Idiots Write About Sports

Prior to Saturday’s game, the last time I attended a football game in Berkeley, Cal was but an upstart program ruining a Saturday afternoon for the highly-ranked USC Trojans. Now, a little more than a year later, Cal is a highly-ranked program itself, on its way to no worse than an appearance in the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl. The times, they is a-changin’.

But some things don’t change at Cal — like the stadium, a Harding Administration relic from an era in which people were much, much smaller than the snack-food-stuffed tubs of lard we’ve become today. This wasn’t so noticeable back in the bad old days, when only 30,000 hardy souls trudged out to Memorial Stadium to watch Cal lose to schools hailing from the deserts of Arizona all the way up to the forests of the Pacific Northwest. But this season, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, Cal is averaging 61,778 in attendance this year — 65,000-plus showed up at Saturday. I was wedged in between Jason and his family on my right and complete strangers on my left. The knees of the woman sitting directly behind me spent the entire four quarters resting in the small of my back — in some countries, that would be enough to make her my bride.

My point? I don’t care how many alums gotta cough up how much cash. Somehow, some way, the University of California has to renovate its football stadium.

Jason wrote a while back about how, for a big-time college football program, Cal acts pretty small-time in some areas. That trend continues, even as the school soars to new heights in the BCS standings.

The scoreboard that tallies rushing and passing yards for the Bears and their opponents is out of commission. The seemingly simple act of making sure that video packages on the stadium video scoreboard aren’t airing at the same time the band is playing — thus drowning out university officials’ pleas for money to improve the stadium — is beyond the big brains running the flagship campus of the UC system. At several points during the game, Memorial Stadium’s PA announcer — AnnoucerTron 2.5.3 — directed our attention to the video scoreboard for a series of trivia questions, printed in a font size so small they could only be seen by someone with 20/4,000 vision standing directly in front of the scoreboard. “Turn to your program for the answer,” AnnouncerTron chirped happily, never realizing that none of the 65,000 people in attendance could make out what the question was. Perhaps the 2.6 version will add that capability.

I am happy to report, however, that the quality of sausages served in the concession stand behind section FF has improved by leaps and bounds.

If Cal’s stadium remins mired in the past, at least its fanbase is adjusting its expectations skyward. After the Bears squeaked out the 28-27 win, I was making my way out of the stadium when I heard two Cal boosters — both old enough to experience a season like this approximately never — giving their assessment of the game.

“Well,” one said disgustedly. “It was a win, but not a victory.”

No… I’m pretty sure a 28-27 game counts as a victory, fellas.

One bit of sad news to report: as you may have read, I’m a sucker for the atmosphere of college football games in general and school marching bands in particular. Fortunately, Cal boasts a very capable marching band of its own — they performed a half-time salute to grunge music! — and on this particular day, they were aided and abetted by local high school bands for the annual High School Band Day (in which the combined bands performed Van Halen’s “Jump,” a song several of the Band Day participants may well have been conceived to).

Yet, for some reason, Cal now precedes kickoffs by playing a tape over the stadium loudspeaker system of some speed-metal-rap monstrosity. Jason thinks he recognizes the song as something that plays over a highlight reel at XYZ Park; to me, the song just sounds like someone using a riding lawn-mower to run over junior-high school students.

Why? For God’s sake, why? You have a marching band on hand! On this particular Saturday, you had many marching bands on hand! Why do you have to play something that makes the vast majority of the 65,000 people in attendance claw at their ear drums?

Jason’s wife theorizes that it’s something done at the behest of the players — listening to inaudible, terrible music apparently fires them up before plays. To which I say, shouldn’t they be concentrating on what’s happening on the field rather than the music playing around it? I mean, if music is that important to them, maybe they should be on the sideline listening to their iPods instead of trying to field a kickoff.

Besides, if the Cal band can play a rocking-if-somewhat-martial version of “Black Hole Sun,” I’m sure they can do a passable version of whatever crap the kids are listening to these days to motivate themselves to run and block and tackle.

Lest we think the situation at ESPN is hopeless and they're doomed to be Catchphrase Central, I present to you Jay Bilas, who was asked to name three college basketball programs under pressure:

"No thanks. If I know of a coach or program that is making a move, I will let you know. In the absence of real news, I don't do fire-flaming guessing games. The truth is, everybody with a job in an area that cares about college basketball is "under pressure", and that pressure is constant.

"No disrespect intended, but if you haven't played or coached, it is hard to understand it, which is why you see silly features like "Coaches On The Hotseat". There are no "honeymoons" or "hot seats", just accountability and the commitment of informed and knowledgeable coaches and administrators.

"When there are stories about "sportswriters on the hot seat" or "media accountability prediction toteboard", call me. Then there would be a greater understanding of what true accountability really means. As always, reasonable minds can differ."

He then went on to present an expanded version of that argument (http://proxy.espn.go.com/ncb/preview2004/columns/story?id=1919365) in his own column. Whether we call him on writing the same thing twice like we have with Caple is debatable, but I'm going to let it slide.

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