HearstMining wrote:
"Unfortunately, the same can be said for the yell leaders. For the last ten years, it's been nothing but, "Give me a C . . . Who's gonna win?". Heck, they don't have to use the cheers I knew, but they could at least come up with something new."
As I pointed out in my recent email to John Knowlton (I wrote about both the conference situation, and the hijacking of the game day experience), I think one of the reasons the yell leaders have been so crappy in recent years is because when they do try to get the student section to do something, they're drowned out by some piped in crap. On third downs, as an example, they used to do the accelerated/synchronized over the head clap that was part of a vocal crescendo to encourage the defense. What happened? The A.D. marketing people started pumping some electro crap over the speakers. At first the yell leaders tried to keep it going. But last year, I think they gave up on that entirely because they were drowned out by the piped in crap. Another example is the Cal Band's cadence and hat twirl at kickoff. Again, the AD Marketing decided it would be a good idea to pipe in some crap, and I'm not sure Cal Band does that anymore. So some good, strong yells have been replaced with generic stuff that high schools do, you know "Cal-if-fornia clap clap clap clap calp." or in reference to a penalized player "you can't do that clap clap clap clap clap". Cal has one of the few remaining real "student sections" in the conference.....in fact in the country. As far as I recall, only UC(la) and maybe $C have yell leaders/mic men. But they are even more pitiful because they lead absolutely nothing except that UCla clap thing (maybe the only thing they know........sort of like that song $C's band plays because it's the only song they know.
The yell leaders could learn a lot by talking to former yell leaders. Kate Scott, Jamie, Ken Montgomery and some of the good ones from the '60s, '70s and '80s had some very succesful leadership. Jamie used to lead a "Cal Haka" before the games. Having the entire student section participate was awesome. But that activity, as an example, has been lost.
It's sort of like Cal Band's slow but noticeable decline. They too would do well to talk to former band alumni. Various band alumni have tried to reach out (especially from the percussion section) but been "politely rejected".
But back to the student section/mic men: I don't believe the erosion of their effectiveness is entirely due to lack of effort (although, as I said, they could learn from Kate, Jamie, Ken Montgomery etc. etc.) I think that when the AD Marketing dept. took the game from the fans and the students in order to blast their audio bs, the yell leaders and the students just gave up. Stop with the audio attack on the assembled mlutitude, and maybe they'll try again, or at least get motivated to do more.
In order to not hijack this thread away from Oski, I would like Oski to do the same thing.......get together with former Oskis and and talk with them, look at old films and old yearbooks.......get back to being Oski, not just some drinking person dressed up in Oski garb.
Bear8 wrote:
"How about a t-shirt proclaiming Cal in bright yellow and blue..."
Bear8......once again.....never, ever, ever should yellow be mentioned as a Cal color. Yellow is the color of cowards, baby chicks, ducks, and little flowers. Cal's colors are GOLD and Blue. For too long some of Cal's uniforms looked like they had yellow instead of gold. Those days, I hope, are gone, and never to come back.
Sorry guys, I'm in a bad mood today. I spent about 3 hours listening to Pac-12(-2) radio on Sirius XM as I drove home from the Central Coast, and it didn't do my hopes much good.
