Get used to Norrie and Gannon; they’re the announcers for both games. (they called the USC game last year)

Men’s B-Ball Fan Appreciation Day!

Cal fans will get their first opportunity to greet new head coach Mike Montgomery and see his 2008-09 Golden Bears as the men’s basketball program will be hosting a Fan Appreciation Day on Wednesday, Oct. 29 from 5-7 p.m. at Haas Pavilion. Montgomery’s squad will hold a scrimmage open to the public from 5-6 p.m. Following the scrimmage, fans will have an autograph session with the player and coaches until 7 p.m.

Fans will also have the opportunity to help Cal celebrate its 100th season of men’s basketball. Free for the first 250 season ticket holders who attend the scrimmage will be a 100th Season Commemorative mini-basketball that is already signed by Coach Montgomery. The commemorative mini-basketball will be perfect for additional autographs and will not be available at any stores or at any of the other Cal home basketball games. This will be the one-time only opportunity for season ticket holders to get this valuable keepsake.

The Fan Appreciation Night will include activities even the youngest fans will enjoy with bounce houses and an inflatable free throw contest inside Haas Pavilion. The Cal Spirit Teams will be involved with the Mic Men and Cal Dance Team leading the cheers.

Single-game tickets are now available for the general public starting at $10 for most games. For the UCLA, Stanford and Arizona conference games, all seats will be $35. Season tickets and Cal Fan 4-Packs are available and can be ordered online anytime at CalBears.com or by calling the ticket office at (800) Go Bears Monday-Friday from 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. For any questions or more information, go to Cal Men’s Basketball Ticket Page.

CoCo Times article on Montgomery on Olson:

Montgomery: "I feel badly for Lute, I feel badly for the Arizona program, because this is the one thing I don’t think anybody wanted to see. Lute’s been such a good coach for so long, with such a good program, that obviously he wanted to try to finish up and put a little exclamation point on his career.

"I hope he’s now able to do what he wants to do and he’s at peace with it."

It’s unfortunate that Oklahoma State-Texas is on at the same time. I wanted really badly to watch that game.

9. Speaking of bouncing back in crunch time, Cal: If California loses at home to a UCLA team the Bears should beat, then it will be impossible not to wonder if the program is headed for a repeat of last season’s second-half collapse (though obviously the Bears never climbed to No. 2 in the polls this season). Forget the quarterback controversy: Cal needs to show resiliency. Its defense needs to recover its mojo after flopping in the second half against Arizona. The running game needs to give whoever plays quarterback a lift. And whoever plays quarterback needs to avoid making momentum-quashing mistakes.

I don’t recall this being mentioned in yesterday’s DBD, but at tomorrow’s game they’re giving away Joe Roth shirts (like they did with the hats last year) to the first 5000 (?) fans at the game. I don’t know all the details, but they sent an email out about it (an email I never received, much to my dismay).

Also, it’s going to be 81 miserable degrees out during tomorrow’s game. It may rain at next week’s game, though.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/sioncampus/03/15/cheer.index/index.html

Hey guys. Although you probably already know, San Jose State is playing Boise State @ 6pm on ESPN2. This is a huge game for SJSU, and I cannot recall ever having seen them on national TV. It will be really interesting to see what Kyle Reed has to offer.

I wish this was real life though :(

(yes that is the rose bowl)

Guess who helped us win?

3 punts downed near the 5 and 2 more for touchbacks.

Best had four runs for positive yardage, everything else went for negative. Here’s his best positive yardage. Our D was amazing stopping Wells for 12 yards on 15 carries! Hagan is the man in this game. SQT came back from a 8 week injury but he did nothing to help us.

I recently sent this recipe to tailgating.com:

Carp’s Teriyaki Shishkabobs

meat of your choice (flank steak or 2 chicken breasts)
bell peppers (2-3 green bell peppers work best)
1 pineapple (don’t use the canned pineapple)
4 onions (walla walla)
2 tblspns minced garlic
large container of Yoshida’s Teriyaki sauce
2 tblspns whole black peppercorns
6 tblspns diced cilantro

Cut up meat into 1" × 1" × 1" cubes (this is important to prevent inebriated people from choking!). Cut up pineapple, bell peppers, and onions into similar dimensions. Put 1 piece of each meat/fruit/veggie onto a wood kabob. Repeat until all cut up ingredients have been consumed. Place each kabob in a long, shallow tupperware container. To this container add teriyaki sauce, garlic, peppercorns, and cilantro. Marinate overnight or for a minimum of 3 h if time is of the essence. Cook 5 min/side and enjoy right off the grill. Charcoal BBQ’s are better but I’m old school.

I guess no one went to work . . .

Then I found this place. My eyes bleed.

Link:

This week, we have been hard at work preparing for a talented UCLA team. Although we are all disappointed in our result at Arizona, the morale on the team is strong and the team is concentrating on our next opponent. As I told them, we are still right in the hunt for a Pac-10 championship and we can control our own destiny. It’s just that no one is undefeated in the conference anymore. There are five of us with one loss each, and there’s long way to go before anything will be settled.

Before I write any further, I’d like to address the arrests earlier this week of two suspects, who had been affiliated with the Cal football team, in a robbery that occurred in one of our campus dorms last month. One is a former player, who was dismissed from the team this past summer for a violation of team rules, and the other was dismissed from the team this week immediately following his arrest. While it appears that they acted in retaliation for offensive comments, there is nothing that can excuse this sort of illegal behavior.

While this was an extremely unfortunate situation, it must not be seen as reflective of the great kids we have on this Cal team. As I’ve said before, the camaraderie on the football squad has never been better. I have confidence that our team will remain focused on what it needs to do to get the job done on the field and in the classroom. I also have the same degree of confidence that they will continue to represent and exemplify the best Cal has to offer when they are off the field.

In practice and in meetings, we’ve talked about what we need to do to get better in all phases of the game. You have to give Arizona credit. They made plays and we didn’t, especially in the third quarter. We need to sustain our effort and execution through all four quarters. I felt we played very well at the end of the first half, scoring 17 straight points to take a 10-point lead. But we have to be able to respond to the opponent’s best shot, whether that means making better tackles on defense or keeping drives alive on offense.

The good news is that we came out of the game fairly healthy. Jahvid Best’s elbow was sore, which is why he didn’t play in the fourth quarter, but he’s been back at practice this week and will be in the lineup again Saturday.

http://www.economist.com/daily/diary/displayStory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=12448493#day_two

Completely unrelated to Cal, the article is entirely about politics. I just loved the quaint description of what a “tailgate” is; the Economist has a widespread international audience and any colloquial terminology has to be explained.

This is a fine tailgate, but the crowd is a bit older and it’s a sedate affair. I walk to campus, swept along by a sea of people wearing red shirts and carrying coolers. The idea of tailgating is to socialise with your friends before a sporting event—usually, an American football game. At bigger universities, especially in the south, this is often an all-day affair with lots of beer, hamburgers, hot dogs, music, and general commotion.

“I say Reginald, wouldn’t it be a champion idea for us to socialize before our next sporting event upon the American football gridiron pitch with some generalized commotion?? Indeed I say!”

Does this guy look anything like Nate???