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Firstly, YES we absolutely hammered the importance of maintaining traditions. If the folks in the AD office didn't get it by the end of the presentation then there is no hope because this was absolutely one of the central points we tried to convey. Explained the importance of the band, how statistically per our survey data, nothing even comes close to being as popular as the band and traditions are for most alums.
I will make a side note here- we also brought up the idea of the sound system issues and piped-in stuff... I think it is a sore topic of discussion because we were told to deemphasize it and that many of the ppl in the department were a little sick of hearing about it and they understood people were unhappy. Take that as you will.
Suggested having a traditions seminar, having old yell leaders and knowledgeable alums come in and pass down their suggestions and expertise.
There is a DeCal that is run by the Rally Committee every semester on the history and traditions of the campus both athletic and academic. The training already exists.
One of the significant issues is that there are so few people in decision making places in Athletics (meaning Marketing) that predate 2011, or even 2006. Both years are not picked idly.
The move to the Giants ballpark in 2011 cratered traditions that most student groups and the department do not know about that were fondly cherished by the students of the time and of alumni. I don't think I've seen a student rolled up (either in derision or in celebration) since. Effective card stunts have also dropped off since that point (part of this is because card stunts were impossible with the seating that season, part of this is because the Rally Committee chooses to do complicated stunts that worked 15 years ago with an active student section and do not work now. The Cal Band used to tour Memorial Stadium during the 3rd quarter and play for each section of the stadium because they knew the drawbacks of where they sat and how they could not be heard. The Band was chastised and banned from doing this when football resumed in Memorial in 2012 and the current Band is a decade from knowing of such a tradition or whether it is worth the effort. So much institutional memory has been lost. There are still those who are in the Athletic Department from that time, but few of them are in places to make policy - they are all at the lower rungs of the administration.
The peak of Tedford's power and success marked in 2006 marked the beginning of the decline of student control of gameday entertainment. Tedford despised the amount of noise that both the student section and the Band made when the team was on offense, so much so that he would send coaches to silence both the Mic Men and the Band regularly. If you look at clips and film from 2006 backward, you can hear the yell leaders leading cheers and the Band playing songs regularly while on offense or on defense, at their own whim to celebrate a first down or a long score. Cheers were created on the fly, Mic Men had running conversations with the student section on the microphones the whole game, and did not let the energy, focus, or attention die. That died during Tedford's long tenure, and by the 2010s, Marketing was perfectly poised to use the dead airspace they saw as available and to script the students out of it.
If the Athletic Department is sick of hearing that no one wants to listen to their gimmicks, maybe they should quit it. The nature of the game feeling like paid programming with a side of football drives away young and old Blues alike. Remember, Young Alumni not only watched the slump of Cal football (which means they have less fond memories of winning), they also have less fond memories of silly, exciting, memorable moments orchestrated by the student section either, only exhausting ad-reads.
Restoring energy, excitement, and
freedom for the students is what matters. There is absolutely no reason why the Mic Men cannot be speaking on the student section speakers during an ad-read. The students are near broke and don't have money to invest in whatever hair-brained scheme the ad is shoving anyways.
Spreading light and goodness,
Over all the West.