A little backstory, here:

A good friend of mine, '88 alum and long-time Bear Backer, lives in LA.  You know him here as 1988goldenbear.  Every year in the Tedford era we've had season tickets and every year we've attended the game together in LA (his wife is a U$C alum, to complicate things a bit, but she's still good people.)

Anyway, as everyone knows we haven't been very successful in LA this decade, and so I always wondered if we contributed to the Bears' LA curse.

Well THIS year, he couldn't make the game, so another friend of mine (who has made a few trips with us) and I went down to the game - and lo and behold we won!  So now, Tedford and I are off the schneid, but my LA friend is still winless.  Figuring that he MUST be the cause of the curse (he also went to the Holiday Bowl without me), I effectively banned him from ever attending a game in Southern California, again.  Naturally that would cause some problems for him and his household, and so he asked if Sandy Barbour could issue a pardon.  Sure, I figured, how could I argue with that?  No way in hell he actually asks her, right?

Well, he did...

The day after the UCLA game, he really DID send an appeal to SB and JT.

Here's the mail:

Sent: Sunday, October 18, 2009 9:59 PM
To: athletic.director@berkeley.edu
Cc: football@berkeley.edu
Subject: need your help please

Dear Ms. Barbour and Coach Tedford,

I'm a loyal Bear Backer and football season ticket holder and I
absolutely LOVE what both of you have brought to Cal.  I have a small
request:

I missed out on being at the great win this weekend at UCLA because I
was a groomsman in my brother-in-law's wedding - I can't believe he
didn't have the common decency to check the football schedule before
setting a date, but that is water under the bridge.  So now my two
buddies who come down to attend the away game in LA every year with me
are convinced that I must be the root cause of the losses at USC and
UCLA over the years.  And they are reluctant to give me a pass for
attending the victory at the Rose Bowl in 1993.

Only you have the gravitas to extend permission for me to attend the
games from 2010 on - is that too much to ask?

Thanks for considering my request, and GO BEARS!!!

xxxxxx, '88

And last night he got a response:

From: "Sandy Barbour" <athletic.director@berkeley.edu>
Date: October 27, 2009 10:19:45 PM PDT
To: xxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: need your help please

XXX,

Coach Tedford and I have conferred and we both agree that you have had
nothing to do with our struggles vs. UCLA, and therefore you have our
collective permission (and encouragement!) to attend all Cal games, in any
location, in the future.

Thanks for being a loyal Cal fan.

Go Bears!

SB

I don't care if this was actually written by some staffer, or not.  The fact that my lunatic friend had the gall to send such a trivial request to the Athletic Department, and someone took the time to respond, is AWESOME!  Maybe not sending-a-refund-check awesome, but awesome nonethless.

I've always thought SB has done a great job, and her energy at being at virtually every event is amazing, but this seals it for me.  SB for Governor!

Go BEARS!