Supposedly Rose Bowl-clinching game. It was phenom.

I ended up on the field right next to Aaron Rodgers. How I cherish that moment.

…was my first Big Game. I hadn’t quite understood yet what Cal was about as a freshman, but I was lucky to live on the same floor at Norton where Damon Moore, one of the early 1980s yell-leaders also lived. it was he who gave myself and a number of other freshman our first experience of Big Game Week, using his connections to get us into Sather Tower and up to Big C at night to see what the Rally Comm was doing to protect Cal’s targeted assets. That experience, plus Damon’s insistence we learn all the fight songs, made us forever Blues from that point.

As for the game, I stupidly hadn’t bought the student card that gave access to games and enabled us to buy Big Game tickets, so I had my first experience with a ticket scalper, whom I ridiculously overpaid. Yet after our 28-23 win, watching J Torchio (in one of his more competent performances), John Tuggle, and Ron Coccimiglio lead the way (especially with the final defensive stands against John Elway), it was the best $35 I ever spent…

My favorite memory of that game though, actually came afterwards. Running around the field as the game ended, our Norton group trailied kicker Mick Luckhurst, who ran over to the Stanfurd side and yelled at them, taunting: “I love you Stanfurd, I love you Stanfurd, FUCK YOU STANFURD!”.

I will always be a Mick Luckhurst fan.

I was a Cal freshman. I’d grown up in the quasi Bay Area (Gilroy Garlic Land), so I knew a little something about the Big Game. And truth be told, after The Play happened when I was in junior high, I leaned toward Cal in every Big Game after that. So when I ended up at Cal, it wasn’t difficult for me to get into the rivalry 100%.

Among my dorm mates, I was the only one who knew anything about the Big Game. I’d like to think I got a lot of people around me pumped up about it. I was very serious about getting great seats that day. So one of my roommates and I headed up to the stadium from Clark Kerr (not a long walk, obvi) and staked our claim to a choice spot in the student section. Got there early: about 11:00 am for a 1:00 kickoff. 50 yard line, about the 24th or 25th row up. To this day, the best seats I’ve ever had for a football game. We saved seats for the rest of our group.

Seeing the stadium fill up put me in awe. This was 1988, year 2 of the Snyder era. We weren’t exactly filling the stadium with 70,000+ on a regular basis. (I think our biggest crowd that year had been about 55,000 for the Ucla game against a then # 1 ranked team that featured Troy Aikman.) We were 5-5 going into the game (coming off a brutal loss at Washington where we pissed away a 27-3 lead) and the furds were 4-6. But you wouldn’t have known that the records were that mediocre from the electricity in the crowd.

The game was a see saw tilt, and unexpectedly low scoring, with many FGs by both kickers. If memory serves, stanfurd’s only TD that day was on a kickoff return. ALAMAAAAAAAAAAAARRRR! We were down 19-12 in the 4th quarter when Troy Taylor hit Mike Ford on a TD pass to tie the game. And then, very late in the 4th quarter (I want to see with less than 4 minutes remaining), we made a huge play. One of our D-lineman hit the stanfurd QB just as he was throwing the ball (I’m ashamed I don’t remember who the D-lineman was), causing a fluttering pass over the middle. David Ortega intercepted the pass and returned it fairly deep into stanfurd territory. I still remember that moment as one of the greatest rushes of adrenaline I’ve ever felt at a football game.

We ran some clock and moved the ball down to the three yard line, and called time out with 3 or 4 seconds left to bring on Robbie Keen for a 20 yard FG FTW. Keen was an excellent kicker and had kicked a school record 55 yard FG the previous week at UW. Unfortunately, in a case of coaching phail, we had not centered the ball. Our last play before the timeout, we had run to the left side, so the ball was just inside the left hash. That turned out to be a key to the fateful ending.

We set up for the FG. Good snap, good hold. Kick up….BLOCKED! Tuan Van Le (a name that lives in infamy with Cal fans who saw this game) came from around the defensive left end to block the kick. Because the ball was on the left hash, Keen was kicking “toward” Van Le. The kick was prolly a little low to begin with, but the angle helped Van Le block it.

NOTE: I can’t take credit for this “analysis” of the angle of the kick. Sometime after the game, a Cal backup kicker who lived in my dorm told me that they’d “fucked up” the last couple of plays before trying the FG. Centering the ball is important not only for it being an easier kick, but for making it very difficult for the outside rusher to ever get in fast enough to have a realistic chance of blocking the kick.

The game ended in a 19-19 tie. So stanfurd kept the Axe. We stood there in stunned disbelief.

Went to games even as an infant but the first game I remember happened at Stanford around 1990, when I was 5 or 6. I remember eating hot dogs in a dirty eucalyptus grove, eating candy in the stadium, getting a coke, listening to my grandfather unleash tirade after tirade about Cal’s ineptitude (even though I think they won?), wondering why the Stanford band didn’t practice their halftime show, and sleeping on the car ride home. Football games as a child are very useless.

Also, I was in Palo Alto for a business function yesterday and wore a blue and gold tie. Nobody commented on the color scheme choice and nobody even appeared to notice I was trying to stick it to them. God Stanford fans suck

After (almost) making a valiant comeback, including a safety and a long end-around touchdown—both plays right in front of all the Cal fans at the closed end of old Stanfurd Stadium—Joe Kapp’s bad-luck Bears came up just a little short once again, this time courtesy of a missed 30-something-yard field goal by Leland Rix. (To this day, I wonder why Mr. Rix was allowed to keep his first name after enrolling at Cal. I’m quite sure he would have made the kick had be been re-christened Brick or Babe or Joe or Jackie or Pappy or Sue or University-of or anything but Leland.)

Nonetheless, it was an experience that forever cemented my love of all things Cal and hatred of all things Stanfurd. It was a gray drizzly day which only enhanced the visible contrast in the stands between the two-thirds that were decked out in Blue and Gold rain ponchos, and the one-third that was wearing red. The pre-game tailgate among the eucalyptus likewise reminded me I was on the right side of this rivalry—with the beer, BBQ, and blue jeans crowd, not the wine, paté, and red-plaid polyester set reeking of cloying French perfume and waving horrifically racist “Indian” banners. Then the game itself once again demonstrated “The Bear Does Not Quit” attitude, among fans and players alike. There are no moral victories in Big Games, but I nonetheless headed back to my Berkeley dorm that night feeling proud to be a Bear.

And then 1986 happened. My first Big Game in Strawberry Canyon. My second time rushing the field after a glorious win. (That cherry had been popped in ‘85 versus USC.) And still the single greatest sporting event I’ve ever attended— and that includes the Jason Kidd upset of Duke in Chicago to advance to the Sweet 16, which I must admit is a close second.

To any Cal freshmen reading this, enjoy Saturday. Intoxicate yourself with the unrivaled passion of the Big Game. Cheer our boys in blue on to victory as mightily as you can, and win or lose, be prepared to walk or stumble out of Palo Alto that night (or the next morning) knowing that now, you are truly a Golden Bear. For life. This is your initiation into the world’s greatest brotherhood/sisterhood. And you will most certainly know that … it’s …

UP with the Blue and Gold, DOWN with the Red.
California’s out for a victory.
We’ll drop our battle-axe on
Stanford’s head, Chop!
When we meet her, our team will surely beat her.
Down on the Stanford Farm there’ll be no sound,
When our Oski rips through the air.
Like our friend Mister Jonah,
Stanford’s team will be found
In the tummy of the Golden Bear!

(Thank you Ted Haley and Robert Briggs. You guys are my heroes.)

CGB you let me down this week. I come here to read a breakdown of the game and I get Avi throwing in the towel? Pretty sure that stipulates the invocation of a Sanchez meme.

Folks, the Trees are only favored by a touchdown.

There should obviously be a breakdown!

—married the girl. Tall, blond, has own season tickets – what more do you need?

I got drunk for the very first time in my life and had my one and only hangover at the farm. I had to sit down the whole game and threw up seven times that day. In the morning when I woke up, after breakfast, on the way to the game, at the tailgate, at the game in the stands, at the game in the bathroom, and after the game. It was fantastic.

Don’t remember it, I was 4mo. old… I hear we won!

Haven’t missed one since… Don’t plan on missing one anytime soon…

Planning on storming the grove tomorrow, talking mad shit to everyone in red, (yes even you old lady with a walker, sorry you should have made better decisions earlier in life to avoid this moment) and taking the axe home, while driving a car dragging red and white roses…

Fuck these fucking fuckers… Time to get real and beat these fUrdies back down to where they belong…

I saw the 2006 on TV (couldn’t go :( ) but I made sure to make the 2007 one in Palo Alto… yea

My only home BG was in 2008 and that was sweet!

Although I was a senior, it was my first Big Game. I had follow the team on TV all the previous years so I knew how good Cal was compared to the furd. I expected Cal to roll and did not expect the game to be that close.

I remember how annoyed I was because of how much they did the wave! and it was a close game too!

…but then it started feeling really good. I’ve been Big Gaming as much as possible ever since!

My first Big Game win. Down at the Farm. Great Cal comeback featuring a spectacular TD catch by Joe Rose that was initially called no good, but reversed by after a conference by the refs who realized that there were two lines at the back of the Furd endzone, and Rose had come down inside the back line. (Such a reversal was huge back before replay!) Was having two back lines in the endzone Furd stupidity, or a Furd plot?

I had previously attended the 1977 and 1978 Big Games, but I don’t count them because they were horrible.

We were up 25-24 – Senior John Hardy picks off the 2 point attempt. We celebrate, students storm the field, and we get a freakin’ 15 yard penalty.

Stanford kicks from the 50- onside obviously. The kick bounces off a couple of bears, including backup qb Mike Beebe ( knew him – he was a great guy, but took a LOT of crap and had a chip on his shoulder for a while). Stanford recovers!!!!

Stanford ball on the Cal 47. incomplete pass by Jason Palumbis, but there’s a late hit by John Belli on the play. Stanford ball on the 22.

John Hopkins calmly boots the 39 yarder through the uprights.

No axe for you. Welcome to Cal football.

1982 – First one I remember from the radio. I was 7 and had no idea what was going on, but neither did my Dad the alum, so I guess we were even.

1990 – First one I remember from TV. So much hope that day, so much Bear fandom afterward.

1999 – First one in person. Back from college and decided to get season tickets (my Dad the alum is/wasn’t a fan of attending games in person).

That game was in Palo Alto and it’s when I realized that Cal didn’t have the worst stadium in the conference. The Bears were 4-6 at the time and Stanford was 6-3. It felt like the perfect spoiler game. Stanford would win the Pac-10 if the Bears weren’t stong enough to pull the upset.

Delta O’Neal put it all on his shoulders, and answered two Stanford touchdowns with two of his own, one kickoff return and one punt return. Alas, when the extra point was blocked, Stanford seemed to realize that without Delta, the Bears were nothing to fear. So they routinely punted the ball out of bounds and squibbed every kickoff from then on out. Just to be doubly safe, they refused to throw to Delta’s side of the field and he didn’t have a chance to make one of his signature interceptions for a touchdown either.

Stanford tacked on 3 more scores while the Bears never scored another point. Bears lost 13-31.

But just for extra fun, the fans behind me were a group of students who were drunk off their ass. Not fun drunk, obnoxious drunk. The one guy kept saying “Your mama eats kitty litter!” to the Stanford players over and over again. He got real quiet in the 2nd quarter and then puked at halftime, the splatter of which got my wife. The stench was unbearable so while he was dragged out of the stadium by security, we found new seats.

I haven’t missed a Big Game since.

(Post-script, nor have my chidren who will on Saturday be attending their 14th combined game: 7 for my 6 year old (3 months at first game), 5 for my 4 year old (11 months at first game), 2 for my nearly 2 year old (11 months at first game). It’s a tradition to me that means more than just about anything else. My wife was 7 days from her due date with our 3rd in 2007 when I made the nearly 3 hour drive from our home to Palo Alto to watch the Bears lose the first Big Game of my children’s lives.)

I’m going tomorrow. Can’t wait! GO BEARS!

I don’t remember much other than Cal won. I had to look up the score (24-23, must’ve been a good one!)

I was 9 and awed by the noise and the passion and the insanity and WOO CAL WON. My mom always bought our tickets from Stanford because of Cal’s weird season ticket rules, so we were around Stanford fans but somehow also near the student section. When the students started throwing fruit a stray piece hit some kid near me, and my mom didn’t take me to the next game for fear of exposing me to the insanity again. She relented a year later and I haven’t missed a game since.

’nuff said. :-)

1992. I’ve already written about the hijinks that went on that week – suffice to say we spent some sleepless nights painting bear paws around the Cal campus too that week.

Game time comes and we’re just getting our asses beat. Stanfurd is running all over the team, and then late in the 4th quarter, while the tree wsa prancing and making a huge fool of himself – and BAM! all of a sudden, Mark Bingham just DESTROYS the Tree on a massive tackle. Totally demolished. The student section lets out a huge cheer – Bingham is tackled by the UCPD, but now the student section wants blood. The last play of the game, there’s a fight on the field between the teams – and then, somebody shouts “Let’s get in there!” – and the student section rushes the field to get in on a brawl between two football teams. There may have been some insanity.

Stanfurd retreats fairly quickly, their students try to rush our field, but are driven back by our mob – the student section heads over in front of the Stanfurd section and starts in with Bear Territory (after we just got destroyed on the football team – we may have lost the game, but we’ll win the brawl!) We’re throwing oranges back and forth with the Stanfurd crowd – I remember with particular clarity hitting a Stanfurd girl in the head with a left hand rocket. It takes the Stanfurd crowd leaving (and the team celebrating in the visitors locker room) to clear the field.

It was after the embarrassment of 1992 that they really started having heavy heavy heavy security presence on the field during the Big Game. I think Chancellor Tien had to write a letter of apology to Stanfurd.