Seriously, we haven't been to the Rose Bowl since 59...it's 2016. How do you guys manage to completely keep hope? That's nearly 55 years of bad football sprinkled with 5-6 good seasons? I love my dad (RIP)...but f' me man....he couldn't of just decided i'm not putting my son through this. I mean I'm only 40...so it's not like I got the worst of it. How do you guys do it? I mean we should of accidentally had a good Rose Bowl season by now...Washington F'ing State has been to the Rose man. Aren't sanctions worth it at this point for 1 year of joy? I'm ready for a coaching staff of Tosh Lupoi, Coach Ogeron, Les Miles for More Money and Pete Carroll.

Embrace the beer.

Enjoy the day and dont worry about the results. When there is no day,it gets harder at night

Believe me, it hasn't been easy, and the temptation to bail has arisen more than once. But my early college days were about fall colors and glorious wins at Memorial captained by Joe Roth with a great team and coach behind him. This had been burned into my genetic code to a degree that just walking from my car through the falling leaves and past my fraternity brings those extraordinary feelings back. Almost overwhelming sometimes. Then the occasional, truly uplifting win comes (Cal 42, UCLA 13) but more often the loss, and I console myself at the faculty club and Top Dog and, godammit, I get sucked in for the next game, the next season, the next decade of waiting...

I keep reminiscing about our last Rose Bowl victory, which I vividly remember attending in 1938.

Eternal optimist.

The Rose Bowl isn't even the Rose Bowl anymore. We will win the conference one of these years and be "rewarded" with a trip to the Sun Mountain Toyota Bowl against #6 ranked TCU.

I started going to Cal games when I was 4.. I'm now 57 and although I've shed many a tear and have been crushed more times than I want to think, the great memories from Memorial far outweigh the negative results.. As others have said, it's in our DNA so there isn't anything we can do about it. Bitching about another bad loss with friends on the drive back to Sac does seem like therapy though.

I started when I was a kid. My mom took my sister and I to games during the Pappy Waldorf era. She was in school during the thunder team days. I was at Cal during the Rose Bow-Ncaa basketball championship, Pete Newell days. I don't really have a choice. I am for the first time wondering if I will still go, but mostly because my vision is not great. I have had a lot of great days along with a lot of not so great days.

Well...through the years...I've seen every imaginable, heart-breaking way to lose possible by Cal, although I'm sure they have a few more new ones hidden up their sleeves for us. I think the worst part is you start to judge the team each year completely on whether they look capable of making it to the Rose Bowl...which can lead to some unrealistic hope and expectations (I do this at least). Strangely, we have a great history with the Rose Bowl, although most of the memorable moments were before 1939. Cal was involved in probably the most famous play in Rose Bowl history with Roy Riegels in 1929 and also had the great Wonder Teams of the early 20's. I'm trying to give you some positive perspective here. Cal even won the first game ever played in the Rose Bowl in October of 1922 when they beat SC 12 - 0. So we have that going for us.

Seriously, I manage...because I want to see the Cal Band start down Orange Grove Boulevard, with the morning sun glistening off their instruments before they turn east onto Colorado Boulevard, because I know that will be one of the most beautiful sites I will ever see.

It is very painful!!
I miss my days with Craig Morton, Jack Schrab(?) and Loren Hawley(frat brother)

MinotStateBeav;842735592 said:

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How do you guys manage to completely keep hope?

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That's easy - it's all about picnics with friends, crisp fall Saturday afternoons, beautiful Memorial from the northside, natural grass, fans and band and team coming together one more time, mingling with team and fans on the field postgame, exiting by field level tunnels, post game debriefings at La Vals.

All lost due to asshat money grubbers, midnight games, $25k fines, band abuse. They even stole the north approach views with a parking lot.

blungld;842735613 said:

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The Rose Bowl isn't even the Rose Bowl anymore. We will win the conference one of these years and be "rewarded" with a trip to the Sun Mountain Toyota Bowl against #6 ranked TCU.

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I hear you. College football is changing in many ugly ways, including furd joining the shortlist of college FB's elite. The old rules no longer apply, including that rivalries balance out over time. As bad as the possibility of Cal never making a major bowl may sound, consider this: it's also possible we may never beat furd or even USC again.

But here's how I deal as a Cal fan (who's just a few years younger than the OP, in the interest of full disclosure)

It's not just about the results, but how you go about pursuing them. No matter how many 4th-quarter leads our FB team coughs up, Cal is still an awesome place with an amazing culture and amazing people. (In case you've forgotten about it, watch this 3-minute video: . I dare you to disagree with this point after doing so.) We're smart, but not pretentious. We're the people's university. We believe in making the world a better place. And we do it with our own unique flair.

Our football team reflects that, and attracts student-athletes and even coaches (yes, that means Dykes) who buy into that. Our administrators and faculty are the Achilles' heel, the group who get in the way of our revenue sports delivering the results a great university like Cal should have, but at the same time, the latter group also add to what makes our university special, so....we just need to go to group therapy and sort out our issues somehow.

But the fact that Cal is what it is, is a Good Thing. Because it makes people root for us. My furdie friends and colleagues love having an elite program that's in the national spotlight, that has been to several BCS bowls with many more to come, and might even win a natty. But they also seem unsatisfied and unhappy, because they don't understand why nobody has made a "Rudy"-type movie about what they think is a loveable underdog story about furd football. They also don't get why the whole Bay Area was so hyped over the possibility of Cal ending its Rose Bowl drought in 2004, but has greeted furd's multiple Rose Bowls with a collective yawn. (There's an endless list of answers to that one, but how about we start with: because in your most recent Rose Bowl appearance, your band's halftime show took cheap shots at Iowa and then your coach ran up the score)

As long as we keep being Cal, I'm cool with whatever happens. So just keep the faith, and know that if we overcome near-impossible odds and get to just one Rose Bowl ourselves, the results will be worth it, I promise.

I first saw this team back in 2006 and at that point expected us to be in the conversation for the PAC-10/12, BCS/New Year's Day Bowls, national championship/playoff/whatever for years to come under Tedford. Losing the 2012 stadium opener versus Nevada pissed me off, I knew Tedford was done, plus the APR fiasco which came later was ridiculous. I used to be downtrodden after losses but after the APR episode I became less enthused with winning and losing and more critical of off-the-field performance, which is now fine and has me feeling better. I love the fact that we are 2-0 versus Texas under Dykes, that the offense is great and we can actually run a screen game (Tedford's screens were hilarious awful and gauranteed 5-yard losses). Last night was annoying but I see a team with potential, which is all I want at this point (compared with 2007 which was a great roster but an opportunity squandered by poor coaching which ultimately broke apart the team). When we start cleaning house again with the in-state PAC-12 schools and Oregon, then I can think about a trip to Pasadena. Plus there's that Axe thing.

It's easy. You just have to accept that our ultimate goal is 6 wins each season. That number satisfies the Athletic Director, the Chancellor, and the rest of the administration. If you accept that, you'll still be disappointed about half the time, but you won't be despondent all the time. Learn to just savor the victories that come our way, regardless of how infrequent they might be.

365Bear;842735603 said:

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Believe me, it hasn't been easy, and the temptation to bail has arisen more than once. But my early college days were about fall colors and glorious wins at Memorial captained by Joe Roth with a great team and coach behind him. This had been burned into my genetic code to a degree that just walking from my car through the falling leaves and past my fraternity brings those extraordinary feelings back. Almost overwhelming sometimes. Then the occasional, truly uplifting win comes (Cal 42, UCLA 13) but more often the loss, and I console myself at the faculty club and Top Dog and, godammit, I get sucked in for the next game, the next season, the next decade of waiting...

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This. +1

Patience young padawan!

Patience my A$$...I want to .... something...

I've been intrigued by the unique challenge to the coaches, admin and univ admin of putting together a winning team/program while maintaining an at least acceptable level of academic integrity. How do you have a competitive football team while expecting the players to actually study and get a decent education in the same classes, etc. with the other students when your competition (even Notre Dame, believe me) does not?

I have a distant in-law who is brilliant, successful and went to Alabama and is a way more serious Bama fan than I am a Cal fan (fanatic as I am). He dies for them and insists that the fb players are every bit the students that the Bama students are (for the rank and file students there, I think they can get a good education if they put in the effort, but it's a far cry from Cal). I could never, NEVER go into the denial that he does in re fb.

I have never expected that we would go to the Rose Bowl, so the UT subterfuge was merely an expected outcome. I figured that one way or another we would be robbed and it didn't bother me. Winning seasons are as much as I hope for. And, stigma of FSM/hippies/commies, et al, will bias some in the fb industry to sabotage us if we get too close to brilliance.

When they still allowed such things, I got involved in recruiting in the area in which I lived at one time. I had gotten tired of seeing local kids go to SC and beating us and then complaining about it. So, I tried to do something about it. That allowed me to see the seamy underbelly of the profession (if you want to call it that). If you like your morning sausage, never visit a sausage factory. So, now I take everything with a grain of salt.

I started at CAL in the fall of 59 .. how do we do it, kind of like a cop that shows up at a lot of murders, eventually you get used to it, you don't like it, but ...

Not that it is any of your business, but the missionary position works for most of us.

LarsBear74;842735647 said:

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This. +1

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+1
I love being on campus and soaking in the atmosphere. I always seem to believe the next game might be that "uplifting win". This is really stupid, I know, but I can't help it. After the AZ ST game, in which we of course were ahead at half time and feeling good, I asked my wife of 47 years... "Why do I do this to myself?" and I got the usual snicker.
A Cal loss used to ruin my week. Now that I've matured, when Cal loses I process the pain more quickly and tell myself it's only football... which I really don't believe.
When Cal went to the Rose Bowl last in '59 I watched it on TV because my father (also a Cal alum) went to Pasadena with friends, even though I went to most of the games that season with him. I hope that wasn't my last chance.

joe yaks;842735675 said:

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Not that it is any of your business, but the missionary position works for most of us.

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I remember there was a poster here who boasted of having sex on the Cal logo on midfield.

MinotStateBeav;842735592 said:

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I love my dad (RIP)...but f' me man....he couldn't of just decided i'm not putting my son through this.

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I took this as dark humor, but it made me think. My Dad took me to my first Cal game at age 5, high school band day, unforgettable. Dad had been to a Cal Rose Bowl game (we lost he says) and he had no idea of the futility to come. Can't blame him though. I wouldn't change a thing.

okaydo;842735679 said:

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I remember there was a poster here who boasted of having sex on the Cal logo on midfield.

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Literally at halftime would be indiscrete, but historically the Bears have been compromised by PAC officials many times.

okaydo;842735679 said:

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I remember there was a poster here who boasted of having sex on the Cal logo on midfield.

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There has to have been a few because this is not as unique as you think.

burritos;842735684 said:

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This photo gives me perspective:

Brainsmile;842735596 said:

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Embrace the beer.

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Whiskey

burritos;842735684 said:

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Well, I was about to say, that's another thing Cal fans seem to get (even when we gripe about our football team)......because Cal alums tend to care more about the world and its less fortunate.

You just can't get that emotionally invested. I have been at it for 46 years - since I can remember getting taken to the game from my faculty dad. And I also remember that - if the current AD doesn't happen to be an idiot - that there is simply something magical sitting in memorial on a fall day. I HATE the evening games. I hate the non-Saturday games. Cal football will ALWAYS be about....lunch at the faculty club, walking up the hill, seeing the picnics, watching the game. Seeing the glorious bay stretching to the west with the sun beginning to dip toward the golden gate. The cannon. Tightwad hill. And the California Marching Band.

MAYBE before I die they will make it to the Rosebowl. I don't expect it anymore. We had our window. It just happened that Tedfords best years coincided with very bad USC cheating. Cest la viv

Have you heard of the Rashomon effect?

Yeah, following the band from sproul to the stadium - after the game, faculty club and kids rolling down the hill towards the strawberry creek and an occasional win - Good Times.

I attended the '59 Rose Bowl against Iowa. So I guess my tickets punched.

Cal is not designed for Rose Bowls, but great at many other things.

I can't shake my loyalty to Cal, and follow the Bears like a never ending novel.

I have to admit it kills me to read so many of you longtime Cal alums/fans saying stuff like this, because other schools point and laugh at us for this. "Oh, that's so cute and sad that so many Old Blues so desperately wish Cal could just get to one Rose Bowl. Meanwhile, our school's admins and coaches actually get it done."

Fall of '59 frosh here. Keep hoping and formulating plans how it could/should be done to get us to the RB. Then see those blown apart most usually in the early season. Knowing that your very good friends are scratching there heads wondering how this reasonably smart guy could ever be a fan of Cal for so painfully long. But really not caring that much because being a Cal fan supersedes that. Yes, I keep coming back for more---but I too often wonder, especially when our team does not play smart.

My current concept of our path to success is to brand a modified 'furd approach, where we make every Cal FB scholarship a thing of value, to be valued & sought by recruits. We need coaches who are really interested in them making Cal FB over, and not a ladder climbing position. Academic integrity, true team cohesiveness, and no Gilbertsons, Lupois, Barskys or Maynard's that drag us down. We aren't Alabama; we need to do it the right way with student athletes and dedicated coaches (to us).

That lacking we will most probably always be a "thin blue line"----one deep and beat down at the end. With that said I really worry most about quality DLinemen, as they are more often than not the brightest bulbs in the shed.

So plus and minus I hang in there with hope but my reality is three to eight wins a season. Sixty plus fan years and counting.

okaydo;842735679 said:

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I remember there was a poster here who boasted of having sex on the Cal logo on midfield.

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Oskie, Dumpster Muffin or the former Dean of Boalt Hall? That's all I got.