I get that maybe 3 years without sacks murdered the tradition, but I miss it, still.

Also, once again, that percussion led spell out is by far the best new chant of the last few decades. That needs to be made a kickoff traditional chant or something. It is amazing, it sounds amazing, it's unique. Imagine sometime in the future the whole stadium doing it. Holy smokes.

Finally, the "give me a C" spell out is a rhythm cheer. Adding personal flair into "and who is the best university who's going to beat the ..." breaks the rhythm and makes it sound like garbage.

Also, Bear Territory is the best chant in the whole damn world. I liked using it before games, and hope it comes back as a territorial chant, not just a victory chant. It's too awesome to not use constantly. Maybe some genius can come up with a chant that uses Bear Territory to chant after scores or something.

Anyway, bottom line is that percussion led chant needs to be an ever kickoff chant, or something. OMG.

Epic!

lol

It's not a gator cheer.

It comes from 1989 when Wisconson visited Berkeley (and lost). Their fans had their Badge- jaw cheer after good plays--some of which seemed like pretty random assessments of what was a "good play" (meaning they did it way too frequently).

In one of the greatest spontaneous crowd reactions, Cal fans started doing the gesture back at them ironically whenever Wisconson made a bad play. From that point forward the cheer was always a sort of ironic cheer at the expense of visiting fans. It's not about cheering a positive Cal play, it's about satirical applause for the opponent when they do something boneheaded or odd. It's hilarious when done correctly--and bewildering to the visiting fan section.

Excellent memory blungld. That cheer was stolen from Wisconsin.

blungld said:

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It's not a gator cheer.

It comes from 1989 when Wisconson visited Berkeley (and lost). Their fans had their Badge- jaw cheer after good plays--some of which seemed like pretty random assessments of what was a "good play" (meaning they did it way too frequently).

In one of the greatest spontaneous crowd reactions, Cal fans started doing the gesture back at them ironically whenever Wisconson made a bad play. From that point forward the cheer was always a sort of ironic cheer at the expense of visiting fans. It's not about cheering a positive Cal play, it's about satirical applause for the opponent when they do something boneheaded or odd. It's hilarious when done correctly--and bewildering to the visiting fan section.

---

What?

Literally everyone does it now, and every band plays the same song... from Florida. They can call it what they want, but it is a gator chomp, or alligator clap.

It is called the Gator Chomp out in Florida, and started in 1981. Not sure why you think this is a Cal thing, or that it "bewilders" the visitors. Is there any evidence to back up that it originated in Wisconsin? Or are you just claiming thats how it came to Cal? Because it seem like it is absolutely a Florida thing, and the dates you give align with it being a Florida thing.

Could be that Wisconsin brought it to Cal, but they didnt make it up. I mean, look at the name...Its the same as changing the name of the wildcat formation because you are rivals with a team called the wildcats. That doesnt make it unique. Its like saying "hella" comes from Denver because thats where you first heard it.

Also, it is universally a post sack clap. Even in the NFL now. Never have seen it used as an "ironic" cheer in the last 2 decades. Florida uses it for a lot more odd celebrations, but the rest of the football world uses it for a post sack clap, not ironically.

LunchTime said:

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blungld said:

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It's not a gator cheer.

It comes from 1989 when Wisconson visited Berkeley (and lost). Their fans had their Badge- jaw cheer after good plays--some of which seemed like pretty random assessments of what was a "good play" (meaning they did it way too frequently).

In one of the greatest spontaneous crowd reactions, Cal fans started doing the gesture back at them ironically whenever Wisconson made a bad play. From that point forward the cheer was always a sort of ironic cheer at the expense of visiting fans. It's not about cheering a positive Cal play, it's about satirical applause for the opponent when they do something boneheaded or odd. It's hilarious when done correctly--and bewildering to the visiting fan section.

---

What?

Literally everyone does it now, and every band plays the same song... from Florida. They can call it what they want, but it is a gator chomp, or alligator clap.

It is called the Gator Chomp out in Florida, and started in 1981. Not sure why you think this is a Cal thing, or that it "bewilders" the visitors. Is there any evidence to back up that it originated in Wisconsin? Or are you just claiming thats how it came to Cal? Because it seem like it is absolutely a Florida thing, and the dates you give align with it being a Florida thing.

Could be that Wisconsin brought it to Cal, but they didnt make it up. I mean, look at the name...Its the same as changing the name of the wildcat formation because you are rivals with a team called the wildcats. That doesnt make it unique.

Also, it is universally a post sack clap. Even in the NFL now. Never have seen it used as an "ironic" cheer in the last 2 decades.

---

Christ, man, some of us were actually there when it happened. That's how Wiscy fans were using it, and that's how we came to use it. It's irrelevant for our purposes that Gator fans were using it differently.

Dude, seriously? You can't be incredulous if you weren't there. It's not a gator chomp and it's not post sack celebration. It was an ironic cheer for many many years. When was your first Cal game?

Wisconsin has that triangle shaped badger head that they sort of mimic in the motion. Cal copied it but we made our arms straight and almost Frankenstein to satire their motion. This has ZERO connection to Florida. There is no fingers as teeth like the chomp, its hands flat coming together in a clap. The Cal rooting section used to be pretty creative and sarcastic. We had to be.

And yes it did bewilder other fans because we did at them in this odd motion and at atypical times to be cheering (ironic). You could see them look at one another with an "I don't get it" expression and "what are they doing". This was entirely spontaneous and unique to Cal and I can remember a consistent usage from 1989 to at least 1998. Maybe it became something more gatorish the last few years? I don't know. I sat in student section (or next to from 1982-2003 and now in alum side so harder to track the cheer memes.

LunchTime said:

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I get that maybe 3 years without sacks murdered the tradition, but I miss it, still.

Also, once again, that percussion led spell out is by far the best new chant of the last few decades. That needs to be made a kickoff traditional chant or something. It is amazing, it sounds amazing, it's unique. Imagine sometime in the future the whole stadium doing it. Holy smokes.

Finally, the "give me a C" spell out is a rhythm cheer. Adding personal flair into "and who is the best university who's going to beat the ..." breaks the rhythm and makes it sound like garbage.

Also, Bear Territory is the best chant in the whole damn world. I liked using it before games, and hope it comes back as a territorial chant, not just a victory chant. It's too awesome to not use constantly. Maybe some genius can come up with a chant that uses Bear Territory to chant after scores or something.

Anyway, bottom line is that percussion led chant needs to be an ever kickoff chant, or something. OMG.

---

The only part I don't agree with is about Bear Territory. It's awesome, but I think it's especially awesome because it's our victory song. That's the devotional the team gets for kicking ***!

Everything else though, +1

My recollection is the same as yours blungld, having sat in the student section in the early 90s. More of a sarcastic clap for bad plays (any play that loses yardage, turnovers, muffed punt, etc.) At some point, don't recall when, the band started playing Iron Man along with the clap for sacks.

LunchTime said:

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I get that maybe 3 years without sacks murdered the tradition, but I miss it, still.

Also, once again, that percussion led spell out is by far the best new chant of the last few decades. That needs to be made a kickoff traditional chant or something. It is amazing, it sounds amazing, it's unique. Imagine sometime in the future the whole stadium doing it. Holy smokes.

Finally, the "give me a C" spell out is a rhythm cheer. Adding personal flair into "and who is the best university who's going to beat the ..." breaks the rhythm and makes it sound like garbage.

Also, Bear Territory is the best chant in the whole damn world. I liked using it before games, and hope it comes back as a territorial chant, not just a victory chant. It's too awesome to not use constantly. Maybe some genius can come up with a chant that uses Bear Territory to chant after scores or something.

Anyway, bottom line is that percussion led chant needs to be an ever kickoff chant, or something. OMG.

---

If the percussion led one is the same one I'm thinking of, it's good, but I think we copied UCLA on that one. That kind of takes the steam out of it a little.

KoreAmBear said:

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LunchTime said:

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I get that maybe 3 years without sacks murdered the tradition, but I miss it, still.

Also, once again, that percussion led spell out is by far the best new chant of the last few decades. That needs to be made a kickoff traditional chant or something. It is amazing, it sounds amazing, it's unique. Imagine sometime in the future the whole stadium doing it. Holy smokes.

Finally, the "give me a C" spell out is a rhythm cheer. Adding personal flair into "and who is the best university who's going to beat the ..." breaks the rhythm and makes it sound like garbage.

Also, Bear Territory is the best chant in the whole damn world. I liked using it before games, and hope it comes back as a territorial chant, not just a victory chant. It's too awesome to not use constantly. Maybe some genius can come up with a chant that uses Bear Territory to chant after scores or something.

Anyway, bottom line is that percussion led chant needs to be an ever kickoff chant, or something. OMG.

---

If the percussion led one is the same one I'm thinking of, it's good, but I think we copied UCLA on that one. That kind of takes the steam out of it a little.

---

I wasn't a fan of the percussion Cal spell out.

OskiDeLaHoya said:

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My recollection is the same as yours blungld, having sat in the student section in the early 90s. More of a sarcastic clap for bad plays (any play that loses yardage, turnovers, muffed punt, etc.) At some point, don't recall when, the band started playing Iron Man along with the clap for sacks.

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That's my recollection too. All about the Wisky game. I don't remember ever doing it before that game, but it certainly caught on afterward.

blungld said:

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Dude, seriously? You can't be incredulous if you weren't there. It's not a gator chomp and it's not post sack celebration. It was an ironic cheer for many many years. When was your first Cal game?

Wisconsin has that triangle shaped badger head that they sort of mimic in the motion. Cal copied it but we made our arms straight and almost Frankenstein to satire their motion. This has ZERO connection to Florida. There is no fingers as teeth like the chomp, its hands flat coming together in a clap. The Cal rooting section used to be pretty creative and sarcastic. We had to be.

And yes it did bewilder other fans because we did at them in this odd motion and at atypical times to be cheering (ironic). You could see them look at one another with an "I don't get it" expression and "what are they doing". This was entirely spontaneous and unique to Cal and I can remember a consistent usage from 1989 to at least 1998. Maybe it became something more gatorish the last few years? I don't know. I sat in student section (or next to from 1982-2003 and now in alum side so harder to track the cheer memes.

---

My first cal game was 1981. 34 years in TT. 2 years on the (edit)west side. But nice try on gate keeping.

It doesn't really matter when it first was introduced to Cal fans. Saying we don't use it for sacks is absurd. For **** sake, later today I'll drown the entire board with examples from past Cal games, and from every team around the country. It can't just be dismissed as an ironic thing because it was 3 decades ago.

Hell, I'm not even sure why you are stuck on it being from Florida when the topic was that we didn't do it after years of doing it.

I was a senior in 1989 and remember the Berkeley origin story of the "gator clap" the same way as blungold and others here do. It WAS a sarcastic response to Wisky's fans, like jingling keys at USC's fans. We had never done the clap in the prior three seasons, so I believed that 1989 game was the start of it all.

However, Lunch is also correct that the clap evolved within a few years to standard "gator clap" usage - after a sack. That's because student yell leaders lack institutional memory beyond a few years, and somewhere down the line our mic men assumed we used it the same way everyone else did. Or they thought it would be cooler if we did it as a sack celebration. I remember later sitting in the stands, watching our students do the gator clap, and thinking, They're doing it wrong. We'll, it's been decades of doing it "wrong" so now it has become, for all intents and purposes, a standard gator clap.

KoreAmBear said:

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LunchTime said:

---

I get that maybe 3 years without sacks murdered the tradition, but I miss it, still.

Also, once again, that percussion led spell out is by far the best new chant of the last few decades. That needs to be made a kickoff traditional chant or something. It is amazing, it sounds amazing, it's unique. Imagine sometime in the future the whole stadium doing it. Holy smokes.

Finally, the "give me a C" spell out is a rhythm cheer. Adding personal flair into "and who is the best university who's going to beat the ..." breaks the rhythm and makes it sound like garbage.

Also, Bear Territory is the best chant in the whole damn world. I liked using it before games, and hope it comes back as a territorial chant, not just a victory chant. It's too awesome to not use constantly. Maybe some genius can come up with a chant that uses Bear Territory to chant after scores or something.

Anyway, bottom line is that percussion led chant needs to be an ever kickoff chant, or something. OMG.

---

If the percussion led one is the same one I'm thinking of, it's good, but I think we copied UCLA on that one. That kind of takes the steam out of it a little.

---

The newer C-A-L cheer is something they want to do at the beginning of the 4th quarter, from what I can see. I think it's fine there, but it would be cool if it could be used other places as well.

I wouldn't credit UCLA with it though. Cal used to have a 'Locomotive" cheer with a similar principle that dates back to the 1890s, so it's a pretty old concept, just being done in a new era.

I get that Cal once used it as ironic and picked it up from another school. But that has not been the use for at least a couple decades. It is also doesn't predate the gator chomp*. I would assume Wisky got it from Florida, and renamed it, as it was a "use for every damn thing" direct ripoff alost a decade after Florida started using it.

The fact that Cal first saw it third hand does not change the origin of the clap. It is 100% a Florida tradition used by several schools now.

* http://www.news-journalonline.com/article/LK/20120901/News/605070853/DN/

If anyone can post a source that shows some other school did it before 1981, I am all eyes. But where Cal first saw it (7 years later) doesn't change that is is well known to have originated as the alligator clap/Gator chomp, etc.

It CERTAINLY doesn't change that Cal has been doing it in response to sacks with Iron Man for decades. Call it the Sack Clap or BearClap or Cal clap. I don't care. I want it back, because it's awesome.

I'm generally a very harsh critic of the mic men so I want to give credit where it's due: big improvements this week:


Getting on the PA to lead the crowd in the opening "Give me a C" (although I agree with the poster above, that you can't disrupt the timing).
Roll On You Bears at appropriate moments.
Hey Alumni...Go at appropriate moments.
And the new C-A-L is awesome.

I'm pretty sure I saw a post-sack "gator" clap this week, so reports of its demise are premature.

JSC 76 said:

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I'm generally a very harsh critic of the mic men so I want to give credit where it's due: big improvements this week:


Getting on the PA to lead the crowd in the opening "Give me a C" (although I agree with the poster above, that you can't disrupt the timing).
Roll On You Bears at appropriate moments.
Hey Alumni...Go at appropriate moments.
And the new C-A-L is awesome.

I'm pretty sure I saw a post-sack "gator" clap this week, so reports of its demise are premature.

---

I would say that quarters 1 and 4 were very strong. Things lagged during quarters 2 and 3. This is of course because it's different people covering these times.

The sack that came prior to the end of the first half was not met with the fish clap in part because the band simply was disembarking the stands, and headed to the field for the game. As such, the sousaphone players were more focused on not missing a step and tumbling than on the antics on the field.

They definitely did play it for the final sack, and the students obliged with the clap for it. Anecdotally, the sousaphones, who are in essence the judges of the matter when it comes to whether the song is played (and consequently, whether people are moved to do the clap and to do it in unison) don't tend to do it when there is a scramble and the quarterback gets back or just shy of the line of scrimmage. This is probably why we did not hear it so often last night.

RayofLight said:

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JSC 76 said:

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I'm generally a very harsh critic of the mic men so I want to give credit where it's due: big improvements this week:


Getting on the PA to lead the crowd in the opening "Give me a C" (although I agree with the poster above, that you can't disrupt the timing).
Roll On You Bears at appropriate moments.
Hey Alumni...Go at appropriate moments.
And the new C-A-L is awesome.

I'm pretty sure I saw a post-sack "gator" clap this week, so reports of its demise are premature.

---

I would say that quarters 1 and 4 were very strong. Things lagged during quarters 2 and 3. This is of course because it's different people covering these times.

The sack that came prior to the end of the first half was not met with the fish clap in part because the band simply was disembarking the stands, and headed to the field for the game. As such, the sousaphone players were more focused on not missing a step and tumbling than on the antics on the field.

They definitely did play it for the final sack, and the students obliged with the clap for it. Anecdotally, the sousaphones, who are in essence the judges of the matter when it comes to whether the song is played (and consequently, whether people are moved to do the clap and to do it in unison) don't tend to do it when there is a scramble and the quarterback gets back or just shy of the line of scrimmage. This is probably why we did not hear it so often last night.

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The Sack just before the half actually made me "sad" when I saw the band was already out of the stands, but not on the field... I remember looking to see if the would do it.

Glad to hear it was happening. Maybe in the excitement of the 4th I missed it. Or maybe moving to the EE-Dead-Zone made me miss it's goings on?

Now that Cal is getting regular pressure and sacks, I just want it so bad. Nothing like group cheers to get the blood going.

I think you are right about the scrambling. It has always been less prevalent with running QBs. Probably better that way, so to not over use it.