My earliest USC-Cal experience was around 1970 when a friend of my parents was visiting from Los Angeles. He was an SC fan, and Cal lost like 63-0, or something like that. Utter humiliation for this 10 year old Cal fan.
I'm not sure why my parents did that to me. Both Cal alums, and my dad even had chaired The Big Game in 1954, I think it was.
I really hated that guy, and I eventually heard that he later abandoned his wife, who had MS. Some sort of kismet there.
If you want a bit of Schadenfreude on U$C read the book Bad City by an LA Times writer named Pringle who won a Pulitzer for uncovering a couple of disgraceful scandals perpetrated at the highest level of U$C administration. He turned his research into the book after winning the Pulitzer. Unbelievable (you can’t make this stuff up) but you have to read it. It may put a small dab of salve over the wounds we have incurred in this rivalry. Great read!
The thing is most $C students don’t know and the non-student fans don’t care. Just like Chinatown, the movie, starring suggests, LA is a sprawling machine that crushes innocents.
Oct 29, 2023Liked by Avinash Kunnath, Christopher Helling
Avinash -- I don't think there has ever been such a perfectly written article about being a Cal Bears fan since Mike Silver and Chris Roerbach graced the pages of the Daily Cal in the 1980s. Combine this loss with the soul-crushing loss that was Auburn, I don't know that I have much soul left. So what time does the Oregon game start on Nov. 1?
EVEN IF CAL HAD SET UP A TIE GAME BY KICKING THAT PAT WE JUST COULDN'T STAND TO WATCH AN OVERTIME LOSS TO THE UNIVRSITY OF SECOND CHOICE, SO... THANKS CAL FOR TRYINGTO WIN TO WIN BY ONE POINT BY THROWING A BAD PASS WHICH LET US LOSE AGAIN... GRACEFULLY. GERBEARS
That was a brilliant piece of writing, Avi. It summed the game, the series and in many ways, the experience of being a Cal football fan. I saw my first Cal-U$C game as a wee child in 1965, a 35-0 Golden Bear loss. It hasn't gotten much better since. I've witnessed seven wins over the Trojans and more losses than I care to count (okay I counted, 22). A win yesterday would have been glorious, a twist in the tale. As it is the narrative held and heartbreak was again our reward. As much as I love the fact that I'll never have to share a stadium with their awful band and awful fans again, I hate the fact that another college football rivalry, one-sided though it may be, is over.
I am glad we don't have to put up with their band grinding out the same nonsense every-single-minute of the game.
Since we've hardly ever won consistently in the PAC, it will be interesting to lose to some new teams. Games in the CST, EST zones will be over 2-3 hours “early” on Saturdays, another bonus. Who knows, maybe Wilcox can squeeze out an overall winning record playing some of the ACC weaker teams.
Basketball will be more entertaining, will be able to see the Bears get crushed playing the high profile ACC teams instead of the same old cast of characters.
And the Furdies come with us too, so Big Game survives.
Well written. Bottom line is that the teams (football or otherwise) with the big reputation almost always prevail over the teams with a mediocre reputation. Whether it be bad bounces on a fumble, or refs missing a hold on a receiver (e.g. the 2 point conversion play), or getting stripped on a punt return when a fair catch would have given us the opportunity to eat up clock and possibly extend a 7 point lead, or taking the panicky risk of going for 2 (scrap shoot one play) when kicking the extra point and challenging the entire team to win in the overtime format, Cal played amazing offense with many fantastic plays but, but gave this game away to the team with the bigger reputation. We have to believe we can win important football games….and we can, but it’s a big phycological barrier.
This is rare literature, Mr. Kunnath. I cannot imagine a finer eulogy for a sporting relationship than this fine piece that dropped out of the ether just 30 minutes ago; my favorite part was noting, after the fact, the irony of being done in by Bear and MarShawn. Oh, and: No justice. Just Cal.
This is why I return to Write for California, because of the excellent writers. This is why it pains me to see comments from people, whose personas I have come to like and respect, laden so frequently with f-bombs and s-bombs and gd this and gd that.
I get it — heat of the moment stuff — but if we really are the finest learning institution and they really are just a bunch of morons, why do we speak like the morons when we all have at least varying degrees of the exquisite tools wielded so well by Avi and his team?
I loved the Halloween meme about what does and does not come with being a Cal fan. Biting wit with nary a profanity to be found.
My larger point is a question: Are we willing to raise our kids and grandkids on a steady diet of such foul language that it becomes the norm? Will the President one future day literally swear an oath, adding a “fer f’n sher” at the end?
Another: Are we capable of holding ourselves to a higher standard?
I’m no prude. I often quote a line from my late dad, who would solemnly intone, “Profanity…is just a crutch…for inarticulate melonfarmers”, except he didn’t say melonfarmers. But when
I do, I’m aware of my audience and never in front of kids. In a wide open forum we have no way of knowing our audience or to whom we are giving our blessing to litter public places with unnecessary and vulgar forms of speech.
There is freedom in having a pen name, too, which provides a measure of protection. Sort of like throwing rocks from behind a hoodie and a ski mask. This is why, some years back, I dropped StandupBear and all my other online euphemisms. I try to make sure what I contribute has value, humor, or at least enough self-integrity to where I wouldn’t mind or be embarrassed by my grandsons and granddaughters, our yours, reading it with my actual name attached.
I will close in pointing again with pride to my fellow Cal alum Avinash Kunnath, whom I have never met, and his most excellent think piece today.
Thank you, if you read this far, for indulging my soapbox homily on profanity. I’ve thought about it for a long time, admonishing and reporting here and there along the way.
But that doesn’t work. So I’ll throw this plea to the better angels of our nature and be done with it. It is a great article you wrote, Avi, and I’m better for having read it.
I get your admonition about the foul language and that we should set an example for our kids.
I, myself, am guilty.
Should we set a higher standard for ourselves?
Maybe.
But, maybe, the notion that we are "above" such vulgarity may be holding us back from winning the smashmouth part of smashmouth football?
I like that we can engage a "common people" parlance that is more universally understood and speaks to our passion. Academics is our head, while sports is our heart. Frank words, spoken in the heat moment, become a rhetoric of pathos, which is apart from logic and ethos.
One thing I do have a hard time accepting is seeing adults on $C's sideline who appear to have one job: Twirling a f'ing towel as though possessed and enthralled. Such pathos, is, well, pathetic.
BTW- It never occurred to me that kids may be reading these pages. I wholeheartedly agree that W4C's wit and eloquence should make us all proud. As in this case, yes, indeed, Avi., the perfect final words on our Hundred Year Trojan War.
I like your comment, and hasten to note the clear distinction between spoken and written. With all the pathos in the Western Hemisphere, one still can avoid typing the foul stuff —pixels live forever— far more easily than one who utters them.
When USC went up by 7 with 3:33 left, I thought that was then end. I turned off the radio. But then Cal started marching down the field! I turned the radio back on. We scored a TD! I almost fainted for the 100th time in this game.....the rest you know.
So we lost. Ironically, I was the one who said, during the first half, that we often collapse in the second half, so I was doing my best to enjoy the first half. So...maybe it's my fault.
$C - Cal rivalry is legendary, with Troy once winning 19(?) in a row. Many years ago the $C Crime Wave had been all but banned from sports for its countless violations of rules. Never forget the dirty play of the McKeever twins in the late 1950s (or thereabouts).
SC has mountains of NIL resources for their athletes. Cal and Stanford have very little.Cal's QB is a non recruited Freshman. SC's is the reigning Heisman Trophy winner and there are other evidence of superior talent in many other schools.
My earliest USC-Cal experience was around 1970 when a friend of my parents was visiting from Los Angeles. He was an SC fan, and Cal lost like 63-0, or something like that. Utter humiliation for this 10 year old Cal fan.
I'm not sure why my parents did that to me. Both Cal alums, and my dad even had chaired The Big Game in 1954, I think it was.
I really hated that guy, and I eventually heard that he later abandoned his wife, who had MS. Some sort of kismet there.
$C karma. It’s like the Yankees, some people are needy for fame by association.
I think I need a "No Justice. Just Cal" tattoo
If you want a bit of Schadenfreude on U$C read the book Bad City by an LA Times writer named Pringle who won a Pulitzer for uncovering a couple of disgraceful scandals perpetrated at the highest level of U$C administration. He turned his research into the book after winning the Pulitzer. Unbelievable (you can’t make this stuff up) but you have to read it. It may put a small dab of salve over the wounds we have incurred in this rivalry. Great read!
Just bought it and look forward to reading.
The thing is most $C students don’t know and the non-student fans don’t care. Just like Chinatown, the movie, starring suggests, LA is a sprawling machine that crushes innocents.
Avinash -- I don't think there has ever been such a perfectly written article about being a Cal Bears fan since Mike Silver and Chris Roerbach graced the pages of the Daily Cal in the 1980s. Combine this loss with the soul-crushing loss that was Auburn, I don't know that I have much soul left. So what time does the Oregon game start on Nov. 1?
EVEN IF CAL HAD SET UP A TIE GAME BY KICKING THAT PAT WE JUST COULDN'T STAND TO WATCH AN OVERTIME LOSS TO THE UNIVRSITY OF SECOND CHOICE, SO... THANKS CAL FOR TRYINGTO WIN TO WIN BY ONE POINT BY THROWING A BAD PASS WHICH LET US LOSE AGAIN... GRACEFULLY. GERBEARS
That was a brilliant piece of writing, Avi. It summed the game, the series and in many ways, the experience of being a Cal football fan. I saw my first Cal-U$C game as a wee child in 1965, a 35-0 Golden Bear loss. It hasn't gotten much better since. I've witnessed seven wins over the Trojans and more losses than I care to count (okay I counted, 22). A win yesterday would have been glorious, a twist in the tale. As it is the narrative held and heartbreak was again our reward. As much as I love the fact that I'll never have to share a stadium with their awful band and awful fans again, I hate the fact that another college football rivalry, one-sided though it may be, is over.
I am glad we don't have to put up with their band grinding out the same nonsense every-single-minute of the game.
Since we've hardly ever won consistently in the PAC, it will be interesting to lose to some new teams. Games in the CST, EST zones will be over 2-3 hours “early” on Saturdays, another bonus. Who knows, maybe Wilcox can squeeze out an overall winning record playing some of the ACC weaker teams.
Basketball will be more entertaining, will be able to see the Bears get crushed playing the high profile ACC teams instead of the same old cast of characters.
And the Furdies come with us too, so Big Game survives.
Well written. Bottom line is that the teams (football or otherwise) with the big reputation almost always prevail over the teams with a mediocre reputation. Whether it be bad bounces on a fumble, or refs missing a hold on a receiver (e.g. the 2 point conversion play), or getting stripped on a punt return when a fair catch would have given us the opportunity to eat up clock and possibly extend a 7 point lead, or taking the panicky risk of going for 2 (scrap shoot one play) when kicking the extra point and challenging the entire team to win in the overtime format, Cal played amazing offense with many fantastic plays but, but gave this game away to the team with the bigger reputation. We have to believe we can win important football games….and we can, but it’s a big phycological barrier.
Cal Football loses everything at Colorado 2: Electric Boogaloo
Nah. This game was fun! Now if we do this against Stanford...
"I've watched Cal lose, and lose, and lose to USC most of my life, and they saved the most Cal loss for last.
It was an insane, obscene, perfect farewell."
And, now, the emptiness of my hate festers and yearns in my soul.
If we had won, it would have served as closure for all the trauma and butt kickings we have endured. Now, no closure; just empty disbelief.
Closure was a long shot and anathema to our long suffering.
Appropriately, we end it in suffering.
This is rare literature, Mr. Kunnath. I cannot imagine a finer eulogy for a sporting relationship than this fine piece that dropped out of the ether just 30 minutes ago; my favorite part was noting, after the fact, the irony of being done in by Bear and MarShawn. Oh, and: No justice. Just Cal.
This is why I return to Write for California, because of the excellent writers. This is why it pains me to see comments from people, whose personas I have come to like and respect, laden so frequently with f-bombs and s-bombs and gd this and gd that.
I get it — heat of the moment stuff — but if we really are the finest learning institution and they really are just a bunch of morons, why do we speak like the morons when we all have at least varying degrees of the exquisite tools wielded so well by Avi and his team?
I loved the Halloween meme about what does and does not come with being a Cal fan. Biting wit with nary a profanity to be found.
My larger point is a question: Are we willing to raise our kids and grandkids on a steady diet of such foul language that it becomes the norm? Will the President one future day literally swear an oath, adding a “fer f’n sher” at the end?
Another: Are we capable of holding ourselves to a higher standard?
I’m no prude. I often quote a line from my late dad, who would solemnly intone, “Profanity…is just a crutch…for inarticulate melonfarmers”, except he didn’t say melonfarmers. But when
I do, I’m aware of my audience and never in front of kids. In a wide open forum we have no way of knowing our audience or to whom we are giving our blessing to litter public places with unnecessary and vulgar forms of speech.
There is freedom in having a pen name, too, which provides a measure of protection. Sort of like throwing rocks from behind a hoodie and a ski mask. This is why, some years back, I dropped StandupBear and all my other online euphemisms. I try to make sure what I contribute has value, humor, or at least enough self-integrity to where I wouldn’t mind or be embarrassed by my grandsons and granddaughters, our yours, reading it with my actual name attached.
I will close in pointing again with pride to my fellow Cal alum Avinash Kunnath, whom I have never met, and his most excellent think piece today.
Thank you, if you read this far, for indulging my soapbox homily on profanity. I’ve thought about it for a long time, admonishing and reporting here and there along the way.
But that doesn’t work. So I’ll throw this plea to the better angels of our nature and be done with it. It is a great article you wrote, Avi, and I’m better for having read it.
President F'ing Camacho.
https://s.hdnux.com/photos/51/32/20/10855441/4/1200x0.jpg
I get your admonition about the foul language and that we should set an example for our kids.
I, myself, am guilty.
Should we set a higher standard for ourselves?
Maybe.
But, maybe, the notion that we are "above" such vulgarity may be holding us back from winning the smashmouth part of smashmouth football?
I like that we can engage a "common people" parlance that is more universally understood and speaks to our passion. Academics is our head, while sports is our heart. Frank words, spoken in the heat moment, become a rhetoric of pathos, which is apart from logic and ethos.
One thing I do have a hard time accepting is seeing adults on $C's sideline who appear to have one job: Twirling a f'ing towel as though possessed and enthralled. Such pathos, is, well, pathetic.
BTW- It never occurred to me that kids may be reading these pages. I wholeheartedly agree that W4C's wit and eloquence should make us all proud. As in this case, yes, indeed, Avi., the perfect final words on our Hundred Year Trojan War.
I like your comment, and hasten to note the clear distinction between spoken and written. With all the pathos in the Western Hemisphere, one still can avoid typing the foul stuff —pixels live forever— far more easily than one who utters them.
When USC went up by 7 with 3:33 left, I thought that was then end. I turned off the radio. But then Cal started marching down the field! I turned the radio back on. We scored a TD! I almost fainted for the 100th time in this game.....the rest you know.
So we lost. Ironically, I was the one who said, during the first half, that we often collapse in the second half, so I was doing my best to enjoy the first half. So...maybe it's my fault.
$C - Cal rivalry is legendary, with Troy once winning 19(?) in a row. Many years ago the $C Crime Wave had been all but banned from sports for its countless violations of rules. Never forget the dirty play of the McKeever twins in the late 1950s (or thereabouts).
The replay seemed to show a helmet to helmet hit on Ott. Why was there no penalty or ejection?
Because college refs are simply incompetent. Always have been, are now, always will be.
This is us. Drama, disparity, loss. It ran six seasons
To be fair, it's been far longer than 6 sessions.
More like 6+ decades, with intermittent Fiat Lux moments.
"USC is a football school, and Cal is a school that plays football...."
And not very well.
$C has their own set of troubles this year with a pourous defense.
Yet, SC is sitting at 7-2 and will have a winning season.
Meanwhile, Cal is staring at another losing season under Wilcox. His 3rd losing season in a row.
While SC has some issues to sort out, we have large program problems.
SC has mountains of NIL resources for their athletes. Cal and Stanford have very little.Cal's QB is a non recruited Freshman. SC's is the reigning Heisman Trophy winner and there are other evidence of superior talent in many other schools.
NIL is what will finally bury Cal football & keep the best recruits going elsewhere.
Nando was recruited by Musgraves, who convinced him to decommit from Yale and come to Cal.
Certainly one of the most disappointing losses to U$C in my 35 years in the stands
Only because we were in the game, up to the last minute, for a game we weren't expected to win. Hopes raised and lost.
TypiCal (c)2020 BobR
I’m fairly certain Wilcox knew a win would have added prestige to this season’s team.