? Berkeley? Cal Berkeley? UC Berkeley? This question hung above 10 of us -- nine visitors and one student tour guide, all gathered at a busy campus that simmered on an autumn weekday morning with undergraduate enthusiasm, intellectual fermentation and political skirmishing.

"You can pretty much call us whatever you want," guide Jenn Lerner told us. "As long as it's not Stanford."

Amen to that.

When worlds converge...

There's another part of my life, besides rooting for Cal - and that is my faith. I'm a "cradle Catholic", having strengthened my belief during my school days at Newman Hall on College Ave.

Over the last few years, my belief has further deepened and I always look forward to the opportunity to enhance my faith journey, especially during the everyday events. One way to maintain my awareness is the reading of some bloggers.

Perhaps it was providential that this excerpt appeared from one of my favorite faith-sharing bloggers, describing her adventures with her mother-in-law:

She was telling someone on the phone that her son (my husband) has degrees from Yale, Columbia, and this other school that she's not so sure is a reputable institution because she'd never heard of it, Stanbrook or Stancliff or something like that [referring to Stanford].

This reminds me of the following page from an issue in the California Monthly in 1982. My belief just got stronger. Thanks for the laugh, Jennifer.

Wow! I'm Honored!

After the stinging defeat, I went into hibernation mode. The truth is, my job made my life anything not remotely linked to hibernation.

Nevertheless, I just logged into my visitor tracking, checking in on my lowly statistics. The Daily Kos, I am not.

Lo & behold, I get not one, but two visits with an IP that references a very famous stanford band alum, known for playing a trombone. Welcome!!!

For that honor, I will mention a blog where he submits haikus.

http://stanfordfootballhaiku.blogspot.com/

Farm fans in another language still equals "nerds"

So this blog post referenced below proves what I always knew...below is the original in Dutch, then the next paragraph is a rough translation using Google's translating service (the Rosetta Stone it's not, but it's better than nothing).

http://rubzzzz.blogspot.com/2007/12/halloween-aquarium-stanford-alcatraz.html

Die zaterdag was het de dag van 'the Big Game', oftewel the California Golden Bears van UC Berkeley speelden American Football tegen Stanford in Palo Alto. Daar heen gereden met Gabe en zijn ouders waren er ook met hun hond die natuurlijk ook een Golden Bears shirt aanhad! Voor het stadion met Bart-Jan (red: van de zeilschool) afgesproken en de wedstrijd gekeken. Helaas gingen de Golden Bears keihard onderuit met 13-20 :(, dus het was na afloop alleen feest voor de Stanford-nerds, die dan ook in grote getalen het veld bestormden...
(emphasis added)

That Saturday was the day of the Big Game, or the California Golden Bears of UC Berkeley played American Football against Stanford in Palo Alto. That drove around with Gabe and his parents were also there with their dog, which of course, a Golden Bears shirt aanhad! For the stadium with Bart-Jan (red: from the sailing school) agreed and the match looked. Unfortunately, the Golden Bears hard bottom with 13-20: (, so it was only after feast for the Stanford-nerds, who is also large numbers in the field bestormden

A Picture Worth 1,000 Words

Photo from the Daily Cal