I’ve been wanting to say something like this for a long time, but was unsure of how to say it. Maybe it’s part of the SoCal fan syndrome? I’ve always been a passionate fan and have always thought it so strange that the Rose Bowl could be so quiet! All other college venues I’ve been to have been roaring affairs. At other schools, the student section is hardly ever in their seats!

The worst and most embarrassing moment was for me at Washington v UCLA game last year at the Rose Bowl. I have 4 season tickets in the Alumni section… I invited a bunch of my friends along, bought out some of the ajoining seats, tailgated, had a blast. It was a group of 8 of us. We were on our feet, cheering, yelling, etc. From behind us a couple of people kept telling us to sit down! “Excuse me, the play’s over and we can’t see, can you please take your seat?” Now, most of the friends I had with me weren’t UCLA grads, they were just college football fans in support of the home team. They were absolutely flabbergasted at the suggestion that they just sit there and watch the game… We tried to be reasonable but what’s the point of being a fan if not acting the part?

Lets put the “fan” back into FANATIC!

GO BRUINS!

PS- Completely agree with royobruin…. I know the bandmembers are some of the biggest fans out there and show their dedication all the time. If the administration wasn’t going to be proactive, they should have led a movement to do something! I think I read the pickup band was going to be in full uniform as opposed to Hawaiian shirts, but still, this is primetime and I hope we don’t look disintrested.

When I first arrived at UCLA I was pretty shocked by what I considered fat alumni sit on their hands. But I’m an alumni now myself and I see a lot of my fellow alums on their feet and cheering. I’ve also seen the Rose Bowl rocking from time to time. And, in 1997 when we put up #7 in a row against hated South Central, our two little sections were as loud as the rest of the mausoleum.

All I can say is “you must be the change you would like to see.” I’ll be out there Monday night losing my voice along with you.

The UCLA fandom is definitely a tough nut to crack. I have seen and attended games where the crowd is raucous, and others where you’d think they were watching Masterpiece Theater. I have never understood that, and my general reply to anyone telling me to sit down and be quiet at a game is “bite me”…though not in so many words.

Anyway, there could be several reasons for this:

- Are there as many students attending UCLA games as students at other schools? The fact that so many schools have a stadium right by their campus makes a big difference in terms of the number of students who attend. And students tend to be the loudest fans, as opposed to the retirees…

- Perhaps the lush green tailgating venue on the golf course lulls fans to sleep before the game? And perhaps a lot of the older fans drink wine instead of beer before the game, which tends to make you sleepy…

- Well, we also don’t drink as much as other fans, that’s for sure.

- The Rose Bowl is a BIG stadium, so maybe it takes a large crowd to make it sound loud. It doesn’t help that they don’t allow banners and the Pasadena Police Dept. is pretty much way too fascist…mostly because they don’t want a bunch of crazies going to make trouble in the surrounding nice neighborhood.

In a general sense, UCLA is just not an “in-your-face” type of school, in any sport. Our general image is the one that John Wooden pretty much instilled: humility and inner confidence. We don’t generally feel the need to tell alumni of other schools (except U$C) about how we are going to kick their butts, how they suck, etc. Showboating is generally frowned upon, in fans and in athletes. I suspect a lot of those older people telling you to sit down used to go to basketball games to watch a nice performance and pretty much expecting to win every time. They didn’t feel the need to get all riled up, I guess.

But that needs to change. The game has changed, and the crowd is a big part of the home court or home field advantage. And the only way it’s going to happen is for someone like CRN to get people excited about UCLA football. It’s already happening with Ben Howland, Pauley is getting louder every year.

The first time I saw the contrast in fan behavior was at a home game against Tennessee in 1989, one season before I enrolled at UCLA. The Vols’ fans were packed into the visiting section, all wearing orange, and they cheered passionately throughout the game. Meanwhile, our fans gave lukewarm support to the Bruins. It felt like a road game…at the Rose Bowl! By game’s end, the Vols had whipped us, 24-6, and the Vols’ party spilled into the parking lot. I’ve since seen many repeats of this display at the Rose Bowl and in Pauley.

Part of the reason may be that our fans are polite and don’t want to obscure others’ view or “disturb” their quiet. Another possibility is that we don’t have an effective trigger to get started. Artybruin suggested that fans might seek permission from others in order to yell. Sometimes I feel that way — I want to yell, but no one else is, and I am too shy to take the initiative, even though I’d holler like crazy in a passionate crowd of Bruins.

So what can be done? First of all, we need to spread the passion from the student body. As BlueReign suggested, there absolutely ought to be a student section on both sides of the Rose Bowl and Pauley. We’d get more active television exposure (right now the sideline teleshot view is of the alumni and teams, but barely covers the students bouncing at the bottom of the screen), plus the passion of the students would embolden alumni fans. Second, we need a mechanism to make sure new, lazy, and reticent fans really understand the culture we seek. One possibility is to have the stadium announcer and scoreboard announcers encourage fans to stand and cheer. Another is to plant yell leaders in each section to perform this role. Third, the UCLA ticket office should include a printed set of cheers and an exhortation to raise a ruckus in any literature that accompanies ticket packages. The cheers can pertain to certain pivotal situations, such as third-and-long or a goalline defense. Other schools have pathetically repetitive and vapid chants (U$C and Florida State quickly come to mind), so we shouldn’t go to that extreme, but a few creative and catchy chants could get our stadiums rocking. Fifth, each of us needs to set an example. Bring a bunch of buddies together and start a chant at a game. Think of a funny new chant at least once a season. Encourage neighbors in the stands to join in. Don’t settle for wearing a blue t-shirt to the game. Wear the loudest blue and gold outfit you can assemble — full Bruin uniform, funny hair, painted face, etc. — and start jumping up and down before the whistle gets the game underway.

Any of these solutions, taken by itself, will be moderately effective, but we really need to do all these things since each will feed off the others.

I don’t know anyone personally in the ticket office, Rose Bowl or Pauley management, or in the Den, so I’m not sure how to ensure these changes will occur. Does anyone have a good lead so that we can start pressing for action?

…out of all four sections for each team in the Alamodome, ours was the only one sitting for essentially most of the game. Never mind that we lost, the students (myself included) were the only ones standing up the whole time AND we were shoved in the back of the section. Memphis, UNC, and Kansas all had sections standing up essentially the whole time (those Memphis fans were notably spirited from beginning to end and the UNC fans were still trying to rally their team despite being down by a lot to KU). I can also say the same thing, sitting at the press desk for basketball games at Pauley…the Den tries to get everyone up but it takes something drastic for the most part to get things really going (i.e. our last regular season homestand against the Bay Area schools). Sigh.

I recall in my former RB seats on the press box side, there were some older alumni behind me – all around actually, but the nice lady right behind me was most affected – who, at the beginning of the season, asked me not to stand up so much. I simply told her that that was not possible, because that’s the truth, and it’s my opinion that it’s unreasonable to expect otherwise (within reason of course, I’m not an obnoxious kinda guy). This made for a certain uncomfortableness to the whole thing. The situation is far better now in section 2, where it’s pretty rare for anyone to not be standing whenever our defense forces a 3rd down. Anyway, my main reason for posting:

Question: what time does the parking lot open on Monday? I’ve read somewhere that it’s 4 hours prior to kickoff (1pm), but the South Bay Bruins tailgate email said they’ll be starting at noon… does lot H open at noon? prior to noon?

Just a couple days away, I can’t wait. GO BRUINS!!!

Im in section 28…On the side of the Alumni away from the students….I Scream my ass off the whole game…But ..I have a bunch of kids and older ppl in the rows infront and behind me…But all in all..we just need more cheer ppl coming into the stands…we only have lik 10…tops..we need more…But again..I do what I can to be heard..Go BRUINS..and Ill be screaming with you against the Vols.

The loud cheers will come….