<blockquote><div class="name-said">Ukrainian;701212 said:</div><hr>[COLOR="Blue"]<b>[SIZE="2"]His anti-football stance is obvious. Just check out his picture ... he is a guy who probably spent many an hour in a gym locker, courtesy of his school's jocks !!! He sees this opportunity as a chance to gain a measure of revenge.[/SIZE]</b>[/COLOR]<hr></blockquote><br /><br />exactly.... Geek is trying to get back at them the only way he can.

Elite? Not unless it happened after my granddad returned from Utah Beach.

<blockquote><div class="name-said">1979bear;701469 said:</div><hr>Elite? Not unless it happened after my granddad returned from Utah Beach.<hr></blockquote><br /><br />We were elite when your grandad was a baby. Still, that's not never.

<blockquote><div class="name-said">CalReason;701515 said:</div><hr>This is proof Cal has never been an elite program because Cal fans make it known all the time that they don't know elite when they see it. Losing in a holiday bowl to a 3rd place conference finisher with their best team and winning the holiday bowl two seasons later does not qualify as having an elite program. The Bears had a 3 year run of competing at the height of their conference and each year fell short. This would make any fan base of a program that has had sustained success nationally laugh. <br /><br />I have hope that Cal will redifine itself once again and this time actually sustain a meteoric rise to the top, and perhaps consistently earn the perception of being a nationally relevant program. Fans talk about this golden age that is on the brink like its inevitable becaue, clearly, Cal should be the place where the best football players want to come. That's just not true. Losing the best recruits because of a Line coach illustrates that.<hr></blockquote><br /><br />Most of what you just said made zero sense.

I could write a long rant regarding this. I won't but here's the gist of it.<br /><br />Kids these days (including Jack) seem to have no sense of history. They've been at Cal for 2-4 years and suddenly feel they have the authority to make a bold statement like "Cal will never be a football school."<br /><br />Truth is that it has been. Yes, it's been a while but there was a time when Cal dominated football.<br /><br />To disregard that is to disrespect history. If you ignore any bias against sports, you respect history. You respect how long the Berkeley campus has been there, you respect things like the Free Speech Movement or the heydays of Berkeley protests during the 70s. You respect the Nobel prize winners of the past decades and the elements discovered on campus. All these things are a part of Cal history.<br /><br />Cal didn't start when these kids came to school and it won't end when they leave. They're simply lucky residents to live the experience for 4(+) years until they move on.<br /><br />So when people like Jack make statements like that, it angers me. It's incredibly ignorant and disrespectful.

<blockquote><div class="name-said">atticus;701398 said:</div><hr>Yeah let's not personally attack recruits, but by all means slander the hell out of a current student because his opinion doesn't fall in line with the BI hive mind. Get a grip.<hr></blockquote><br /><br />Agreed. Didnt agree with everything in the article, but there were some valid (and painful) points.

It's the part of campus the Barskyites want to appeal to, the group that has decided they're too cool to follow sports, mostly as a reaction to the fact that they weren't very good on the playground, and always got picked last or got picked on.

It's a problem. As Cal gets more students from out-of-state or from overseas, and as more students come from high schools where athletics is really deemphasized (I believe there are public schools in the Bay Area that play neither football nor basketball, because there's no interest), figuring out how to get these kids to connect with sports is an issue. It's an issue, because at some point they're going to have to be the ones that write the checks that support the Athletic Department. As far as I'm concerned, the basic problem our athletic department has is insufficient support among the alumni. I'm worried about that getting worse going forward. It's also an issue because, if these kids don't have a way to keep connecting with the school after they graduate, are they going to contribute at all?

That's why, IMHO, the whole idea of Cal becoming another University of Chicago makes no sense. Chicago is a private school. As far as I'm concerned, they should support themselves the way private schools always have, by charging rich kids to go there. I went to grad school at Northwestern, but I contribute minimal amounts to them, for that reason. As far as I'm concerned, if you want to go to a private school, you should pay the freight yourself, or have wealthy benefactors put up scholarship money for you. Cal is different.

Jeff82;703434 said:

---

It's the part of campus the Barskyites want to appeal to, the group that has decided they're too cool to follow sports, mostly as a reaction to the fact that they weren't very good on the playground, and always got picked last or got picked on.
It's a problem. As Cal gets more students from out-of-state or from overseas, and as more students come from high schools where athletics is really deemphasized (I believe there are public schools in the Bay Area that play neither football nor basketball, because there's no interest), figuring out how to get these kids to connect with sports is an issue. It's an issue, because at some point they're going to have to be the ones that write the checks that support the Athletic Department. As far as I'm concerned, the basic problem our athletic department has is insufficient support among the alumni. I'm worried about that getting worse going forward. It's also an issue because, if these kids don't have a way to keep connecting with the school after they graduate, are they going to contribute at all?

That's why, IMHO, the whole idea of Cal becoming another University of Chicago makes no sense. Chicago is a private school. As far as I'm concerned, they should support themselves the way private schools always have, by charging rich kids to go there. I went to grad school at Northwestern, but I contribute minimal amounts to them, for that reason. As far as I'm concerned, if you want to go to a private school, you should pay the freight yourself, or have wealthy benefactors put up scholarship money for you. Cal is different.

---

I agree that Wang speaks for a segment of the student population.
But this was a much bigger problem in the 1960's when Cal FB was just too trivial for students to bother with in comparison to the FSM and the anti-Vietnam War protests.

But despite this support for Cal FB came back when Chancellor Tien was seen on the field supporting the Cal FB team and other prominent faculty were shown as big fans.

That is where we need to focus. Chancellor Tien not just liked Cal sports personally but he knew that with a diverse campus, Cal students needed something to tie them together (whether they were in Engineering, or Liberal Arts, grad students or undergrad).

Cal has made major strides. There was a time when Cal going to Div2 was seriously discussed among the faculty and administration.

So what we need is continued support from the faculty and Deans. If they think/act like Cal sports are important, that idea will filter down to the students.

A friend of mine had a daughter who attended Haas as a grad. He said that although she was not a rabid FB fan in College (private East Coast Elite) she became a Cal FB fan when her profs at Haas made a big thing of pre-game gatherings at Haas on Saturdays as a way of getting the class members to socialize.

68great;703455 said:

---

I agree that Wang speaks for a segment of the student population.
But this was a much bigger problem in the 1960's when Cal FB was just too trivial for students to bother with in comparison to the FSM and the anti-Vietnam War protests.

But despite this support for Cal FB came back when Chancellor Tien was seen on the field supporting the Cal FB team and other prominent faculty were shown as big fans.

That is where we need to focus. Chancellor Tien not just liked Cal sports personally but he knew that with a diverse campus, Cal students needed something to tie them together (whether they were in Engineering, or Liberal Arts, grad students or undergrad).

Cal has made major strides. There was a time when Cal going to Div2 was seriously discussed among the faculty and administration.

So what we need is continued support from the faculty and Deans. If they think/act like Cal sports are important, that idea will filter down to the students.

A friend of mine had a daughter who attended Haas as a grad. He said that although she was not a rabid FB fan in College (private East Coast Elite) she became a Cal FB fan when her profs at Haas made a big thing of pre-game gatherings at Haas on Saturdays as a way of getting the class members to socialize.

---

It's actually probably a bigger problem for basketball than for football, because football is appointment-partying for the student body. As has been widely discussed on the basketball board, the student section for hoops has basically only been full during the past two games. It really bugged me that when I went to the post-game show at Pappy's last night, there were a bunch of kids sitting right up in front of Eddie, et. al., playing quarters, and obviously oblivious to the fact that there had even been a game.

I agree with you that faculty support matters. I majored in Political Science, which was always a big supporter of athletics. Sandy Muir was a big football guy, having gone to Michigan, and Jack Citrin was the long-time Faculty Senate liaison to the athletic department. The students need mentors into supporting the teams.

68great;703455 said:

---

I agree that Wang speaks for a segment of the student population.
But this was a much bigger problem in the 1960's when Cal FB was just too trivial for students to bother with in comparison to the FSM and the anti-Vietnam War protests.

But despite this support for Cal FB came back when Chancellor Tien was seen on the field supporting the Cal FB team and other prominent faculty were shown as big fans.

That is where we need to focus. Chancellor Tien not just liked Cal sports personally but he knew that with a diverse campus, Cal students needed something to tie them together (whether they were in Engineering, or Liberal Arts, grad students or undergrad).

Cal has made major strides. There was a time when Cal going to Div2 was seriously discussed among the faculty and administration.

So what we need is continued support from the faculty and Deans. If they think/act like Cal sports are important, that idea will filter down to the students.

A friend of mine had a daughter who attended Haas as a grad. He said that although she was not a rabid FB fan in College (private East Coast Elite) she became a Cal FB fan when her profs at Haas made a big thing of pre-game gatherings at Haas on Saturdays as a way of getting the class members to socialize.

---

Like in the OLD day, Profs should show their Cal "spirit" in class...and it would become contagious...

:bear::cheer

Jeff82;703434 said:

---

It's the part of campus the Barskyites want to appeal to, the group that has decided they're too cool to follow sports, mostly as a reaction to the fact that they weren't very good on the playground, and always got picked last or got picked on.

It's a problem. As Cal gets more students from out-of-state or from overseas, and as more students come from high schools where athletics is really deemphasized (I believe there are public schools in the Bay Area that play neither football nor basketball, because there's no interest), figuring out how to get these kids to connect with sports is an issue. It's an issue, because at some point they're going to have to be the ones that write the checks that support the Athletic Department. As far as I'm concerned, the basic problem our athletic department has is insufficient support among the alumni. I'm worried about that getting worse going forward. It's also an issue because, if these kids don't have a way to keep connecting with the school after they graduate, are they going to contribute at all?

That's why, IMHO, the whole idea of Cal becoming another University of Chicago makes no sense. Chicago is a private school. As far as I'm concerned, they should support themselves the way private schools always have, by charging rich kids to go there. I went to grad school at Northwestern, but I contribute minimal amounts to them, for that reason. As far as I'm concerned, if you want to go to a private school, you should pay the freight yourself, or have wealthy benefactors put up scholarship money for you. Cal is different.

---

I've been saying this for years now on these boards. Its unfortunately just a simple fact that there is always going to be a very large population of Berkeley students who don't care about football. At Cal, you have two different things you have to fight. 1) kids nowadays are in the facebook/iphone generation, where they care more about social media than sports 2) the type of student Cal is attracting are all super bright, overachievers who either had little athletic skills growing up or little time to pursue sports.

The fact of the matter is, Cal (and stanford for that matter) are extremely unique in the fact that they are ivy league type academic institutions who also compete at the D1 level. there are no other institutions like us (maybe northwestern) so our student body has much more in common with Yale, Harvard and MIT, than those douchebags from Arizona who probably wear their AZ basketball jerseys to work. Its no coincidence that Stanford's students are the most apathetic towards sports. there is clearly a direct correlation between academic achievement and passion for sports.

so, bottom line, there are going to be anti-sports students on campus. its just the way its going to be. I'm not sure we will ever be a school that gains its identity solely from its sports teams (and I wouldn't want it that way anyways - because Cal is much more than that). I wouldn't want to be say Oregon or Arizona, whose students sole pride in their university are their football or basketball teams. So we just have to do our best to encourage current students to get involved in our sports teams as much as possible. free tickets for freshman is a great idea.

atticus;701398 said:

---

Yeah let's not personally attack recruits, but by all means slander the hell out of a current student because his opinion doesn't fall in line with the BI hive mind. Get a grip.

---

How can you compare the two? I think we mostly agree that we should not attack a recruit for choosing another school. However, if that recruit were to badmouth Cal, I think we can respond. Moreover, if a current Cal player or a regular student talked crap about Cal, he is more than fair game. Two completely different things. For example, if a current Cal player went on twitter and blasted how he hates everything about Cal, the coaches, the program, etc., should we just remain silent because he is just expressing his opinion that is different from ours? And why is our statement in response to that trash written about our school any less valid than what he wrote and why is that a "personal attack" that is less justified?

calbear93;703484 said:

---

How can you compare the two? I think we mostly agree that we should not attack a recruit for choosing another school. However, if that recruit were to badmouth Cal, I think we can respond. Moreover, if a current Cal player or a regular student talked crap about Cal, he is more than fair game. Two completely different things. For example, if a current Cal player went on twitter and blasted how he hates everything about Cal, the coaches, the program, etc., should we just remain silent because he is just expressing his opinion that is different from ours? And why is our statement in response to that trash written about our school any less valid than what he wrote and why is that a "personal attack" that is less justified?

---

+1

The Daily Cal writer probably doesn't know the difference between a football and a basketball, if the article is any indication: it was an article of cliches with nonsensical fluff for fill. Could have been done by one of those computer programs...

:axe

Another place to vent? I figure, to take the discussion outside the comments of the article itself (which has well-deserved but heated rhetoric), I'd try those who may be responsible for approving it.

http://www.dailycal.org/about/

freshfunk;701221 said:

---

Sad. I was an EECS major at Cal and surrounded by nerds. But I valued the diversity of opportunities at cal. Academics, arts, culture, sport.. All that whih defines a well rounded person.

I can't be was chosen as their sportswriter. Sad.

---

+1

Looking back, even though I tried my best to take advantage of the breadth of the Berkeley experience, I wish I had done more. I did manage to stay out of Soda Hall my last two semesters, though!