Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images

Recently, Nestor and I had an in-person sit-down to discussed ways the students and alumni should help and utilize one another, through BN and other methods, to not only understand each others emotions and thoughts about all things Bruin to prevent online feuds, but to collaborate to make both communities better and in unison. There were many ideas discussed, which you should see implemented on BN in the coming months as the UCLA seasons kick-off (or tip-off!). With this in mind, I am asking for your help throughout this year and those when I am no longer a student at this phenomenal campus.

On behalf of The Den, I wanted to introduce something that The Den does on a normal basis that many may not know, well, other than the game management and early-bird fans at home football and basketball games. What is it you ask? Simply: The Dirt! The Dirt from The Den is a student-created publication that is handed out at every home football and basketball game (other sporting event "Dirt" has been made in the past per the request of a certain team event). For football and basketball, The Dirt usually includes a list of impact players for each team, current team stats with national rankings, lyrics to every Bruin song that the band might play, Den football traditions, the UCLA roster, an opposing scouting report, and most importantly, The Dirt. The final portion is where we put all the trash about the other team, generally uncensored (but tasteful).

It is a great tool for the people within the student section to verbally intimidate or harass the opponent in more thoughtful ways that the usual fan jargon, which would hopefully provoke a response in the form of a gameplay mistake. The Dirt usually includes information on player arrests (too bad Masoli or Blount aren't still around), SCandals, stupid public comments like ensured victories (ahh hmm Barkley), and even ridiculous Facebook/Twitter pages (specifically calling out Chase Budinger's dog's Facebook page). The Dirt tends to be most effective at basketball games since the players, and coaches (yes... that means you too Tim Floyd!), are always within hearing distance of The Den.

This coming year, I am planning to start a thread for each football and men's basketball home game where the BN community can post their own Dirt about the opponent for that game. That way, when we create The Dirt, it will include the deepest, darkest, and most humiliating/embarrassing/pathetic stories about the players and coaches that we will be facing. It will only be posted a day or so before hand so that the other teams and fans cannot muster up lame counterattacks to our factual accounts. So start saving up your stories (and sources, so we don't look like fools), new and old (as long as it is pertinent to the team and/or recently former players... but everything is game for $C). However, we always welcome legacy stories about your time with UCLA and memorable interactions with these schools, so please use these threads as a forum for that discussion as well.

If you have things that simply cannot wait or are best to be seen on gameday and beyond, please send them to theden@ucla.edu so that we can keep track of it. The writing for the first football games have already begun, so we encourage some starting material. I plan to figure out a way to share our completed Dirt (pdf format) with the BN community, as had been down in the past through other means. (ps. The $C Dirts are usually an additional page long, front and back, so that we can include the novel-worthy accomplishments from across town for that school year. The Lizard might also get a page long memo when his greasy hair comes creeping in.)

So I encourage your help and participation with this Den tradition. We can never have enough to talk about.

Thoughts? Ideas for improvement? Suggestions? Fire away!

Thanks and GO BRUINS!