I actually don't mind that UCLA stole it although it's a little wierd when the teams play each other. For me, it just means that it's heard twice as often as any other school. When UCLA was in Austin, their band was playing our fight song on national tv.... I wonder if pac-10 fans get confused although I can't recall anyone else's fight song except for Stanford and USC. Does anyone know if there are any other schools in the FBS that share the same song?

Wow. You lost me at:

oskirules;390309 said:

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I actually don't mind that UCLA stole it

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You are a very kind, forgiving and generous person!

Georgia Tech plays one of ours...Stanfod Jonah, I believe...the words are different.

oskirules;390309 said:

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I actually don't mind that UCLA stole it although it's a little wierd when the teams play each other. For me, it just means that it's heard twice as often as any other school. When UCLA was in Austin, their band was playing our fight song on national tv...nice. I wonder if pac-10 fans get confused although I can't recall anyone else's fight song except for Stanford and USC. Does anyone know if there are any other schools in the FBS that share the same song?

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The problem with this is that the rest of the country will view the song as "UCLA's fight song" and then will ask why Cal copied them.

You guys are looking at this completely wrong. The Southern Branch can play our fight song because they are essentially our extension campus for d-bags.

ColoradoBear1;390335 said:

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You guys are looking at this completely wrong. The Southern Branch can play our fight song because they are essentially our extension campus for d-bags.

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If only the rest of the country saw it like that...

I would prefer it if the UCLA Band stopped playing Sons of Westwood altogether. However, I did notice on their latest CD, that they now list the song as Big C (UCLA Fight Song).

LafayetteBear;390342 said:

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+1, Oskirules. I don't mind, either. They are a part of the University of California, the same as us.

[COLOR="Blue"]No. We are the University of California; they are a subsidiary campus.[/COLOR]

For that reason, I also disagree with the notion that they "stole" our fight song.

[COLOR="Blue"]Even they acknowledge the theft. When it first began, there was a great hue and cry from our side. We tried everything to get them to stop (although one would think that a polite request would have sufficed). BTW, it is not our "fight song", which is called Fight for California.[/COLOR]

It also does not bother me that they have tweaked it a bit (e.g., the eight clap), so that it is their own, slightly different, version of the U.C. fight song.

[COLOR="Blue"]It bothers me, at least in part because it sounds like hell, which makes it a profanation of something sacred.[/COLOR]

I have never been to a U.C. Davis, U.C. Irvine, or U.C. San Diego intercollegiate sports event (missed the opening football game this season), so I have no idea whether these schools also "stole" our fight song. I hope they did.

[COLOR="Blue"]Sorry, but they all have too much pride. Can you even begin to imagine the shame if our band suddenly decided to play Fight On for Old UC? That is certainly how most college communities would react. But not this lot. I suppose they must somehow recognise that nothing originally theirs is of any quality anyway, so why not snag a good song from another school.

I have never heard of anything like this anywhere else. Have you?[/COLOR]

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:bigpuke:

GoldenGeezer;390366 said:

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Sorry, but they all have too much pride. Can you even begin to imagine the shame if our band suddenly decided to play Fight On for Old UC? That is certainly how most college communities would react. But not this lot. I suppose they must somehow recognise that nothing originally theirs is of any quality anyway, so why not snag a good song from another school.

I have never heard of anything like this anywhere else. Have you?

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Exactly. UCLA found out that Big C had never been copyrighted, so the Bruins felt justified in their continued larceny. How feeble-minded do you have to be to fail to grasp the distinction between what you can do and what you should do?

I'll clap my hands eight times while you come up with your answer....

calgymnast;390324 said:

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The problem with this is that the rest of the country will view the song as "UCLA's fight song" and then will ask why Cal copied them.

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Doesn't our band play "Fight for California" a lot more than "Big C" anyway? (including after every Cal TD?). Not that this excuses UCLA stealing one of our songs, but I don't think we necessarily have the problem you mention.

calgymnast;390324 said:

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The problem with this is that the rest of the country will view the song as "UCLA's fight song" and then will ask why Cal copied them.

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510Bear;390415 said:

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Doesn't our band play "Fight for California" a lot more than "Big C" anyway? (including after every Cal TD?). Not that this excuses UCLA stealing one of our songs, but I don't think we necessarily have the problem you mention.

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Indeed, that is how much of the nation views our song. I've often been asked why we play "their" song.

86Oski;390378 said:

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Exactly. UCLA found out that Big C had never been copyrighted, so the Bruins felt justified in their continued larceny. .

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I have heard this story too, but I don't get it. I thought all musical and literary compositions are automatically protected under copyright law. Are there any intellectual property attorneys who can shed light on how this happened?

JelaniMcBlunted;390485 said:

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Unfortunately for Cal 106 national championships talk and whining jealous tools walk.

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Yes, nowadays your softball squad wins championships. In Westwood, girls wear the pants, "men" shake the pompoms. :rollinglaugh:

I can understand your confusion since the colors are so similar, bless your lil heart, but this is actually a message board for the [U]University of California[/U]. The baby blue circle jerk where everyone talks about how good they were at basketball 50 years ago and congratulates each other on how many championships they've won in tiddlywinks and synchronized grab-@ss is actually called BRO. See, not too many letters for you remember now, is it?

Now run along, little shaver. The big kids are gonna use some big words while we talk about Cal clownstomping JCLA this weekend in football...

JelaniMcBlunted;390485 said:

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That's Cal's bad. Perhaps if Cal wasn't an also ran in virtually every sport conceivable for the better part of a century, people would view it as Cal's fight song. Unfortunately for Cal 106 national championships talk and whining jealous tools walk.

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Ah, Mr. McBlunted- you sound like a fine exemplar of all UCLA has to offer. Give us a haler Saturday afternoon...

LafayetteBear;390407 said:

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Geezer: So our alma mater is the University of California and they are a "subsidiary campus?" They and all of the other UC campuses will surely be surprised to discover this.

[COLOR="Blue"]Just because you were ignorant of this well-known fact does not mean that others have not known it forever.[/COLOR]

I imagine they labor under the apprehension that they are sister campuses to our own, and that all are part of the University of California system.

[COLOR="Blue"]That is the perversion that the (heavily LA-based) regents want to perpetrate. Normally, Cal people resist this interpretation. So what's with you?[/COLOR]

Doesn't the acronym UCLA stand for University of California at Los Angeles?

[COLOR="Blue"]Yes, it does, and this is the focal point of what we object to. Establishing a pseudo-SC, then calling it UC-LA for blatantly political reasons, has gone a long way toward destroying the reputation of one of the world's premier academic institutions. Cal people justifiably resent this.[/COLOR]

That being said, I would readily agree that our alma mater was the first campus in the UC system, and can properly be referred to as the "flagship" campus in the UC system, although I imagine our brethern from Los Angeles might not prefer that title for us.

[COLOR="Blue"]We were not "the first campus in the UC system." We were the University of California before there was any concept of a "UC system". Our "brethren" from LA were, at their creation, as far removed from essential mission of the University as to make a complete mockery of the UC designation they were later so unfortunately awarded.[/COLOR]

I would submit that "Fight for California" IS a fight song, the term "fight song" being a more generic designation.

[COLOR="Blue"]I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean, but we have a great many school songs (most of which were written expressly for us, by the way -- not purloined from other schools) but only one "fight song" -- Fight for Cal.[/COLOR]

I don't dispute your comment regarding the "profanation" that is the eight clap. The Bruins obviously see it differently. Viva la difference!

[COLOR="Blue"]"La diffrence" that you celebrate would be even more different if they had their own traditions, like every other school. In fact, if they were so different that they no longer had that "UC" in front of their name, I might say "vive" right along with you.[/COLOR]

I do not know what Davis, Irvine and the other UC campuses in fact do in terms of a fight song, so I cannot make a truly informed comment. All I can say is that, if they are, like UCLA, sister UC campuses to Cal, it would not surprise me if they adopted and used our fight song. If they have not, and use some other fight son, I can live with that as well.

[COLOR="Blue"]I guess you can live, then, because none of the other branches have so encroached upon our traditions. Again, I remind you that we were not OK with this usurpation from the very beginning and we asked them kindly to desist from playing it. Their response was to cock a snook at us and devil take the hindmost. Loathsome. [/COLOR]

There is only one Cal, and I have no trouble identifying it. (I know you do not either.)

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[COLOR="Blue"]What I am still waiting to hear is how you would feel if our band suddenly quit playing "Fight for California" and replaced it with, say, the University of Colorado fight song (after all, we are both UCs). Do you really not see the shame in blatantly stealing someone else's trademarks, even if you find a legal loophole? Are you too LA-friendly to have any sense of pride?[/COLOR]

Having gone to numerous UCLA games in the 1980's when Troy Aikman was playing there, I remember Terry Donahue telling the UCLA Band that he wanted to hear Sons of Westwood played at least 60 times a game. This was when I was in high school.

Fastforward to my first football game at Cal in 1990, when the Cal Band ran out on the field and played Big C - I scratched my head and said, "isn't that UCLA's fight song?" I actually get that question alot from friends who ask, "why do they play the same fight song?"

There are several articles on this topic on the web. Big C is perhaps the most controversial fight song to be written, played, and used in all of college or pro sports. What started as a tribute to the UC, with UCLA's band director writing his own rendition of Big C, then turned into UCLA formally adopting the song as its own. Berkeley did protest this but since they had not copyrighted the song, it was rendered in the "public domain" and anyone could use it - and probably still can.

I view UCLA's version as the "Hollywood" version of Big C. I prefer Cal's version of the song as it is more traditional. I only wish Cal's band would get bigger and add a thundering drum line to the mix. High school bands are bigger and play louder than ours.

BlueOskiCult;390492 said:

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Now run along, little shaver. The big kids are gonna use some big words while we talk about Cal clownstomping JCLA this weekend in football...

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Got my clown stomp move down and ready to lay it on the little Bro's!

JelaniMcBlunted;390485 said:

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That's Cal's bad. Perhaps if Cal wasn't an also ran in virtually every sport conceivable for the better part of a century, people would view it as Cal's fight song. Unfortunately for Cal 106 national championships talk and whining jealous tools walk.

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You crack me up McBlunted. You're like that little annoying kid that tries really hard to insult you but you end up laughing because their attempt at a competent response is comical.

Yeah I wish we weren't such an "also ran" in "virtually every sport". Damn, too bad we consistently rank in the top 10 in every year's director's cup. Too bad our football team actually beats conference opponents with winning records. Too bad our team was passed by USC in the Newsweek rankings....oh wait....

ColoradoBear1;390335 said:

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You guys are looking at this completely wrong. The Southern Branch can play our fight song because they are essentially our extension campus for d-bags.

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drunkoski;390617 said:

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The stink of Sam Gilbert will always tarnish their NCs in any real sports.

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Not one Bruin I've ever spoken to has even heard of Sam Gilbert. That sounds like some more Cal-Berkeley hater nonsense that you must've just made up...

:rolleyes:

drunkoski;390617 said:

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The stink of Sam Gilbert will always tarnish their NCs in any real sports.

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Is John Wooden's role that much different than Pete Carroll's?

philly1121;390605 said:

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Big C is perhaps the most controversial fight song to be written, played, and used in all of college or pro sports. What started as a tribute to the UC, with UCLA's band director writing his own rendition of Big C, then turned into UCLA formally adopting the song as its own.

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Just to clarify, the UCLA band director wrote the UCLA bastardization of "Big C" as a tribute to the UC. I know you stated it correctly, but some might think "Big C" (the glorious original Cal version) was written as a tribute to the UC when it is a tribute to our rugged eastern foothills where our symbol stands, true and bold, which mean fight, strive, and win for blue and gold because there's a golden bear, ever watching, who prowls day by day and when he hears the tread of lowly Stanfurd red, from his lair, he fiercely growls. What's he say?

86Oski;390378 said:

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Exactly. UCLA found out that Big C had never been copyrighted, so the Bruins felt justified in their continued larceny.

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Click here for an informative history of Big C from the Cal Band's website.

ColoradoBear1;390650 said:

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Is John Wooden's role that much different than Pete Carroll's?

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Quote:

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A 1981 Times investigative series, which interviewed 45 people connected with the basketball program, established Gilbert as "a one-man clearing house who has enabled players and their families to receive goods and services usually at big discounts and sometimes at no cost."

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maybe....

ColoradoBear1;390335 said:

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You guys are looking at this completely wrong. The Southern Branch can play our fight song because they are essentially our extension campus for d-bags.

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You know, it is a very douchebag campus if you think about it. Those colors are very douchey.

^Classic! lol

BancroftSteps;390702 said:

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You know, it is a very douchebag campus if you think about it. Those colors are very douchey.

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I remember someone once said the hotter the girls are on a campus, the greater the douchebag/tool factor will be among the guys...the whole "yeah, we're surrounded by THIS every day, we're special, bro" thing.

Don't forget this one.

I think those are 'sc students on making fun of ucla. But yeah, they pretty much nailed it.

BancroftSteps;390743 said:

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I think those are 'sc students on making fun of ucla. But yeah, they pretty much nailed it.

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Try this:



You know, I've been pretty critical of UCLA for stealing traditions from us. But maybe that's preferable to them developing their own traditions, judging from their track record. (see above)

86Oski;390767 said:

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Try this:



You know, I've been pretty critical of UCLA for stealing traditions from us. But maybe that's preferable to them developing their own traditions, judging from their track record. (see above)

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Don't laugh too hard. In the 50s, the Cal Band used to march a "twirler" whose sole purpose was to spin flags and batons.

Check out Rz Howell in the Cal Band History Book.

86Oski;390767 said:

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Try this:

You know, I've been pretty critical of UCLA for stealing traditions from us. But maybe that's preferable to them developing their own traditions, judging from their track record. (see above)

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OMG! That suit....it burns my eyes!

I want to laugh at that guy, but the truth is that he probably got plenty of hot women on a campus that's famous for having lots of 'em, so....

510Bear;390794 said:

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OMG! That suit....it burns my eyes!

I want to laugh at that guy, but the truth is that he probably got plenty of hot women on a campus that's famous for having lots of 'em, so....

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...wouldn't you want to be at a place where you could use your gifts to snag something really worthwhile?