My first year was 2004, which was seriously the worst time to become a Cal fan. Not because they were so good, but you kind of expected that goodness to happen every week. Every game was a pampering, a beating. Venni viddi vicci.

So when Cal went 10-1 in ‘04, it didn’t move me as much as it should have. I hadn’t known the bottom. I just got the top. I was fortunate.

I knew they couldn’t replicate that effort in 2005, so like a wuss, I stayed away. Thus I missed plenty of great games in order to be a good student. That worked out alright. But even I missed being in the stadium.

2006 was when I really became anointed as a Cal fan. Every win was big, every loss left me manic-depressed. Minnesota, Arizona State, Oregon, UW, UCLA. Those games were life experiences. I thought I was part of something bigger than me, and isn’t that what fandom is all about?

Writing in 2007 was a strange experience—I was totally out of my depth (still am to an extent now, but less so), and kept a distant eye with the Bears. I did go to all of the home games (save the Riley game, which would have made me commit homicide), but it was kind of with a detached journalist’s eye, not really engaging the fans and instead just surveying the game and gorging on college football. I had decent fun doing it, but in the long-run it was not terribly fulfilling.

However, given that I’m as New Blue as they come, I try to be lighter in my coverage of Cal now. Although last year sucked (and I took it harder than I probably should have), feeling this badly about what happened is probably nothing compared to the people who have suffered for decades before. Cal’s 14-1 in the games I’ve attended, what the hell do I have to complain about?

It’s why I’m satisfied with solid 8-4 seasons and occasional BCS shots. If we get more, tight, but I know Cal is like Tatooine in the college football universe, and we should be grateful that we’re even here to begin with.

And my addiction rebounding and Celtics Championship ring, my Cal fanhood started in my senior of high school, in 1991.

I was choosing between Cal and another school located somewhere on the Peninsula, when as a high school senior I got tickets to watch “Big Bad Cal Mauls Poor USC” in the fall of 1991. From the thrashing Russell and Pawlawski handed out to Jason Kidd committing to Cal, I chose Cal (well, er, Stanfurd helped the process) I knew that I would be attending a school with a Heisman Winner and multiple Final Four appearances.

Well somehow that didn’t work out, and having been through the full Gilby experience (from the Miracle at Memorial to losing to UW despite having a 21-7 lead with 5 minutes left in the game). So I find all this anti-Tedford stuff perplexing. Hello! Becoming bowl eligible every year is STILL a celebration for me.

In all honesty…
I was planning on attending Berkeley due to a specific Computer Science program they had. Found out I hated computers about a week before I signed up. Between that, and pressure from my ultraconservative parents, I stayed up Oregon.

I, like Avinash, came in 2004, went through the rollercoaster of emotions. I missed a couple games here and there in 2005, but those were due to being out of town, not due to studying (which I did very little of at Berkeley).

2007 reached the high point of my attachment to the team, given that it was my senior year. Every win (Tennessee and Oregon especially) made me want to go out and party on the street. Every loss (Oregon State and UCLA especially) made me grab a 12-pack of cheap beer and shotgun as many as possible until I forgot about the game.

I love my life.

My mom’s a Cal alum (’78)…and we always made trips to Bears football games and to the campus in general. I got into Cal, but opted for UC Davis since my gf got in there…lame as that may seem, she later became my wife and it was the best decision I ever made.

Of course, it’s hard to be a die hard UCD fan when your best game is against Cal Poly SLO and you kick the crap out of Suck St. every year. That, combined with my Cal upbringing, has kept me interested and in tune to Cal football (even through the Justin Vedder/Holmoe years). I’m currently at UCSF which has no athletic teams whatsoever.

I am currently applying for faculty jobs…Cal is on the top of my list!

In November 2000, I remember standing out there at Memorial Stadium. Cal was mediocre that year and the year before Stanford had gone to the Rose Bowl. So, the fact that we were currently battling them in OT was insane. We might beat Stanford. We could do this. This was unbelievable, they were supposed to crush us. We were terrible. We…………had hope.

Then, in the blink of an eye, there was a breakdown in coverage, a Stanford player caught the game winning TD and everything stopped. Nobody moved. We had clawed our way back into the game in the 4th quarter only to see another crushing defeat. The student section stood still for minutes at a time. And I remember looking down one row and seeing this 5th year student crying. Crying? Over a football game?

This was only my second year at Cal. Only my second Big Game. Both years at Cal had been, how you say, bad. The year before Kyle Boller (the original Jesus In Cleats) was thrown into the fire, we sucked, and Deltha was our only offense (and he played on defense). And 2000, we were slightly better. But still, nowhere near good. So, ya, it kinda sucked that we had lost Big Game 2000. And it kinda sucked that we had lost it in such a brutal fashion.

But to me, that’s just what we did, lose football games (and in specific Big Games). There was no frame of reference for success. Success at a football game related to how much fun I had with my friends while the game went on, not how well the team did. There generally was an inverse relationship between team success and my fun back then. The worse the team did, the less focused on the game me and my friends were. The more fun we had just relaxing.

So, to see somebody crying over a football game. To see somebody genuinely passionate, that confused me. I couldn’t see it from her angle. 5 years. 5 years! Not a single Big Game victory. 5 years of terrible, terrible football. And that’s how it ended for her.

2 years later, in my final Big Game, we won 30-7, we rushed the field and there were tears. But tears of joy. Not from me, of course. I don’t cry. I’m a boy.

For the first 3 years of my Cal career, I really didn’t care. I went to every single home game from 99-2001 (save for 1 which conflicted with my cousin’s bat mitzvah), not because I wanted to see the team, but because I had to. And it was fun. It was a mildly cool experience. But we didn’t care. Sorry to say it. We just plain didn’t care.

That all changed in September 2002. With merely one halfback option, thrown for a 60 yard touchdown bomb. It truly shocked the Cal world. For a single TD against a sorry Baylor team, we celebrated like it was VJ and VE Day all rolled up into one. This was a new era, this was a new team. This was a new time. The night after the Big Game, we bitterly cursed the freshmen in the band (now well graduated), mocking them for not knowing what it meant, what we had truly done that day. To them, they might have a mental appreciation, but not a gutteral or emotional appreciation. To them it was just a Big Game win, one of many to come.

But for us, it was for all of our friends, who spent years following Cal, going to Cal games, marching at halftime, just to watch us fall to those damnable red fools down South. It wasn’t just for us. It was for the classes that came before us, who never got to experience that.

I’m not exactly an Old Blue, but that’s what these Newer Blues don’t get. They don’t have that frame of reference of failure. I wish desperately sometimes that I had started in 2002 or later. That I never had to suffer 3 years of the Holmoecaust. But I think it makes me a better fan for it.

Instead of saying “4-1, I can’t believe we lost that 1” I can say “4-1, I can’t believe we made it past 2!” That is my story. What’s yours?

I applied to Cal mainly because it wasn’t in LA. I wanted a school that was close enough to home so I could get back if needed, but far enough away so I could feel independent. I had a cousin attending UCI, two in Furd, and some friends at Ucla, UCSB, and UCSD.

It was actualy one of my Furd cousins who pimped Cal to me. It was the only UC to which I applied (back then, you could only apply to one). I got in and my first quarter was Fall ’82 (we were in quarters back then).

That first week was a real culture shock. The place, the people (Polka Dot man, Rrrawwr, the smartest guy in the world), the sights, the smells, the coffee — it was all too cool for school.

The football team had promise. Joe Kapp was the returning prodigal son, ready to lead the Bears in his first season as head coach. We had those new unis with the cool bear-paw logo on the helmets (still the coolest football logo there is). It was a surprising season, filled with ups and downs, and The Play.

Togo’s, Manny’s, Kip’s, Henry’s, Top Dog, Fat Slice, Rasputin’s, Moe’s, The Roma, Shakespeare’s, Aardvark’s, Fred’s Market, the roach coaches along Bancroft, seeing the Axe in the ASUC, Ludwig’s Fountain, Sather Gate, The Glade, getting stoned near the Faculty Center, having sex in the bowels of Dwinelle, Freshmen More Wood!

It lasted 5 years. Kapp’s teams got progressively worse, despite trying to “win one for the zipper” (perhaps one of the more classic Kapp legacies), and his tenure ended with the imporbably win in the Big Game of 86. We got Bruce Snyder in 87. The team started to prosper, despite not being able to beat Furd.

I graduated with my potent degree in Zoology (yes, really), and went on to grad school in SoCal. Snyder’s teams improved, eventually coming to a top-10 finish in ‘91 before he was poached by ASU. We got Gilby and began a decade of crap. The only good part is Snyder wasn’t really able to rally ASU to any consistent lofty heights.

The Gilby era started the Dark Ages, continued in the Holmoecost.

And here we are.

As you can see, I’ve suffered the tortures of the damned in being a Cal fan. The Tedford era is very sweet, very rewarding, and very nice. But now you young whipper-snappers might understand why I temper the enjoyment with healthy cynicism. Now, get the hell off my lawn, you god damned kids.

I started as many drunks do in the Autumn of 2001 at Bowles Hall. So many men. It was a blast the traditions, the building and the dudes. Football was a reason to drink, drink before the game, during the game and after the game. I really only remember being disappointed a lot, the only win was after the season was over at Rutgers. After a year in the first dormitory west of the Mississippi I had to escape the homo-eroticism so I promptly moved into a fraternity where it proceeded to get 1000 times worse.

That is where Tedford’s arrival and my true Cal football education began. I vividly remember the Baylor game despite my intoxicated state. It was like a light went on and I knew that I would be spending a significant amount of my Falls in Berkeley for years to come. I still have a crazy battle scar from that game, we had a dog pile tradition for touchdowns. I was the “rabbit” or dog-pile-ee and the bench went right into my shin, it caused it to cave in with a 90 degree dent. No broken bones, at least I didn’t think so, and no way was I stumbling to the tang center. It swole up and stayed that way so here I am six years later with my Cal football badge of honor.

I met my fiance at the 2003 victory over SC. I clearly remember those lurching masses moving over a full section at each overtime, it was completely surreal. Since then it has been a mix of complete elation and utter agony. I don’t know if we will ever go to a Rose Bowl, but I will be there waiting patiently with all the Old Blues.

In conclusion really gotta go on Bears.

I never even watched football, or sports for that matter, until I came to Cal. It’s only reasonable, coming from a high school who’s combined football record for the 4 years I was there is a mediocre 8-32. So when I chose to go to Cal in 2004, it definitely wasn’t about the atheletic department.

The band definitely helped me become what I am today. The football games got my attention. The traditions of gameday held and cemented it. Saturday morning, Sproul Steps, Marchup, being in the North tunnel while the football players leave the field and trying to get Tedford to give you a rare high-five, the Bomb, Cone-kicking, Big C, Script Cal, struts! And that’s only pre-game.

It was during my first year that I was properly educated in football strategy, i.e. Yell as loud as you can until you are hoarse, drink a cup of water, and yell some more. If you can speak Sunday, you did not try hard enough. Oh and I guess reading Hydrotech’s posts helped a bit…

2004 had a lot of things to root and yell for. But at all times, I am reminded by that fifth year who’s newman year was before Tedford’s time. His best prop? A button that said “What’s Palms?” And though this might not compare to the endless losses Old Blues endured, having the Rose Bowl snatched out from underneath Cal by Mack “I’m a waste of life” Brown was the first WTF moments for the years to come.

I’ve seen a lot of the great games in the last four years. Cal vs. Oregon 2006. Cal vs. Oregon 2007. Cal vs. Tenn 2007. were some of my favorites. But my favorite moment of all, and Oregon 2007 is pretty high up there, was not even a football game. It was during the Men’s BBall Pac-10 tourney in L.A. 2007. Having gone to the previous tourney in which Leon Powe single handedly dominated the Oregon team in triple overtime on my birthday, extending our trip an extra day for the championship game, I wasn’t expecting too much. Having to face off with fucla in the quarterfinals, I already had my luggage packed.

fucla started strong. The Staples center was pretty much a much expanded Pauley Pav that night. U-C-L-A chants were swimming around the four corners of the building as if on cue to every big play. fucla alums sitting behind us heckled us with bile-raising shouts of, “What are you ****s doing out here?” “Enjoy your beat-down one last time!” and my favorite, “Did you change sides? Why are you playing OUR song???”

All that changed in the last 5 mins of the game. Cal was showing surprising determination. Ubaka, especially, was possessed that night. The U-C-L-A chants started dying, and were replaced with uncoordinated yells of frustration. In return, the noise from our fans doubled, tripled, and exploded. I tend to believe that other pac-10 fans were in the arena that night and were Bears fans for those last 5 mins.

I don’t remember much of those last moments. You can always look up replays of the game. I was soaking in the frustration and disappointment of those poor jackass bruin fans. It was sweet. And it served to remind me that no matter how good our team gets, the greater the hubris, the greater the fall.

I graduated in 2008 and its time for me to get back to work.

Go Bears!