If that is Barry Tompkins calling that game, I'll have whatever he was having. In that intro he is as amped up as a frog's muscle plugged into a light socket.
Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection
Send my credentials to the House of Detention
“I love Cal deeply. What are the directions to The Portal from Sproul Plaza?”
You're right of course, but people will point out that Cal team was #19 coming off of a 10-2 season. On an absolutely gorgeous afternoon it's not a surprise they'd draw a big crowd, or that the crowd would be enthusiastic to cheer on one of the hottest programs in the country.
Here's a game that really illustrates the collapse of the spirit of the Cal crowd and the butchering of the stadium experience. This is a Cal team coming off a 1-10 season, facing a Baylor team that in the previous five years had won a total of 10 games. Attendance was 27,185:
That crowd noise you're hearing is 90% the students. None of them had ever experienced a Cal team that didn't have a losing record but they brought the energy and noise on 1st down, 2nd down and then stepped it up on 3rd down.
This decline didn't happen overnight and I don't think it's entirely the fault of the people responsible for managing the "gameday experience". I won't even say I know all of the problems involved. I've never known anyone on the rally comm or any other insiders. I have a total outsider's view on the situation. But I do think the management of the electronic sound system is a big part of the problem.
Listen to that Baylor game broadcast and compare it to the current environment. How much more is the air filled with banal pop music and PA messages now? How much less do you hear the students doing a cheer or the band playing, even just a drumline? I won't even get started on the 3rd down fake noise. This isn't a generational issue; it wasn't the Instagram kids who decided to start doing this stuff, it was corporate culture grown ups who work for Cal. It was a top-down change, not a response to demand.
I remember when they first started shoving the piped-in music into the program and emailing the athletic department to complain. The response that came back from a corporate tool named Ashwin Puri was "Some people want to hear the band more, some people want more piped-in music." Meanwhile I've never met a Cal fan who didn't wish the band would play more, nor I have ever met any Cal fans who say they wanted more piped-in music. The department made a marketing decision and their analysis was simply wrong. They looked at what pro venues and some other colleges were doing and figured they should do the same when they should be catering to people who love the spirit of Cal football, not casuals who just want a night out with a hip vibe.
If this rant seems ridiculous, like who should care this much about the sounds you hear at a football game, I understand. I find some of the things people are deeply emotionally invested in to be ridiculous as well. I can only plead that I've been going to games since literally before I can remember and it's the reason I went to Berkeley. For me this goes way beyond the crowd noise that's good for the defense. I want the next generation of my family to enjoy this as well and for that to happen these core elements of the experience that Cal football fans have been enjoying for generations need to be preserved. They need to muzzle the PA (beyond the presentations that are absolutely required by our corporate overlords), unmuzzle the band, and get together with spirit leaders past and present to see what can be done to breathe some life back into the student section.
You're right of course, but people will point out that Cal team was #19 coming off of a 10-2 season. On an absolutely gorgeous afternoon it's not a surprise they'd draw a big crowd, or that the crowd would be enthusiastic to cheer on one of the hottest programs in the country.
Here's a game that really illustrates the collapse of the spirit of the Cal crowd and the butchering of the stadium experience. This is a Cal team coming off a 1-10 season, facing a Baylor team that in the previous five years had won a total of 10 games. Attendance was 27,185:
That crowd noise you're hearing is entirely the students. None of them had ever experienced a Cal team that didn't have a losing record but they brought the energy and noise on 1st down, 2nd down and then stepped it up on 3rd down.
This decline didn't happen overnight and I don't think it's entirely the fault of the people responsible for managing the "gameday experience". I won't even say I know all of the problems involved. I've never known anyone on the rally comm or any other insiders. I have a total outsider's view on the situation. But I do think the management of the electronic sound system is a big part of the problem.
Listen to that Baylor game broadcast and compare it to the current environment. How much more is the air filled with banal pop music and PA messages? How much less do you hear the students doing a cheer or the band playing, even just a drumline? I don't think this is a generational issue; it wasn't the Instagram kids who decided to start doing this stuff, it was corporate culture grown ups who work for Cal. It was a top-down change, not a response to demand.
I remember when they first started shoving the piped-in music into the program and emailing the athletic department to complain. The response that came back from a corporate tool named Ashwin Puri was "Some people want to hear the band more, some people want more piped-in music." Meanwhile I've never met a Cal fan who didn't wish the band would play more, nor I have ever met any Cal fans who say they wanted more piped-in music. The department made a marketing decision and their analysis was simply wrong. They looked at what pro venues and some other colleges were doing and figured they should do the same when should be catering to people who love the spirit of Cal football, not casuals who just want a night out with a hip vibe.
If this rant seems ridiculous, like who should care this much about the sounds you hear at a football game, I understand. I find some of the things people are deeply emotionally invested in to be ridiculous as well. I can only plead that I've been going to games since literally before I can remember and it's the reason I went to Berkeley. For me this goes way beyond the crowd noise that's good for the defense. I want the next generation of my family to enjoy this as well and for that to happen these core elements of the experience that Cal football fans have been enjoying for generations need to be preserved. They need to muzzle the PA (beyond the presentations that are absolutely required by our corporate overlords), unmuzzle the band, and get together with spirit leaders past and present to see what can be done to breathe some life back into the student section.
Beautiful uniforms for the first time that game, too...
