Almost Golden

I haven’t watched this much college football in years. I didn’t always like the game. I didn't even watch it when I was a kid. Not until I became a fan during the ‘Niners' Montana-to-Clark Cinderella season did I start following football at all, and the only reason I started following it that particular season was having my left leg in a hip-to-ankle cast (in a freak accident, I’d nearly severed my Achilles tendon). There was little I could do besides watch television, and that magical, Bill Walsh-coached season that brought the West Coast Offense to the world’s attention changed my life. I was soon a solid pro fan of the kind who spends all Sunday in front of the television watching the games, drinking coffee, and reading the newspaper. I started watching the college game as a kind of adjunct to following the NFL; I wanted to know where all those draftees were coming from. Cal’s team was at the time overshadowed by UCLA and USC, so out of allegiance to my father’s favorite teams I followed the Big Ten, Notre Dame, and Boston College.

Though I followed Cal Sports as a student, not until I left did I start following them in earnest. Becoming an alumnus made everything about my alma mater seem different--I could even use the phrase alma mater, and it meant something--and that included tracking Cal's Nobel laureates and following the Division I football and basketball teams. Yes, I became a proud Golden Bear. I was merely annoyed at our one-time head coach Steve Mariucci for leaving Strawberry Canyon for the NFL as quickly as he did, an annoyance that was mitigated by the fact that he left to coach my beloved ‘Niners, but I will never forgive Jason Kidd, whose high school career—high school!—I’d followed, for entering the NBA draft in his sophomore year. Man, what ever happened to taking it slow and making it last? What ever happened to loyalty?

As a kid on New Year's Day I used to watch the Ohio State Marching Band do the Ohio Script at halftime at the Rose Bowl. I know the melody of “The Victors,” Michigan’s fight song. I hate the USC Trojans—always have, always will--and said that if Cal ever made it to the Rose Bowl I would move earth and heaven to get there. So you can imagine my disappointment this past weekend. Cal had the Number One ranking in its grasp; the Golden Bears were brushing their fingertips up towards the top of the coaches’ polls the way Michelangelo's Adam is brushing the hand of God on the roof of the Sistine Chapel. Kentucky helped us by beating LSU in triple overtime (one of the greatest college games I’ve ever seen, by the way)…and Cal lost. Worse, we lost to Oregon State, a Pac-10 team that was three-and-three. Whether mercifully or miserably, I wasn’t able to actually watch the game because it wasn’t broadcast here in Buffalo (and my brother doesn’t have one of those football-addict’s cable channels), but I followed it online. I was already planning to have the coaches’ poll from today printed on a t-shirt.

Jesus wept.

Oh, well. That’s okay. Pasadena gets too much smog anyway…