Student Attendance Merely a Symptom of Much Larger Problem
by s.riley on Dec 8, 2009 6:08 PM PST
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As l do have 2 finals that l'm working on right now, l will keep this super quick, and get straight to the point, but l feel like all of the quibbling about issues that are apparent are merely the product of the real issue here: UCLA itself has not made winning a priority.
l will say that l think in general UCLA's "effort" on the whole from the AD is tacky, half-assed, and unimaginative.
Blaming student attendance seems really short-sighted to me. l feel like it's the symptom of a few larger issues that people really don't want to address, imo.
Our teams have sucked for a LONG time.
-Football was good for 2 years (97, 98) in the last 20 or so, and really bad for the last 10 pretty consistently. Even our 10-win Dorrell year was a total mirage. Kids for the most part aren't going to make a day trip from Westwood to Pasadena for a team that is typically just crap. So then add in that if the cool thing on campus isn't going to the game on Saturday, and parties are the cool thing, then that becomes the tradition. So the FR try - hell, l actually have a class with a bunch of FR this year (lol), and they were almost unanimously excited about the USC game...will they be as excited next year? Probably not, but they will probably go. How about after next years ass beating in which our coach has no realistic gameplan that leads to victory? They'll probably just skip it in their JR year - and who could blame them? And the cycle restarts.
-Basketball was good for 2.5 years recently under Ben. Last year was pretty average/bad and boring. This year we're atrocious. Sure, it's pretty easy for kids to walk down the hill to Pauley, but consider the fact that the team is atrocious, and consider the fact that Finals started Monday. Before that it was a dead period under Lavin.
Wherever you stand on this issue, l think we would all agree that for the most part, UCLA has not placed excellence in FB & BB as a priority for a long time. We got kind of lucky with Ben up until now, and FB has just been a disaster. The AD cannot make a good hire to save it's life. ln the last 2 searches, we hired the wrong guy. 03: Dorrell over Riley, and in 07: Neuheisel over Harbaugh/Golden. We are lucky that Toledo found some success for a moment. So what l'm saying is our success has almost been due to luck in the past 20 years or so...and the attendance matches that...l'm not even touching on the fact that watching a game from the top of Pauley sucks.
PS - This blog software/gui is great.
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.
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Last year was average/bad for basketball?
Are you serious? After losing RW, KL, and the Prince to the draft, we get to watch 3 amazing seniors lead our team to 2nd place in the Pac Ten, a tournament entrance, and an epic win over a very good Eric Maynor led VCU and you call that a bad year? It wasn’t as good as the other 3 years, but name one coach that can win his conference (a conference as tough as the pac 10 was last year) every year. You don’t think Coach K ever had a bad year? Check 95-96 for him, I don’t think people wrote off his success as luck because of one bad year.
I really really don’t think Howland was “lucky” like you claim. I don’t want anyone else to coach this team.
Regarding CRN, he has done a good job with recruiting so far, though it hasn’t produced results yet on the field necessarily. But this next year will probably be a pretty good indication of what UCLA football will be in for for awhile.
The Pac Ten is a rough conference for basketball and football. You can’t expect dominance every year, and you can’t expect a football program to be rebuilt immediately. I trust these coaches. I hope I’m not the only one.
Ben was not lucky – we were lucky to get Ben. He came here because he grew up loving UCLA – the prestige of the program. Let’s say, for whatever reason, Ben was to not be the UCLA coach tomorrow. l don’t have faith that the UCLA AD could go out and get us a top coach – do you?
Regarding last years team, l think the fact that you describe a win over VCU as epic sums them up. They didn’t play cohesively all year long, and l think Ben did a pretty poor job with the team.
As far as Neuheisel – recruiting isn’t all there is to winning in College FB. You have to be able to coach. See: Boise State, TCU, Cincinnati, Utah & Bowling Green under Urban Meyer, etc.
l don’t expect dominance every year – but overall the Football program has been very bad overall for the last 20 years or so, and my point is that the AD is not committed to winning – the only reason we got a good BB coach is because we got lucky.
Your point is a poor one
Our AD is not committed to winning? In all sports, he’s shown that you need to be excellent or get the boot. Bringing up the last 20 years with Guerrero is an idiotic argument because he’s only been here since 2002.
One of the first things he was charged with was hiring a football coach and his guy is turning out to be a pretty damn good coach. Unfortunately, he was overruled by administration and Mike Riley is doing his great work in Corvallis. When given the chance to hire his own football coach, he got Rick Neuheisel, who I think 95% of people would agree is doing a very good job.
You say that he got lucky with Howland, but is it any different that North Carolina being lucky that Roy Williams is an alum? Guerrero got one chance to hire a basketball coach and got it right. That’s all that matters and had CBH not been an avid fan as a child, what proof do you have that we wouldn’t have gotten another outstanding coach? Guerrero’s track record says he would have gotten a good coach regardless.
Formerly ryebreadraz
by Ryan Rosenblatt on Dec 8, 2009 6:47 PM PST up reply actions
You’re young and excitable so l’ll forgive you this once for the "idiotic" quip but feel free to forget that in the future and stick to the topic at hand.
Guerrero hired Dorrell over Riley, and Neuheisel over Harbaugh and Golden. His guy was not Riley, his guy was Dorrell – despite whatever the popular internet rumors are.
Regarding Neuheisel, he is under .500 after 2 years, has shown little to nothing in terms of gameday coaching, and in the Pac-10, the offense has only been better than WSU’s in his tenure. He also has shown us w/ his version of the "Wildcat" that he doesn’t understand why it is successful in the first place. Scary stuff.
Regarding Howland/Roy/UNC, UNC – like other top programs – would never let guys like Dorrell or Lavin languish. See: Matt Doherty, Bill Guthridge.
Interenet rumors or being told by someone in the room
You can dismiss it as whatever you would like, but Guerrero wanted Riley and was overruled. Call it whatever you would like, but I’ll call it the truth and I guarantee that my sources are better than yours.
Neuheisel is nuder .500 after two years, yes, but did anyone expect better? Do you have any clue how talent poor the program Neuheisel inherited was? You can’t win without talent, no matter how good of a coach you have. We went 6-6 this year in a Pac-10 that was stronger than it has been in years. Before Neuheisel was even hired, I set the goals in the next two years as improve from game one to game 12 in year one and dramatically increase the talent in the program. In year two, I wanted us to get to six wins, get into a bowl and have a top-notch recruiting year. So long as Navy beats Army, Neuheisel has accomplished everything I set out for our new coach, before the coach was hired. You say he’s done little in the way of game day coaching, but the Bruins haven’t lost to a team with less talent than they have since he took over and have beaten a solid team in a hostile environment. His game day coaching can’t be too bad.
As for your attempt at citing UNC, your lack of knowledge shines through. You bring up Bill Guthridge, a guy who won 75% of his games and went to two Final Fours in his three seasons before RETIRING.
Formerly ryebreadraz
by Ryan Rosenblatt on Dec 8, 2009 7:21 PM PST up reply actions
Your sources, frankly, don’t matter. Guerrero hired Dorrell. This is not disputable. This is a fact. He may tell others after the fact that he was not able to hire Riley, but you’re not accounting for the fact that he may be covering his own behind. ln the end, we are only left with facts: Guerrero hired Dorrell.
Re: Neuheisel, yes l am aware of the talent gap that we are facing. He gets almost a complete pass for Year 1, though his personnel decisions were questionable at teams. Year 2 l was hoping to see some improvement. There was a bit here and there, but most of it was just because Neuheisel decided starting Kevin Craft probably wasn’t a good idea. More horrible personnel decisions popped up though. Scart.
Have you watched the team play? Seen how undisciplined they are? Seen how weak our gameplans have been? We lost winnable games v. Stanford, Oregon State, and Arizona, all teams that have comparable talent to UCLA. Our wins v. Tennessee, yes, they were very nice. Let’s not forget, though, that Tennessee was 5-7 last year, and 7-5 this year.
When did he start Craft?
other than when Prince was injured. Did you even watch this last season? You need to quit while you can still see the lead pack pulling away
LOL
Yeah! CRN’s a bad coach cause he couldn’t beat favored Stanford AT the farm, favored OSU AT Reser, and favored Arizona AT Arizona. In fact, I think we’ll use the fact that he was competitive with a more talented team in their own stadium against him. That makes a ton of sense.
UCLA hired Dorrell
Guerrero went along with it after the fact because that is his job. I’m not talking about what Guerrero said afterward or anything after the fact. I’m talking about what happened during the process and how it happened. I know from people in the room what happened and Guerrero was never on board for Dorrell. He fought tirelessly for Riley and was ignored. That’s a fact, whether it fits your story or not is another issue.
As for the rest of it, your comments speak for themselves. I’m done with you because it becomes clearer and clearer that you are akin to a LA Times reporter, making up your mind and twisting things to fit your story so continue with that. I had considered posting on how the lack of top-10 success over the past 20 years has contributed to an apathy towards UCLA athletics, but it’s how you make the point and you’ve shown how not to.
Formerly ryebreadraz
by Ryan Rosenblatt on Dec 8, 2009 7:49 PM PST up reply actions
“I had considered posting on how the lack of top-10 success over the past 20 years has contributed to an apathy towards UCLA athletics…”
No you’re getting it…FB has sucked for a long time, and continues to suck, and that’s why people don’t come. Get it? When we’re good, they come. When we’re not good, they don’t. Shockingly, this happens with nearly everything else in Los Angeles.
I never argued that point
and it is one to investigate, but it is one to investigate with a level of intelligence an thoroughness. You did neither. Your post and subsequent responses were lazy and filled with ridiculous “support,” like UNC wouldn’t stand for Guthridge. I argued this point.
“my point is that the AD is not committed to winning – the only reason we got a good BB coach is because we got lucky.”
That is a point you have yet to defend and have come across looking both foolish and out of depth in your attempts.
Formerly ryebreadraz
by Ryan Rosenblatt on Dec 8, 2009 8:05 PM PST up reply actions
Maybe after you sit through 10 more 6 or 7 win seasons, interspersed with a 9 or 10 win season you’ll see my point a bit better.
…and do you really think that UCLA has it in them to make an inspired hire in football? When is the last time they did? Before me and you were born. Whereas UNC, despite their lack of FB tradition, hires Butch Davis. They peace out Doherty after 3 years despite great recruiting. etc.
lt may seem “foolish” or “out of depth” to you, but it is my opinion that people/students don’t come to the games because the program has been weak for a sustained period – and that starts at the top.
Dude
you’re dumber than those “silly freshman and sophomores who still go to the $C game.” The statements you are making about our football team shows a complete lack of understanding of the subtleties of the game. Neuheisel is rebuilding, and that starts with recruitment. Our team has also gotten better with each game, and this was while playing a ton of freshman and sophomores. It’s idiots like you who are completely wrapped up in wins and losses that destroy programs and misrepresent fanbases like ours. Go find a “winning” team to bandwagon with, and don’t come back here when we’re winning Pac-10 titles.
Really? Gotten better each game? So you think the “Wild Cheetah” with Moline v. USC was a good gameplan? Not only was that an atrocious gameplan, but Neuheisel demonstrated that he isn’t even aware of how/why that offense can be a weapon. We were basically direct snapping to a Fullback and just running him into the line.
BTW, as a UCLA fan for over 20 years, it’s funny that you’d talk about bandwagoning to me…
We have discussed the "Wild Cheetah"
and the merits of it numerous times here on BN. People have reasonable disagreements over it and we will leave it at that. What we don’t want to see here in this forum is people rehashing same, tired, retread debates over and over again, and making this place poisonous. If you want to contribute, do it where it is appropriate and do it in a timely fashion. Don’t trudge up topics that have been rehashed number of times.
Otherwise, you will be gone if you keep bringing up repetitive topics. Thanks.
C'mon Ryan
We can’t expect people to show up for games that we might not win. Only fans would do that. Haven’t you heard the age old adage “buy high, sell low”? That’s the path to riches.
Recruiting is not everything, but it is necessary in having a good team
While it may be early to tell whether Neuheusel will be a good coach for the Bruins, keep in mind that he has to work with the recruits that he was left with, for the most part. And while a few of those recruits turned out quite good (Reggie Carter, BP and ATV), the current junior/senior classes are shallow. Without the players, coaching can only do so much. As fa as the previous coaching search, Ryan correctly points out that the AD made a nice pick, but was overruled by university administrators that wanted Dorrell.
BTW, UCLA Football’s record over the past 20 years is 135-103 (#3 in the Pac-10 over that span), 88-75 in conference play with bowl eligibility in 15 of 20 seasons. I, like most Bruins, wish that the program had seen greater success in that period, but if that is an example of a “very bad” program, then you do actually expect dominance every year.
formerly bruinhoo
That's actually interesting.
That we’re #3 over that span. That’s better than I expected.
GO BRUINS!!!
by moutekicksboute on Dec 8, 2009 8:14 PM PST up reply actions
Ugh
What are you doing bringing numbers and facts into this discussion, hoo? They clearly have no place.
Formerly ryebreadraz
by Ryan Rosenblatt on Dec 8, 2009 8:15 PM PST up reply actions
Who's good with voice altering?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3-eavMSBnk
Formerly ryebreadraz
by Ryan Rosenblatt on Dec 8, 2009 8:21 PM PST up reply actions
Oohh
I had this in mind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGDBR2L5kzI
We talkin about numbers. Numbers! Man!
Maybe the last 20 years was too bold. Let’s say the last 10 years, since that’s 2.5 cycles of students. We are 41-41 (.500) in the Pac-10 in that time.
How’s that for substantive?
In the last 5 years, how many Pac 10 teams
have won more than UCLA in basketball? Remember, you said that we suck in this sport too.
"I don't forget very much" Rick Neuheisel, 11/28/09
5 years? Not sure. Probably 0. We were awesome for 3 straight years. Before that we we were horrible, and now we’re horrible again. The point being that UCLA FB and BB have been average/bad on the whole for a long while now. lt will take winning…consistently…to get the students coming back consistently….imo.
Chicken and the egg
Maybe we haven’t been good consistently because our turnout is so consistently bad.
I really don't understand
But hey, that’s why there is debate.
First off, you show up for games not because we win but because we support our school regardless. Win or lose, those teams represent you, me, and everyone that supports them. We owe them our best if we expect their best.
UCLA teams have given us unparalleled accomplishments in the world of sports. We have the most NCAA team titles of any school. We have Coach, who has given us victory that is superlative in the annals of sports. Our football team hasn’t garnered the same accolades but we continue to try. At least we don’t rest on our accomplishments in basketball and other sports and ignore football like the opposite of that shithole across town.
We have something special here but I’m waiting for our fans (including me) to give back a little that UCLA has given us and continues to give us. In short, our University is the best and therefore we not giving our best puts the onus on us, not our teams and coaches.
For me, nothing compares to the pride that my school has given me. We can say that with all objectivity when it comes to our athletic programs. When I die, mostly everything that my wife and I will accumulate will go to this University. Call me a zealot, but I figure, that is the very least we can do.
Troy HAS fallen...again, again, and again.
by Bruins102NCAA on Dec 8, 2009 7:04 PM PST reply actions 2 recs
l see where you’re coming from – but what l’m telling you is that throughout most of our students lives and academic lives, UCLA has not been good at sports. The mediocre attendance reflects that.
How about
Water Polo, Volleyball, Tennis, Soccer, Golf, Gymnastics, etc. In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve won 104 championships, and only 11 have come from revenue sports. While basketball and football are important and get most of the focus, we are a dominant athletic school. On top of that, Dan Guerrero has been responsible for hiring or retaining most of the coaches that brought us our recent championships. Are you really a student here? If so, you need to get out to Drake or Speiker every once and a while (if you can even find them)
Not to nitpick
but don’t we have 12 from revenue sports? 11 basketball and one football?
I believe
that football does not count towards a school’s total because there is no playoff system or something. I remember I bunch of SUCsters griping about that.
Okay, cool, just wondered
learn something new every day
Sorry, l’m not really interested in those sports, though l do appreciate the accomplishments of our athletes in those sports.
Well I'm sure our athletes/your fellow students appreciatew the support?
They work just as hard as the BB and Football teams. In fact, the basketball and football athletes support our other teams. Not sure why you can’t.
choose one
So what l’m saying is our success has almost been due to luck in the past 20 years or so…and the attendance matches that…
l’m not really interested in those [Water Polo, Volleyball, Tennis, Soccer, Golf, Gymnastics, etc.] sports
“People go see winning teams” or “I don’t go see many successful Bruin teams.” You don’t like bandwagoners, but you don’t watch successful teams.
formerly AZBruin
then maybe you aren't a true blue fan
I am proud, and quick to point out to others that UCLA is the number one athletic institution in the country. A large part of that is the non-revenue sports. My heart sinks when we get eliminated in the final round or two of mens/womens soccer and mens water polo (esp. against $uc). I desperately want to keep ahead of Stanford and u$c in the championship count.
So when we start winning
then the students will show up? There’s a word for that my friend.
"I don't forget very much" Rick Neuheisel, 11/28/09
Just because it is a reality or because it happens does not make it okay. It’s bullcrap and I have not tolerance for it. I agree that due to lackluster performance for a long time we have not exactly encouraged a generation to look forward to UCLA athletics, but during the past 20 years we do have an 8 year win streak against u$c and, regardless, you should become passionate about the school you do your undergrad at. I have a friend who couldn’t have cared less about UCLA athletics before attending with me, and, after graduating, he watches or at least follows every game.
Yes, but that 8 year streak happened when these kids were 1-8 yrs old. When they enter UCLA, the culture of UCLA has been mediocre teams, and there has been no emphasis on support/attending because of the long stretch of mediocre performance. Do you see what l’m saying?
l revel in the 95 title, the 8 straight over SC, the 97 and 98 years, etc…tell a kid that has gone to UCLA in the last 8 years about that though. They’ll have no idea what you’re talking about, who Cade McNown is, or why we love Tyus Edney. Because there is barely any link to that era – what happened after that severed a lot of the student fan base. You’re seeing the result of that now.
we shouldn't have to win
for students to show up. My friend began attending UCLA in 2004. It doesn’t get much worse. Football was terrible, basketball was just beginning to come out of it. Basketball was great by the time we left, but football was even worse than ever. He still learned to love the school and have pride in the institution. That is what you do in college. It doesn’t matter if you win or not, it is the culture of the school right now. We all love wearing UCLA shirts on campus, but then we go home and forget about it. Very few diehards. I know diehard Arizona fans who talked trash even when they were two touchdown underdogs. You just need to have pride in your school, and you don’t need to win to have it.
I go here now
and I know about all of those things (and a lot more). So do my friends. Some of them hadn’t when they first came here, but they were passionate about this university and learned. Walking through the Morgan Center tells you everything you need to know about our history, so don’t say that there is no link to the past
Yep, you're fitting right in
And if I’m a hotshot recruit, I guess fan support won’t be one of the things that draws me to UCLA. Luckily, we’re strong in other areas.
"I don't forget very much" Rick Neuheisel, 11/28/09
I think your wrong on two counts, s.
First, our b-ball and football teams haven’t sucked. Coach Howland has been a success under any criteria (I guess except yours.) And Coach Neuheisel has done a remarkable job dealing with a program that was in shambles. Did each of our teams go undefeated? Obviously not. But do you get straight A’s? If you don’t, then does that mean you suck as a student?
Second, even if our teams suck, you should still support them. Every Bruin should support every other Bruin. These guys bust their butts, and they deserve our support win or lose.
S., these are your good old days. Eventually, you’ll be a geezer. You’ll look back on your undergrad experience and wish you had done some things differently. But you will never regret rooting for your fellow Bruins on the court or the football field. I promise you that your good old days will be better if you support the teams win or lose.
Howland has had 2-3 great years, yes. But for most of our students lives, UCLA BB has sucked. Keep in mind that when we won our last title, which was the last time UCLA was good before 2005, UCLA FR were 4 years old.
And while l appreciate your post, l must disagree w/ you on FB. ln the last 20 years we’ve only really had those two good seasons. Other than that we’ve been prettyyyyy average to bad.
PS – l do suck as a student ;)
You’re young and excitable so l’ll forgive you this once for the “idiotic” quip but feel free to forget that in the future and stick to the topic at hand.
Guerrero hired Dorrell over Riley, and Neuheisel over Harbaugh and Golden. His guy was not Riley, his guy was Dorrell – despite whatever the popular internet rumors are.
Regarding Neuheisel, he is under .500 after 2 years, has shown little to nothing in terms of gameday coaching, and in the Pac-10, the offense has only been better than WSU’s in his tenure. He also has shown us w/ his version of the “Wildcat” that he doesn’t understand why it is successful in the first place. Scary stuff.
Regarding Howland/Roy/UNC, UNC – like other top programs – would never let guys like Dorrell or Lavin languish. See: Matt Doherty, Bill Guthridge.
This whole post is freaking pathetic
What a way to follow a great story like the one told by muybienbien, a recent alum with some actual stones, with this tripe. God forbid that students should have to suffer sports indignities like Final Fours
Can we just delete this post?
I know that sometimes stuff like this is left up as an example, but this is a joke. S. Riley does not deserve to call himself a student, at least not here. I promise this joker is not the norm on campus, but this post seems very damaging given all the student criticism of late. It basically re-affirms everything everyone was saying about apathy, which is not the case.
You have a point
I think I need to wait and see if this degenerates into a student bash-fest, which is obviously not welcome. I have to have faith that for now, we as a group can at least recognize that s.riley speaks for himself.
l agree, l am not the norm on campus. l actually travel to away games when l can.
BTW, l don’t deserve to call myself a student? Why, because you disagree with someone l wrote on here? Good call.
No because of your unfounded criticism
of our students, our teams, and our school. Has one person in this thread agreed with anything you have said?
I agree with parts of it.
We need to be concerned with getting students motivated to go to games, not criticizing the ones who actually do go. Ok, so he didn’t go to see our championship teams play. Everyone should attend more of ALL our teams.
GO BRUINS!!!
by moutekicksboute on Dec 8, 2009 7:52 PM PST up reply actions
l’m not criticizing the students – quite the contrary – l’m defending them. Are you missing that somewhere along the line?
So your argument is that the students should only have to show up if we win?
if so, you don’t think that there is a student attendance problem. If you think that there is a problem, then your are criticizing the student body for not caring about the teams because they are losing. While that argument may hold some truth with football, there are clearly other factors at play with regards to basketball attendance. If you had bothered reading previous posts on the topic, you would see this. That my friend, is unfounded criticism.
It's not about HAVING to show up.
It’s about WANTING to show up. Most students are not excited about going to a game.
GO BRUINS!!!
by moutekicksboute on Dec 8, 2009 8:03 PM PST up reply actions
I want to keep this post up
It’s a classic lame excuse making post and an example of how not debut on BN with weak takes not based on substance.
There's something important here.
The average UCLA student does not care about our sports. Everyone on this website obviously does, or would not be here. What needs to change? Well, there have been suggestions about changing the ticket system and others which are great and will make a difference if implemented. But the bottom line is true. The average UCLA student does not care about our sports.
GO BRUINS!!!
You’re picking up on it.
My point is, UCLA sports have been so average/bad for so long that most students just don’t care. l’m not making a judgment on it – l’m just saying l think this is why things are the way they are. People can get mad at me about it if they want, but the reality is that UCLA Football averages about 6 wins/year over the last 10 years. There is very little excitement on campus about the football program.
People can get mad at ME about it if they want, but l actually attend games and have have for a long time.
No, I'm sorry
this asshole is not the average student. I’m not sure how to prove that, but please believe me. Excuse my language, but this is really pissing me off (not you – this post)
Upset much? People are posting about the student sections being sparse. l am offering up an idea as to why that is so. Sorry that you’ve taken it so personal and misconstrued my words so greatly.
l guess you’re right, l’m not the average student. l was in Atlanta, in San Jose, and attend games as often as possible. Most students don’t. l’m simply offering up reasons as to why that may be.
Aka finger pointing
why don’t you offer up a solution that isn’t attacking our coaches for not winning? Ugh nevermind, I’m done here. This is pointless.
You are offering up an idea that is nothing original
and is same, boring, stale excuses.
Did you go to the Arizona State game? (which was arguably the biggest game of the season). Did you make it to Southern Cal game? (don’t tell me you were posting on other UCLA forums bitching about Wildcat instead of attending the game)?
Yeah N, why didn't you attend the game?
Air travel has seen many great advances over the past few decades. You could have flown across the continent to attend the ASU game, and only have to spend a few hundred bucks for the plane ticket, hotel and game ticket, and work a half day on Friday before catching your flight. Geeze, what were you thinking?
formerly bruinhoo
Your Wildcat comment
brings to mind the posts in many threads that “we just have to run” and our basketball team will win every game. Wildcat works well for the teams that have the personnel to pull it off. Yes, I’d like to see us use it more with Knox, but it’s not a cure-all any more than “run and gun” would be.
Neuheisel is under .500 after 2 years. You and I would both love it if that were higher. Please tell me which coach would have done a better job with the players Dorrell left him, Kevin Craft for an entire year due to 2 freak injuries in training camp, and no O-line for basically a year and a half.
Ask team members – basketball or football – what they think about having crowd support. Ask the coaches. They will tell you, as I have heard myself and seen on TV/web, that they feed off crowd noise. That’s not going to happen unless we have fans there showing they give a sh*t, that they bleed blue and gold regardless.
No, I don’t want losing teams. I’d like to see us filling up Morgan Center with more championships yearly. I’m going to support my school until that happens, and even if it doesn’t. I will campaign against those who do nothing but hurt our programs (see Dorrell and Lavin), but will not withdraw support for my school and players that give their all for it (see Craft, Aboya, etc.) ever.
(written while wearing one of my 3 UCLA sweatshirts)
formerly AZBruin
The average UCLA student...
Does not look at progress. Does not analyze every minute detail of our teams and sees reasons to go to the games. They go to games when they feel it will be an entertaining use of their time. I went to every home game this year and a few away games. I did that to support the team and look for progress. Not enough people go to games for that reason.
GO BRUINS!!!
by moutekicksboute on Dec 8, 2009 7:44 PM PST up reply actions
What coaches would do better? Well l’m sure there are some. Kelly, Peterson, Stoops, Meyer, Carroll, etc…and that’s exactly the point. Does UCLA care enough to hire one of these premier coaches? Or do we keep hiring Terry Donahue retreads?
(written while wearing a UCLA beanie)
How much would it cost to hire
“Kelley, Peterson, Stoops, Meyer, Carroll, etc.”? Then, compare that to what you think UCLA would offer to pay them. To say UCLA "doesn’t care enough “to hire one of these premier coaches” is ignoring a big reason why UCLA keeps hiring “Terry Donahue retreads.”
Which post?
You have, like, 50 in this thread. I’ll assume you mean the opening post.
In the opening post, you imply that it’s Guerrero’s poor choices in hiring that are to blame: “The AD cannot make a good hire to save it’s life. ln the last 2 searches, we hired the wrong guy. 03: Dorrell over Riley, and in 07: Neuheisel over Harbaugh/Golden.” You have also continued to argue this throughout the thread.
If you’re saying now that money is the issue, then why did you need to slam Guerrero in the first place?
Because he's moving the goalposts
Tends to happen when your original arguments have no logical basis.
Where did l say money was the point? My point is the AD doesn’t have enough of a commitment to a winning program, therefore it is tough to win, therefore it is tough to get more people to come out.
He said
How much would it cost to hire
"Kelley, Peterson, Stoops, Meyer, Carroll, etc."? Then, compare that to what you think UCLA would offer to pay them.
You said:
Which is exactly my point.
And that’s not saying money is the point?
Money is the issue in the sense that UCLA doesn’t make the commitment and wouldn’t pay them. Those coaches would more than likely win at UCLA just as well as they they do at their current schools (small degree of variance for a few different factors).
What l am saying is this is self-imposed on UCLA’s part.
So then money is the issue
And this was DG’s fault how? Was money an issue in hiring CRN over Harbaugh/Golden as you said originally? Of course not.
As Tydides asked a couple of posts above...
Are you donating big bucks to help UCLA be able to afford the coaches you’d like to see? Perhaps you already are sending in big checks, as I don’t know you. Even from KS, though, I know that the CA state budget situation is a clusterf*ck, to say the least. We all know most athletic programs fund their basketball and football operations with money they raise from sources other than the state – such as ticket sales.
So, ways to help the athletic budget in order to afford the level of coaches you’d like to see:
1) Donate a lot of money. (Again, maybe you already are. If so, great.)
2) Support ticket sales.
formerly AZBruin
I don't think we need to be pointing fingers at current coaches for this.
It’s obvious that Neuheisel is an improvement over our past coach. Is he going to lead to a NC? I don’t know. Howland will get things turned around this year as well. Our students DON"T think about these things. A 4-8 team improving to a 6-6 team is great, but it will NOT convince the average students to get out to the Rose Bowl.
GO BRUINS!!!
Exactly. 6-6 every year = status quo, 50-60 crowds. Want to fill up the student section? The only thing that will make that happen is serious success. Not 6-7 win seasons.
again
Harbaugh, Golden, or others couldn’t have gotten this team to a BCS game, and probably not a higher paying bowl than we will likely get. The talent just is not there yet. This comment will be completely valid in a couple of years if CRN has 6-6 records for the next couple of years. “Serious success” doesn’t happen immediately after the wreckage of Dorrell, as much as we want it.
formerly AZBruin
I agree and we need to be patient.
I did not expect Neu to get us to a BCS bowl in 2 years. Anyone who did was foolish. The point that is trying to be made here is that the majority of students will not show up until we are consistently better than we are right now. I think we can all agree on that.
GO BRUINS!!!
by moutekicksboute on Dec 8, 2009 8:08 PM PST up reply actions
Of course they couldn’t have. My expectations are not unreasonable. l don’t even want the team to win a specific number of games – l just want to see dynamic gameplans, and doing everything we can to win. That will lead to wins.
I think we are doing everything we can to win
we are just that limited. I expect a big year next year. Maybe it is premature since the defense will be gashed a bit in terms of talent. But the offense will have no more excuses next year. This year, we had to be conservative to have the best chance to win. Protect the ball, play field position. We absolutely could not afford mistakes this year. Minimizing them was key, and that is often called being conservative.
Third year under Chow, second year for Prince and a young O-line, another year under Franklin, Embry, and Rosario’s belts. The offense has no excuses beginning next year. The defense will have question marks, but will be mostly solid. D-line will be the biggest question with two, likely three, major players gone. Linebacker and DB will also lose senior leadership.
I know he will be good
but who will fill in for Carter? Who will fill in for the Bosworths? Akeem cannot play four positions (all three linebacker spots and DEnd). Will he also fill in for Price and Siewerski? What about Verner? We have huge question marks on D next year.
Don't Blame Guerrero
When Guerrero hired Neuheisel, I admit I was skeptical at first. Then he convinced Walker to stay, even though Walker had just gotten beat out for the job. Then he hired Chow (arguably the greatest OC in the past generation). Every UCLA fan I know was pumped about that. Then, we had QB injury issues — Olson and Cowan got hurt in the same day, Craft competed behind an OL that Dorrell left for CRN to deal with, fast forward to this year, Prince looks good at first, then comes the injury, Prince is rushed back (I admit that was a mistake) and we struggle for five games. Then Prince starts to play better before a bad game against SC. I say let’s judge CRN and Chow after one more year of good recruiting and hopefully a healthy QB, because any Pac-10 fan will tell you that you can’t win in this conference without a good, healthy QB — not even Stanford, with Gerhart, would have won this year without Andrew Luck.
As far as Dorrell goes, I’d like to see some proof from you, S, that Dorrell was really Guerrero’s guy. From everything I heard, Guerrero thought Dorrell was OK, but was also forced to settle for him after being told that he couldn’t go after a higher-priced coach. Show me a report that says that he had the money to spend on Riley and chose Dorrell anyway.
As far as Howland goes, I believe there is only one other coach in the last 30 years (Tom Izzo) that made it to the Final Four three times in a row. Yeah, we are all disappointed with the final results, but how many college teams in recent memory could have beaten that Florida team.
As a UCLA sports fan, I’d say we have a lot to be thankful for. If it’s not good enough for some students, then it’s probably because we’re in LA (like you said, S). But that ain’t Guerrero’s fault.
If there is one thing you can fault with Guerrero, it’s that Howland is not an exciting coach, he doesn’t put exciting, run and gun teams on the floor, and that might be part of the attendance problem. However, I still think it is clear, all things considered, that Guerrero made a darn good hire, and Howland will win a title one day (he would have already if not for Florida).
This whole Dorrell thing is not important.
The marketing of teams needs to improve, and the quality of our (revenue) teams need to improve before the majority of students are excited about going to watch them play.
GO BRUINS!!!
by moutekicksboute on Dec 8, 2009 8:00 PM PST up reply actions
Aaah
You are saying UCLA hired the “wrong guy” by picking “Neuheisel over Harbaugh/Golden”?
Really? Did you think Harbaugh and Golden would have been a better fit for UCLA?
And you are not happy with Neuheisel because he and Chow’s personnel use was not to your liking? Your complaints about Wildcat, Carroll, Knox is not anything origial. It’s the same tired issues you have beaten to death over at other forums.
UCLA athletics have had some tough times in recent years. However, Howland’s success is not over and done yet. He has hit a rough patch. That doesn’t mean it is all over.
As for Neuheisel if you are going to quit on him after just two years of data points, then you are hanging out in the wrong forum. You are going to have to come with something lot stronger in terms of datapoints to show that at this point you have enough information to conclude UCLA made the wrong choice in Neuheisel over Golden/Harbaugh. Otherwise, message board quality takes belong message boards.
If you have solutions on creative steps UCLA marketing department can take to improve the situation, let’s hear it. Otherwise, keep the repetitive, unoriginal whining somewhere else. Thanks.
If this guy has been airing this crap in other places
Then he should at least have taken the time to get his facts right. Wasn’t Harbaugh already at Stanford by the time we were looking for a coach? Is this not his third year? Fun Fact: Harbaugh has a below .500 record at Stanford (17-19)…after THREE years, not two. I guess he would have been the “wrong” choice as well.
He must be taking about John Harbaugh
then assistant for Eagles, who ended up being HC at Ravens. BTW Ravens are not completely sold on him yet.
Yup, John Harbaugh
And if hiring Dorrell the last time around was a problem due to lack of experience, what was the justification for John? Would have annoyed me even more than the Dorrell hire did.
formerly bruinhoo
Harbaugh/Golden?
Did you see John Harbaugh coach last night against the Pack? If he had coached my favorite team that way in the final minute of a game, I would have been going crazy. Jon Gruden couldn’t stop talking about the lack of urgency, and rightfully so. By the way, the Ravens are underachieving this year after a great year last year.
As far as Golden, there is no way of knowing if his success at Temple would translate over to an LA school in the Pac-10. I don’t even think it’s worth going there.
I'll just say
that I thought bringing in Golden as a good move by DG and I defended it in a post at the time. I really liked what he had been doing at Temple and this season for the Owls is a continuation of the work Golden has done there. I think the fact that Neuheisel won out over Golden, Harbaugh and other candidates who we now see make up a very good candidate pool is another reason why we should have some confidence in him.
Formerly ryebreadraz
by Ryan Rosenblatt on Dec 8, 2009 8:14 PM PST up reply actions
I don't understand the riff against Neuheisel
the guy has proven he can do it in the freakin PAC10. Its not like he was a questionable hire out of some second or third tier conference.
as a current student
can i be the first to say this guy does not share the same thinking as the rest of us? at least not a lot of the people I know. Just seem like someone had some built up frustration from finals and decided to vent on here
wow...
I didn’t have the privilege of attending UCLA so I can’t speak on the difficulty of being a student. I’m just a fan with a tight budget and I still find a way to make it to as many games as my wallet allows me to (and some I probably can’t really afford) …this includes softball, soccer, volleyball and other non-revenue sports. I don’t care if it’s the best or worst season I always show my support. I don’t understand how this guy can rationalize the team not winning as a reason to not show up.
That's great. Keep it up.
The people who’s minds we have to change are not yours. They are the minds of the students who only show up when we are doing well. The OP stated that he went to games, I’ve gone to games, everyone on this site has gone to games. We need to change the minds of the people who do not care enough about our sports.
GO BRUINS!!!
by moutekicksboute on Dec 8, 2009 8:33 PM PST up reply actions
“I don’t understand how this guy can rationalize the team not winning as a reason to not show up.”
So why, in your opinion, is student support suffering?
like i said
i’m not a student or alumn so I can’t really speak on the student experience. I can say that I’ve read various comments and posts from bruinsnation alumni who have recounted their UCLA experience and have given well thought out ideas and suggestions to improve the student and alumni turnouts at games.
Ok, and as a student, l am giving my response on others’ thoughts on the matter. l’m not saying its “right” or “wrong” but what l am saying is this is my thinking on it.
You may not think it’s right that people won’t come unless the team is good consistently, but imo, that’s the reason more people don’t come.
I wonder how s.riley would explain the crowds at Wrigley Field
Or Lambeau or wherever it is that the Redskins play.
Some fans are fans of their team. They are fans, win or lose. They don’t need to explain why they’re fans, and they don’t need to explain why people who aren’t fans are not fans.
Someone in the marketing department says that there are more fans on campus than there are seats. Is that guy wrong? (I’m sure that guy is wrong in many, many ways, but is he wrong about the demand for tickets.
How does anyone explain those crowds?
Most of those fans know and appreciate the history of their team. The average UCLA student does not. If we took a poll around campus asking how many students knew who Cade McNown was, or who Red Sanders was, I would guess a large amounts of students would have no idea.
GO BRUINS!!!
by moutekicksboute on Dec 8, 2009 8:40 PM PST up reply actions
Which goes to bake to the issue of marketing/raising awareness
Our school’s administrators are dropping the ball on number of levels.
If I may take a stab at it
I’d say more generalizations and complaints about the “failures” of the management without ever specifying any alternative plans or solutions. More generalizations and complaints about the “failures” of coaching despite not saying anything about what he would do differently and why it makes logical sense to do it differently. Nothing original. Nothing we haven’t covered before. That’s probably how he’d “explain” it.
We’re in the business of solutions now. s.riley is a couple of weeks late to the party.
While s.riley did not offer up a huge solution to the problem, he brought up a valid point.
More students WILL show up WHEN we get better. What we can do as a community is get the word out about the good times had by all at the Rose Bowl, Pauley, Drake, etc, and put pressure on the Morgan Center to improve the marketing of our teams.
GO BRUINS!!!
by moutekicksboute on Dec 8, 2009 8:48 PM PST up reply actions
He didn't offer any solution at all
His now backtracked message is “students are bandwagoners” and that “people will go to see winning teams”. I am shocked /s. Many of us are now concentrated on trying to change that, whether it’s directly or indirectly through our apparently ineffective marketing department. This post contributed nothing.
My alternative would be to make a commitment to a winning program. That would mean paying top dollar for a top coach who has proven himself. lf he doesn’t work out, then you do it again. And so on.
l can list other ideas about the failures (no quotes as l do feel that they failed in a major way), if that’s ok w/ Nestor – but l don’t want to rehash or turn this into something that he doesn’t want here.
Hell, try explaining the crowds watching mediocre-bad college teams
I attended UVa Men’s games against mid-level ACC opponents (think Clemson/GaTech…) that drew more students than last weekend’s Kansas game, or even recent ‘big’ conference matchups. Most UVa alums have between a 2-5 hour round trip to attend football games, but excluding rivalry games (when the Rose Bowl seats 25K or so $uc’sters), Virginia averages nearly the same attendance as UCLA @ the Rose Bowl.
formerly bruinhoo
According to this, capacity @ UVA games is 61,500:
http://www.virginiasports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=17800&ATCLID=1134404
According to this, they didn’t sell out their game v. VaTech:
l guess we’re not the only ones who have trouble filling the place when the team is average.
What about Jacksonville?
They wouldn’t fill the stadium if they won the superbowl. I like the previous comments about our non-revenue success. Do they get sellouts, cuz we are really good at a lot of things.
S.Riley you are so off base I'm just going to go ahead and accuse you of being a Trojan or Trojan sympathizer.
You say the number 1 reason for fan apathy is that our teams have sucked for nigh on 20 years. This just goes to show how little you know. In those twenty years, we have won a National Championship and gone to 3 final fours Including that one NC game we lost to Florida. I’m not going to produce the kind of stats you are looking for, but I seem to remember that at the time Lavin was fired for failing to make the tournament, UCLA had gone some ridiculous span of years without missing the tournament. Something UNC, Duke, Kentucky, and Kansas had failed to do. Sorry if that’s not up to your standards, maybe it’s you that SUCs.
I’ll agree that we have not had the success in Football we’ve had in Basketball, but I do recall that even in down years we have always managed to put up some marquee wins. The last two years those were against Tennessee. Most years in my time we can count on two to three of those. If that’s not exciting, I don’t know what is. ‘97 & ’98? What about 2001. We were in the National Championship hunt that year with a legitimate Heisman candidate in DeShaun Foster in the backfield. I was in the stands when he ran off something like 300 yards and 4 touchdowns. A feat that would not be surpassed for oops, 4 years when Maurice Jones Drew ran for 320 yards and 5 touchdowns. Sorry that’s not up to your standards, maybe we should entice more quality players with large houses, magazine cover rides and large flat screen TVs.
So, only winning teams draw fans? Or at least in LA, right? That’s funny because throughout the Southland, there are High Schools with teams that are not winning championships and their students manage to go out each friday and watch their classmates take the field. School pride is pride, period. You argue that students would rather party with their weekends. But I don’t know of many night clubs or Frat parties that begin around noon or gasp! 4pm Saturdays. You clearly haven’t been to a game at the Rose Bowl, because last time I was there I got pulled into a game of flippy cup and then beer bong. And, that table was busy the whole day my friend. If you can’t get out to a game and still have enough in you to go out with your friends Saturday night; well, I knew grandparents doing keg stands at UCLA v SUC games when I was in school.
Maybe it’s you that SUCs.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
by MexiBruin on Dec 8, 2009 8:53 PM PST reply actions 1 recs
20 years was probably a bad number. 10 years would probably be better…that is 2.5 cycles of students, after all.
UCLA FB is 41-41 in the Pac-10 in that time.
So what?
As been echoed by many a passionate Bruin already, you don’t do things only when success is guaranteed. I venture to say that most great successes in this world sports related or not, were begun with little chance at success.
Showing school pride has less to do with success and almost everything to do with PRIDE.
Something you seem to lack.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
by MexiBruin on Dec 8, 2009 10:46 PM PST up reply actions 8 recs
I don’t think you need to attack riley’s school pride in this situation. All he’s doing is highlighting a fact that we’re all aware of. Success = more fans, higher attendance. Losing = drop off in attendance, fan support. It’s a simple fact of sports that we’re all aware of, and it won’t change.
What can change, as has been rehashed over and over again here, is the school’s approach to marketing our athletic product, and that is what we need people to be posting about.
by inhowlandwetrust on Dec 9, 2009 10:02 AM PST up reply actions
The only reason this has garnered any attention
Is the ridiculous assertions given in support of why attendance is so bad as outlined in the original post. If someone had come in and only said what riley eventually backtracked to, the fanpost would have been deleted in about ten minutes as it would offer absolutely nothing constructive or groundbreaking and it would be about 2 sentences long. As it was, he came in and threw out a bunch of easily debunked accusations to support his conclusion and the rest of us used that as an opportunity to tee off on him. Don’t lose sight of what the original post said, as most of the content there is what people find objectionable.
As far as attacking his school pride, I’d normally be with you on this, but there’s been a disturbing trend lately of disguising one’s own opinions by invoking the indefinable other, either to shield oneself from criticism or to present a false layer of objectivity and credibility to the opinion given. Considering that riley initially argues quite vehemently in support of his original assertions before being repeatedly debunked and giving that angle up, it’s not too much of a stretch to assume that the reasons that “others” have for not going to games are actually his own.
“a false layer of objectivity and credibility to the opinion given”
I like this. It is a skill that we all learned in our first UCLA discussion section.
by inhowlandwetrust on Dec 9, 2009 10:27 AM PST up reply actions
Hate to bring up Doh again
But remember that was one of the problems we had with him as well. Especially when it came to breaking “news” within the department.
You’re right – UCLA hasn’t been average in football. 41-41 in the last 10 years in Pac-10 play. No problem here.
Would you agree that success for most sports teams is cyclical? I agree with you, UCLA Football has been very average in the last decade. U$C Football was extremely average in the 90s, while we dominated them. I really do believe that CRN will bring us to the point where an 8 – 4 record is a down year, and he’ll do it the right way.
by inhowlandwetrust on Dec 9, 2009 11:58 AM PST up reply actions
l would agree that a high level of success is very hard to achieve on a consistent basis, and l would add that l don’t feel that l have unrealistic expectations upon the program – my question is does UCLA have a commitment to bettering the program…or no? Because l don’t think that support will every be there otherwise.
l hope you’re right about Neuheisel. He may be the last hope.
I share the optimism around CRN with a lot of the posters/bloggers here. He’s infused an enthusiasm into the program that, at least for many of us out of school, are getting us more excited about UCLA sports than ever.
I think calling him the “last hope” is way overstating things though.
Go Bruins!
I would also add
Our optimism and enthusiasm around CRN is neither blind nor unconditional. We haven’t been shy about being critical of him this year and during the losing streak also made it clear how we still expected him to win at least 6 games this season. Depending on how recruiting/off-season shapes up we will raise the expectations in a reasonable way for next year and then for the year after. However, we should make it clear we are not going to support Neuheisel in the same way lot of Dorrell apologists did during his later years.
We will want to see clear signs of progress. From what we have seen in last two years, we are encouraged to date. However, we will expect more in the coming seasons.
All that being said,
Winning or losing, I still remember spending a day at the rose bowl tailgating on the beautiful Rose Bowl golf course/parking lot, followed by enthusiasticly rooting for my favorite team (read: yelling until i lost my voice, jumping around like a maniac) to be one of the most memorable ways to spend a Saturday.
Perhaps there’s a non-football aspect to leaving your dorm/apartment and having fun that needs to be emphasized? What happened to the well-rounded student? Are we too busy studying that we forgot that college isn’t all just academics? This isn’t high school part 2, this is a growing experience.
/soapbox rant
Go Bruins!
I busted my ass in K-12
so that I could come to UCLA AND GO TO ALL THE SPORTS GAMES, ESPECIALLY SATURDAYS AT THE ROSE BOWL!!!!
UCLA’s all-around greatness is what makes it so much better than any other undergraduate experience in my opinion, and it’s why I chose to go there over Berkeley, the “better academic school.”
As an undergrad, going to your school’s sporting events is a necessity. You can put off the seriousness of school until graduate school.
One of my friends was a civil engineering major at UCLA, yet he still found time to run naked through the golf course and the Rose Bowl in 2006 after 13-9…
My point is, no matter how hard you think your classes are, it’s no excuse for not showing your future alma mater support!
by inhowlandwetrust on Dec 9, 2009 1:24 PM PST up reply actions
Yeah, because that's the entirety of what you said
You didn’t say anything about throwing the AD under the bus, placing unreasonable expectations as if he had unlimited funds at his disposal and all that was wrong was his willingness to pull the trigger. You didn’t say anything about bailing on CRN after 2 years despite all of the examples you point to of “better” coaching jobs having more time to recruit and teach their system. The next time you bring up this “commitment” bullshit, which we all know means “money”, you better have a followup plan on how to obtain that “commitment”. That’s a demand, not a request.
Stay single, and don't have kids, s.riley
Many students fall in heavy hormonal love and get married and have kids. Then they find out that the beautiful, perfect wife has flaws. She might actually lose some of her beauty over time. And your kids may turn out to be, in a word, plain (to quote Mr. Gilbert.) Using your criteria, s., you would be justified in dumping that family. You could legitimately tell your wife that you would pay attention to her after she starts looking like [fill in the name with the most beautiful woman you can imagine – I’m leaning toward Anna of V at this point.] And kids, you have to be physically attractive, athletically gifted, and very, very smart, because daddy only supports winners. Daddy is not going to sit through the childhood equivalent of 6 or 7 win seasons and continue to support you if that’s the best you can do.
S., some of us love our alma mater in this same way. I accept the fact that not everyone does. I cannot accept the fact that you come on this board posing as a lover of all things Bruin, but publish comments with the content of yours. I echo my brother Mexi’s thoughts: You have a strain of arrogance and sense of entitlement found only at just$c*. If you really are a UCLA student, which seems doubtful at this point, I think you should immediately work on transferring to a place where you’ll be more at home. Just get on the Santa Monica freeway heading east until you smell it, and then turn south until you step in it.
by Fox 71 on Dec 9, 2009 6:17 AM PST up reply actions 4 recs
Recent graduate
Being a son of two proud UCLA parents and growing up as Bruin, I definitely came into UCLA already bleeding blue and gold. I watched some pretty mediocre teams earlier this decade, but that didn’t change my attendance plans for UCLA athletics when I eventually became a student. I was lucky to have been a student for the 3 consecutive final 4 run for bball. I watched every bball game that was available to me and even made a trip out to Maui to watch us win the Invitational against Georgia Tech.
Having been in a fraternity, I was surrounded by a crowd that generally was also obsessed with UCLA athletics. I quickly got a glimpse of the “type” of people that are oblivious to UCLA sports when I took a super shuttle during Spring quarter of Freshman year. Our bus driver broke the silence by saying “How bout them Bruins in basketball this year.” Out of the 8 people in the bus, several people didn’t know our bball team was seeded high in the Tournament. The girl sitting next to the bus driver asked “We have a good basketball team?” Can you believe thattttttttt? These were freshmen. They are supposed to be absorbing all that there is about UCLA and our great athletic programs. These were not grad students focusing on their dissertations. As I progressed through college, I couldn’t believe how many of my close friends didn’t attend football games (bball is a different story with the lottery system). The way I see it, there is even more reason to experience football games during a down season because you never know when a 13-9 will happen. It’s easy to get out of bed to get to the Rose Bowl when we are rolling over opponents, but it takes a true Bruin to endure and hope through the tough times.
Although we had a mediocre year in football and are currently experiencing a very very down year in bball so far, I cannot help myself from being stoked about both programs’ futures. Success in the future will bring back attendance in both sports. We have two coaches that bleed Blue and Gold just like us. Luckily, they are both skilled at what they do. Howland’s resume speaks for itself. I wouldn’t trust any coach other than Neuheisel to explain to recruits what UCLA is all about. I have confidence in his coaching abilities and hopefully we will all see the results in these next two years.
by podas okus Achilleus on Dec 8, 2009 9:17 PM PST reply actions
That doesn't mean we sit on our laurels
And just wait for the success to begin. What if fan support and success are correlated? It works both ways. There are signs of trouble in marketing and publicity and it’s never too early to shed light on those issues. Just saying “the attendance will come back when we win” isn’t going to stop us from pointing out our current failures in that regard.
Completely agree Tydides
Tydides, I agree there are huge problems in the marketing and publicity of UCLA athletics. I personally think we should put Rick in charge of that haha. If he can sell recruits on playing at UCLA, I’m sure he can sell students on actually coming to our games. Fan support and success is certainly a two-way street. We just have to find a way of instilling in students the same passion that posters on this forum possess. We obviously can’t just sit back and hope our children and close friends end up populating the beautiful campus at Westwood haha. Marketing needs to target the students from the 1st day they walk on to UCLA as students. I know my 1st week included a keg bus to the Rosebowl full of lovely UCLA girls. Obviously we need a similar blast of excitement to put them in the right direction and reignite that with a huge rally/slideshow/speechfest each year. A lot of students want to crack-down on their studies 1st quarter, and the weekends give them that extra time to prepare. As the 1st quarter wears on, the football games pass them by and they have no regrets. That attitude remains fixed as their UCLA career comes to an end.
In terms of basketball, the lottery system is complete BS. In our fraternity, we would just use our brothers’ Bruin Cards for games not in our packages and hope that the official didn’t look at the picture too closely (some preemptive short talk helped in that regard). Now obviously that system doesn’t work for other parts of campus. The clear message is that there are students who want to go to games and will pay for them but cannot get a ticket. The house should be packed every night.
by podas okus Achilleus on Dec 8, 2009 10:17 PM PST up reply actions
Completely agree Tydides
Tydides, I agree there are huge problems in the marketing and publicity of UCLA athletics. I personally think we should put Rick in charge of that haha. If he can sell recruits on playing at UCLA, I’m sure he can sell students on actually coming to our games. Fan support and success is certainly a two-way street. We just have to find a way of instilling in students the same passion that posters on this forum possess. We obviously can’t just sit back and hope our children and close friends end up populating the beautiful campus at Westwood haha. Marketing needs to target the students from the 1st day they walk on to UCLA as students. I know my 1st week included a keg bus to the Rosebowl full of lovely UCLA girls. Obviously we need a similar blast of excitement to put them in the right direction and reignite that with a huge rally/slideshow/speechfest each year. A lot of students want to crack-down on their studies 1st quarter, and the weekends give them that extra time to prepare. As the 1st quarter wears on, the football games pass them by and they have no regrets. That attitude remains fixed as their UCLA career comes to an end.
In terms of basketball, the lottery system is complete BS. In our fraternity, we would just use our brothers’ Bruin Cards for games not in our packages and hope that the official didn’t look at the picture too closely (some preemptive short talk helped in that regard). Now obviously that system doesn’t work for other parts of campus. The clear message is that there are students who want to go to games and will pay for them but cannot get a ticket. The house should be packed every night.
by podas okus Achilleus on Dec 8, 2009 10:19 PM PST up reply actions
Good idea. Having Rick be a big part of the Freshman Orientation (3 days long, l believe) would be HUGE.
Agree. Put Howland and Neuheisel at student orientations.
We’ve already seen what an effective speaker Rick can be. Howland, while he is a rough character, loves UCLA and he knows how to talk up the university. This is a great idea.
GO BRUINS!!!
by moutekicksboute on Dec 8, 2009 10:53 PM PST up reply actions
Agree completely
with the last paragraph.
I’m so pumped for the football team and have completely faith in the basketball team to turn it around, and not next year, I’m still optimistic about the tournament.
I am Really Pissed
I have not seen one word about the issue from this post regarding attendance. Just to preface this rant, I am not a graduate of UCLA (I did attend 2 film estension courses) but I have blead blue and gold for as many of my 46 years as I can remember. The thought of a student, no less a sports’s fan, could not walk their ass down to the hallowed halls of Pauley, frankly, sickens me. I would die for the opportunity.
Just a little of my history. I have watched nearly every UCLA bb and fb game for the last 27 years. I had season tickets for the 2001 and 2002 fb seasons. The first year I lived in OC and the second in southern SD county. In the 2002 season my days were no less than 14 hour affairs to see my beloved Bruins. I still watch every game. I sacrifice hours that I should dedicate to my professional practice to make sure I root them on and have even contemplated returning to school to be able to catch the whole experience. It’s really shocking that students cannot walk the few blocks to get to Pauley or catch a bus and drinks some beers at the RB to watch our Bruins.
By the way, our FB team has had only one losing season in 20 years and our BB team has been awesome recently and good for 20 years even with Lavin the douche. Drop the excuses.
Not quite true
UCLA had losing records in both 2008 and 1999, plus IIRC a couple 6-7 years during Dorrell’s tenure.
by SuperBruinMan on Dec 9, 2009 12:01 AM PST up reply actions
Stop feeding the troll people
He’s already ruined his reputation.
I respect the decision of the front-pagers to not delete this, but one of the reasons I come to BN as often as I do is the lack of trolls. Don’t feed this one.
Can someone
give me 5 minutes of my time back?
This is the typical attitude of a bandwagoneer...
Have some pride in your school man…you don’t just go because it’s the hip thing to do….you go to support your fellow students, have some fun and defend your school against the visiting school and their bus loads of supporters! If this is really the attitude on campus now i’d be ashamed to be a bruin…
What an interesting post
I don’t think you can disagree with the general principle that average teams will have lower attendance. And, unfortunately, the man is right as to football, and right this season about basketball. I think he is completely wrong about basketball for the previous four years as no doubt we were a premier team for three years straight and were a top 40 team last year.
Even though I have been disappointed with CRN’s strategy and effectiveness this year, as I have explained before and will not repeat here, I think it is way premature to say his hire was a bad choice. This is the PAC 10, the best football conference in the country this year, stacked with powerful teams 1 through 6 and no really bad team except maybe WSU. And face it, for whatever reason we have had mediocre QB play the past two years primarily due to injuries last year to BO and PC and this year to KP. You can’t win crap in the PAC 10 without an excellent QB. Just look at AZ before and after Foles became the starter.
If CRN has another mediocre year next year, and he might if KP remains injury prone or Brehaut is not brought up to speed, then I think he is fair game to criticize. But I’m not talking so much wins or losses. I’m talking being more aggressive and letting the players he recruited play. Show that he trusts them by letting them loose. Even then I don’t like making a coaching change, absent a disaster, until a coach has had four years to truly make the program his.
I don’t know anybody who’s a savior out there. There are no Vince Lombardis out there who can take a winless team and turn them into a champion in a year. The ones that do are normally guys that replaced truly terrible coaches who didn’t know how to use the obvious talent that they had.
Who says Kelly is so great? I like him at 12-0. Who doesn’t? That’s an easy bandwagon, but have you seen his defense? Shades of Bob Toledo. ND can have him. I don’t see the difference between him and Weiss really as far as defense. Harbaugh? I love the guy’s attitude and power football, but until this year when he had Luck, who is an all-world recruit, his teams were average. I could go on. My point is there is no magic coach, really. It’s mostly situational, meaning getting the right players or else you lose.
CRN is getting the right players. He has the right attitude. Our coaching staff I think is excellent. Let them percolate. Let them jell. Let’s see how we’re doing in two years, people.
In the meantime I only missed two games this year. Cal at home and WSU away. And every game I saw our players left it all on the field. They never quit. They’re ready to cut loose. That’s coaching, people. Good coaching.
One final note. Now that the DG cancer is gone, CBH had his team playing much better. The tempo on offense was quicker. Honeycutt looked good, but needs time to get his wind. Nelson was a beast, my new favorite Bruin with the heart of a lion. Some better guard play and some better, squared up 3 point shooting and we give Kansas more than they want. We may be pleasantly surprised before the end of the year. That’s okay in basketball since it has a real playoff system. Better to be good later than never, right?
GO BRUINS. BEAT TEMPLE!
While I didn’t/don’t feel like riley does, I can see how some would. It’s good to see this sort of discussion going on. I definitely know that I appreciate UCLA atheletics as an alum more than I did as a student. I went to quite a few games (& some of the non-revenue), but as an alum I find myself wishing I had gone to more…
Current UCLA students: seize the moment. You’ll never be this young, this carefree, again
Uh, huh?
“Football has sucked for 20 years”?
We were in the Rose Bowl in 1994 and 1998. I’d hardly call that ‘sucking’. Our longest run of victories of SC was from 1991 – 1998. Even when football was ‘really good’ in the early 90s (94 Rose Bowl), the fans still didn’t come out. I don’t buy the ‘fans aren’t showing up because the team has never been any good’ meme.
Some of the fans didn’t even show up WHEN the team was good, and your characterization of the football team as ‘sucking for the past twenty years’ just goes to show how short the attention span of the average Angeleno is in regards to sports. I’m going to assume you were probably born in the 90s, and likely don’t remember much of the success of UCLA Football from that period.
I’m also not quite sure how you compare Neuheisel negatively to Harbaugh, as both came in to similar lack of talent situations; I’m going to lay out a couple of records here for you:
4-8
5-7
8-4
That would be Jim Harbaugh’s record in his first three years as Stanford’s head coach. Look, I understand the frustration that UCLA Football has even reached the point where we have to compare ourselves to Stanford, but that’s basically the total atom bomb that was left behind. If we don’t finish 8-4 next year (and trust me, with our schedule, 8-4 will be a HUGE achievement), then yes, I’ll be a bit annoyed. But Neuheisel’s outperforming Harbaugh from a re-building perspective if you look at the numbers.
Our 10-2 season
Might have been a total mirage. But it was a total nightmare of must-see tv for those other 10 teams. LA is full of front running fans, that shouldn’t affect alumni and student support though. That is for the casual fan to decipher. CRN will have us on top again shortly. I believe it was a deft hire and so do most of the TRUE BLUE fans.
Attendance Standards
What you guys don’t seem to understand is that the number of passionate sports fan at UCLA goes down every year. It sucks to make generalizations, but the fact is hard-core students tend to not be as big sports fans. Yes, there are many great students who are die-hard fans, BUT on a whole this is not the case.
Last year the number of college applicants to UCLA was the highest of all time. Standards are getting a lot harder, and the numbers of sports fan are dwindling.
Add on top of that, fairly rigorous schedules and a lot of other things to do in LA, what do you get – bandwagon fans. It sucks. I wish it wasn’t the case, but IT IS.
If you are a student, you have a midterm the next day (with the quarter system there are ALWAYS midterms and papers) and you have a choice between the following:
1. Spending 3.5 hours watching a bad basketball team lose and not studying for a class you NEED to do well in. OR
2. Studying for 3.5 hours
I can tell you that the majority of students are going to chose the latter. That’s life at UCLA. When the team gets better, things change. Until then, the marketing department has a LOT of work to do…
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