Tone-Deaf Gene Block and UCLA Bureaucrats Spin 2010-11 Athletics as "Successful"

by Bellerophon on Jun 27, 2011 5:01 AM PDT in UCLA Athletics

When is Gene Block going to make the same commitment to athletic excellence that he has made toward academic excellence? Or is he content to led UCLA squander its unique position as the nation's leading university, both in the classroom and on the field? Photo Credit: UCLA Newsroom

Yes, it's happened again. In what seems like a never-ending, constantly-repeating cycle, the bureaucrats in Westwood have once again managed to take their feet and place them straight in their respective mouths. Of course, this comes as no surprise to anyone who has regularly read BN the last few years. We've seen Dan Guerrero's Reign of Error has already given us the Pauley student seating fiasco, the Veto Seto campaign, and a complete tone-deaf handling of our university's revenue sports. Sadly, those examples are just a few from bureaucrats who have made mistake after mistake and misstep after misstep, which as led to BN openly wondering if we have the right people at the helm.

By now, most, if not all of you, have seen the e-mail that Chancellor Gene Block this past Wednesday re-capping the 2010-11 academic year at UCLA. In a 19 paragraph e-mail titled "UCLA: The Year in Review" Block laid out a summary of the various happenings that went down in Westwood this last year. The overwhelming majority of the news he reported is cause for acclaim: but they are the kind of scientific, academic, and educational excellence we see annually from UCLA. After all, at our core, we are one of the nation's premier universities. And many of the things Gene laid out in his e-mail are awesome and make me proud to be a UCLA alum.

But, as we all know, UCLA is unique because not only do we enjoy wild success in our academic pursuits, but also in our athletic pursuits (well, usually). It's the combination of the two that make UCLA the unique and magical college experience that we all enjoyed. Generally, it's academics that brings interest from America's best students to Westwood, but it's athletics that builds the bonds between each other and our alma mater. For many of us, our love of UCLA is built not just from our gratitude for the world-class education we received, but from the joys and agonies of following UCLA sports and living and dying Bruin blue and gold.

So, imagine my surprise when Gene decided he'd devote just one paragraph to UCLA athletics. Nineteen paragraphs and just one for athletics. If there was any question that Gene Block and the Murphy Hall bureaucrats don't have any interest in UCLA athletics or our proud traditions, this e-mail is an affirmative and clear sign that, to Gene, athletics is just some ancillary portion of the university, relegated to nothing more than a passing mention.

For UCLA, that's just wrong.

Let's break this down more after the jump.

It's bad enough that the bureaucrats at Murphy Hall don't think UCLA athletics is worth more than a passing mention, but what's even worse is that they can't even be intellectually honest about the kind of year 2010-11 was for our sports. Here's what Gene had to say:

Highlighting the year in athletics, our women’s golf team earned its third national championship and UCLA’s 107th NCAA title overall. The victory continued an astounding streak during which we have won at least one national championship in a team sport each year since 1995. Bruin student-athletes excelled across the board again in 2010-11, with several teams concluding their seasons ranked among the best in the NCAA.

Now, if you read this, you'd walk away thinking this was another successful year in Westwood. Another national title, another year where our programs finished in the top tier across the board. It's a nice gloss Gene, but it's nothing but a spun caricature of reality. Let's be blunt: it was a sub-par year. Actually, sub-par is being generous.

But perhaps Gene was just getting his rosy picture from his inept athletic director. About two weeks prior to the chancellor's email, the UCLA Athletics official site posted the same kind of lame, spin-filled tripe from Guerrero:

This past year saw the program win its 107th NCAA team championship - the most of any school in the nation - in women's golf. We also finished second in women's gymnastics, third in women's water polo and women's tennis (tied), fifth (tied) in men's golf and men's soccer, ninth (tied) in men's tennis and women's soccer, 17th (tied) in men's basketball, women's basketball, baseball, softball and women's volleyball and 20th in women's swimming.

When you read the whole post, you'd think that this year was something Morgan Center was proud of. Now, let's make one thing very clear: everyone at Bruins Nation is proud of the effort our student-athletes have put in this last year. The young men and women wearing blue and gold deserve a round of applause, a pat on the back, and our continued, unwavering support. But, I think it's safe to say that every one of those student athletes that didn't finish the year lifting a NCAA championship trophy thinks that their season could have been better.

And it could have been. But the tone-deaf bureaucrats in Murphy Hall and Morgan Center have completely failed to give our hard-working student-athletes the tools (facilities, equipment, coaching) and support to be in a position to win a national championship every year, as used to be the standard at UCLA.

But, as you can see from Gene and Dan's communications to the rest of the UCLA community, they're more than content with the kind of sub-par year we saw in 2010-11. Let's recap what this year really meant:

Just one national championship (women's golf)
Another year with no men's championships (none since 2008)
The football program took a major step backward, finishing 4-8, losing to Lame Kitten and U$C to end the season, and failing to even come close to qualifying for a bowl game
The men's basketball team failed to reach the Sweet Sixteen, something that even walking corpse Lavin could regularly do
The most promising young women's basketball coach left Westwood because we could not financially compete with LSU
The Pauley Pavilion renovation has been a mishandled boondoggle, with fundraising under the needed benchmarks, in large part to the failure of Morgan Center to get the fan and alumni base fired up about UCLA basketball
Incompetent Morgan Center bureaucrats tried to underhandedly steal the students' sideline seating at Pauley by using a bait-and-switch "survey", Facebook censorship, and liar Mark Harlan.
Despite Ryan's repeated calls (here, here, and here) for renovations and improvements to Jackie Robinson Stadium, it remains a sub-standard joke not worthy of the high quality program John Savage has built

This is not "success" by any definition of the word. 2010-11 was an underachievement by the high standards that are expected at UCLA. Instead, Gene and Dan are more content to spin this year as something we should be proud of. While we're proud that our student-athletes continue to strive for excellence, we should not accept the fact that Morgan Center and Murphy Hall is willing accept anything less than victory. No one expects every team to win a title every year, but to even pretend that this year was anything remotely close to successful is just a lame joke.

We're not alone in that assessment. As of this writing, the overwhelming majority (86%) of BN readers who voted, do not consider 2010-11 a success. That's pretty damning.

Although, hey, maybe on second thought, Gene deserves a pass on the volume of athletics information in his e-mail: it's not like UCLA's athletic programs did much worthy of note this year. Seriously though, Gene Block's apathy toward UCLA athletics is cause for concern. But, then again, if Block was a true leader, he would have been forthcoming about our revenue programs shortcomings and how the university would address those shortcomings.

A wise man once told me that a true leader has the courage to play up the positives while laying how he or she is working to find solution for the negatives. Doing the ostrich and burying your head in the sand and spinning the negative to a positive does nothing.

So, the question is, when will Gene Block and Dan Guerrero display true leadership? When will they commit UCLA to excellence in all of our athletic endeavors? When will they provide our student-athletes the tools and support they need to succeed and challenge for victory?

Or are they content to sit back and fiddle while one of our university's great institutions, our proud and storied athletic tradition, burns to the ground?

GO BRUINS

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Comments

It all starts at the top.

I think the fact that athletics occupied 1/19 of Mr. Block’s speech is also mirrors how often he cares about athletics. Hell, if he thinks about athletics even 1/19 of his time, I would be incredibly surprised. His disdain for sports is well known, and he tolerates them only when they aren’t making waves and staying in the black. How can we expect to succeed at our normal level (other schools, read: flourish) if all we get from the guy who is in charge of hiring/firing the athletic director is malaise?

If this season in football goes down, which again, I hope and pray it does not, we need to consider renovation of not just our athletic department, but our chancellor as well. We are not just a one trick academic pony here at UCLA. We are excellent in athletics as well. Some people seem to have forgotten this. Unfortunately, they’re the ones holding the strings.

"Every day was a good day at UCLA." -Coach John Wooden

by OswegoBruin on Jun 27, 2011 9:39 AM PDT reply actions

Even if he doesn't care

He should have an associate in charge of it who does.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the athletic department as a huge untapped pool of direct and indirect revenue. Direct being money given to athletics and generated directly by athletic sales, and indirect from the higher amount of alumni donations when the marquies sports are doing well, higher amount of merchandise sales, and overall better publicity for the school.

Its not just bad for the athletic department, it is bad for the fundraising efforts he is concentrating on. Imagine how much easier it would be to deal with an alumni base if you were talking about a world class basketball facility opening instead of a partial refurbishment of a 50 year old building? Or a football team that had played in a bcs bowl some time in the past 5 years? He just doesn’t get how important these things are to keeping your alumni united as a large public university.

by silverlakebruin on Jun 27, 2011 10:00 AM PDT up reply actions

It's not even that he's dismissive

It’s that athletics, to Mr. Block, are an annoyance. He doesn’t believe, like far too many do, that they’re beneficial to the development of a university. He believes that universities should be about one thing: academics. Any other concerns are silly distractions, like a father who doesn’t take well to his son’s pursuit of an activity other than the one that the father has laid out for him.

It is plain to see that success in athletics raises the overall profile of a university. See: U$C, Texas, Oregon, Duke, etc. etc. etc. If you raise your profile, you get more applicants, and can pick and choose to raise your academic scores. The additional revenue allows for fewer funds to be set aside for the AD, thus keeping more funds for academics. It’s really, painfully simple. Unfortunately, not for Mr. Block.

"Every day was a good day at UCLA." -Coach John Wooden

by OswegoBruin on Jun 27, 2011 10:49 AM PDT up reply actions

The numbers don't necessarily support this

A while back I grabbed a list of donations to the UCLA fund – with the help of WendyWestwood – and the donations didn’t seem to track W/L records for revenue sports here’s the link (if I did it right): http://www.bruinsnation.com/2011/2/7/1981306/neuheisel-vacations-in-cabo-as-maryland-interviews-randy-shannon#58769288

Also, the athletic budget is ~$70M/year but the money for research is at least ten times greater: http://www.bruinsnation.com/2011/5/19/2180347/ucla-brand-merchandise-and-marketing#68132758

The $$$ argument doesn’t make a clear and compelling case for more administration support for UCLA athletics. We need to find more compelling arguments like boosting UCLA’s prestige, exposure and branding – more people know about U$C Football than know that UCLA (and not Al Gore) helped invent the Internet. If our teams appeared more on National TV we could advertise UCLA other accomplishments.

by KnudsenRockne on Jun 27, 2011 12:35 PM PDT up reply actions

I think the problem with your 10 year history

Is you cant tie it into a year to year thing. It ties in more with your prestige arguement.
I think its about building a sense of pride and connectedness to the university.

Although USC doesn’t release annual figures, I can tell you the number of large gifts to the university has increased substantially since 2003/4. And the fact that USC was all over the local and national media because of their football program didn’t hurt in the slightest.

A down year or an up year won’t change things that much, but sustained excellence, mediocrity or futility take their toll.

by silverlakebruin on Jun 27, 2011 1:27 PM PDT up reply actions

Also going back 10 years

Is a rather unfortunate window to try and put in context a correlation between donations and record, since we’ve been pretty consistently bad at football over that timespan. There is no legitimate comparison to be made until we have a sustained period of football success paired with the donation numbers tied to those years.

by Tydides on Jun 27, 2011 1:33 PM PDT up reply actions

You guys missed my point: the money argument is weak.

My response was specifically to silverlake’s comment:

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the athletic department as a huge untapped pool of direct and indirect revenue. Direct being money given to athletics and generated directly by athletic sales, and indirect from the higher amount of alumni donations […]

I don’t think you could make a persuasive case that improving UCLA athletics will help alleviate budgetary woes.

First the Athletic Department’s budget (revenue) isn’t that big compared with UCLA’s budget. It’s less than 10% of the research dollars UCLA receives (and about 2/3 of what UCLA was slated to trim from it’s budget). From the Regents’ perspective, that is not a huge amount of money so channeling resources to athletics to boost its revenue wouldn’t have a big impact on UCLA’s budget. Consider, if UCLA won both FB & BB National Championships (which would take a lot of effort) the revenue would increase fractionally. A fraction of a not huge number is even less of a huge number. For purely money’s sake, Block’d be smarter trying to attract more bio-tech or nano-tech dollars – the payoff is larger and more likely.

Second, since the donations to the UCLA fund do not seem to correlate with athletic success, it is hard to make a case that improving UCLA athletics will boost donations. Ty raises a good point, that to really check for a correlation you need both variables to show some variation. But if you believe that UCLA should invest more in athletics because more wins consistently leads to more donor dollars, the burden of proof rests with you! If more wins doesn’t really mean more donations then Block should look for other ways to drum up donations. (Look at Harvard’s endowment now look at Harvard’s athletics – I’m sure Block does).

So the $$ case for more support for UCLA athletics is weak – at best we could make a case that increased spending on the athletics dept will be offset by increased revenue (that is nothing to sneeze at these days).

We need a reason for boosting athletics that carries weight with The Powers That Be.

by KnudsenRockne on Jun 28, 2011 2:53 PM PDT up reply actions

The problem with the football numbers

is that we haven’t really seen what sort of revenue success could potentially generate. We haven’t been successful in football for over a decade. That’s significant, and the donation statistics that were provided previously, if I recall correctly, only covered the last 10 years or so. In any case, donations may or may not be tied to athletic success, IMO not, as teams seen as “successful” do not necessarily seem to warrant donations, whereas teams looking to get over the hump seem to warrant a little extra on the part of donors. This may just be my perception. That said, like you said, increased spending on athletics will (hopefully) increase win totals, overall success, recruiting, and overall brand reputation. This in turn will lead to additional revenue from tickets, clothing, advertising, etc. I don’t think that’s a weak argument at all.

"Every day was a good day at UCLA." -Coach John Wooden

by OswegoBruin on Jun 28, 2011 3:01 PM PDT up reply actions

How much would UCLA actually get?

Here’s a fun game. Let’s estimate how much added annual revenue UCLA would receive for the following athletic accomplishments (from all revenue sources).
1) For a Football NC?
2) For a Basketball NC?
3) For a FB Pac-12 Championship?
4) For a BB Pac-12 Championship?
5) For beating $C in FB?
6) For beating $C in BB?
7) For going to a BCS bowl?
8) For making it to the sweet-sixteen?
9) For making it to the final-four?
10) For each ‘minor’ (non-revenue sport) National Championship?

Here are my estimates (in $millions)
1) 2 to 4
2) 1 to 2
3) 0.5
4) 0.1 (it’s nothing special for Ucla)
5) 0.5
6) 0.1 (it’s nothing special for Ucla)
7) 0.5
8) 0.1 (more like -0.25 if we don’t make it)
9) 0.25 (it’s not that special for Ucla)
10) 0.1 (it’s really nothing special for UC-frickin’-LA)

OK perspective time: UCLA gets nearly a half a billion dollars annually in IDC from the research grants. So, I don’t see Gene Block getting excited about the athletic department bringing in an extra couple of million dollars a year if we get a national title.

by KnudsenRockne on Jun 28, 2011 7:04 PM PDT up reply actions

The Harvard comparison is lame

Supporting the Athletic Department, to me, is about more than just revenue dollars. I think silverlakebruin makes a good point that having a successful athletic department greases the wheels for the alumni and donor base (and I think U$C is a poignant example of donors being more willing to give when the university is perceived to be going through “good times” when, in large, said perception is tied to athletic success).

But, more importantly to me, we’re not Harvard. We’ll never be Harvard. Harvard is Harvard. We should focus on being UCLA. We’re not only one of the nation’s elite public universities, but one of the nation’s elite universities, public or private. What makes UCLA special is that we’re more than an elite academic school, but an elite athletic school. It gives us a more rounded college experience than, say, at UCSD or UC Davis, where you have very strong academic coupled with essentially non-existent athletics.

Most importantly, as I said above, generally, it’s academics that brings interest from America’s best students to Westwood, but it’s athletics that builds the bonds between each other and our alma mater. For many of us, our love of UCLA is built not just from our gratitude for the world-class education we received, but from the joys and agonies of following UCLA sports and living and dying Bruin blue and gold.

I don’t think you can quantify that to dollars and cents and I think the fact that Block just flat-out ignores that crucial aspect of what it is to be a Bruin, to me, means perhaps he isn’t the right fit for UCLA.

by Bellerophon on Jun 28, 2011 9:45 PM PDT up reply actions

If my points were planes, I'd have an unstoppable airforce

Everyone keeps missing ’em ;)

I have patiently laid out (and re-laid out) the point that the fiscal argument for improving our athletic program is not that strong – especially to someone like Gene Block.

Here comes the big point: We need to take another tack to get the idea of supporting athletic excellence into Block’s head.

I think the BruinsNation should start a grassroots movement among Students & Alums for a better Athletic Dept. I think posts like this (and Bellerphon’s) are a great start – we need Bruin fans to realize that all is not well in the Morgan Center and then to get more vocal. But let’s not wander off into the realm of fantasy that we can help balance UCLA’s budget with winning teams.

by KnudsenRockne on Jun 29, 2011 1:30 PM PDT up reply actions

I'll change my tune at the drop of new data

If anyone shows me data saying successful athletic programs really boost school revenue I’ll happily admit the error of my ways.

In fact, I’d like to be convinced of that.

by KnudsenRockne on Jun 29, 2011 1:39 PM PDT up reply actions

Even more than the rancid performance by our football coaches

The behaviour of both the administration and the Athletic Department is killing my passion for UCLA Sports.

For me in particular, this feels very much like ending a passionate love affair. You want it to work very much, but you cannot abide the indifference, the lies, the arguments. If this were in fact a human relationship, it would be a foregone conclusion that they were sneaking around with someone else. And, considering The Rick’s pitiful performance against hated South Central, makes me wonder if this is not already true.

To continue the allegory; just like those couples who use the children as an excuse to prolong a dead marraige, I cling to Coach’s program for whatever passion there is left to squeeze out of Westwood. CBH, Josh Smith, Reeves Nelson, and Zeek give me hope for a brighter tomotrow. Then I think of that bungled Pauley Renovation and the fact that we will spend our entire year on the road . . .

The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden

by MexiBruin on Jun 27, 2011 10:25 AM PDT reply actions

Sadly,

I think they’ll continue to sit back and fiddle as our athletic tradition burns to the ground. While we can all be proud of UCLA’s academic reputation, I do wonder why the Chancellor can’t seem to make the connection between the success of the money-making athletic programs (football/basketball) and the boost that revenue can give to not only the athletic dept., but the school as a whole in terms of operating funds and alumni/ community support. Hell, the thugs across town run their whole slimy operation based almost soley on the revenue from their football program – hence their “win at all costs” attitude – they have to fund their dump somehow. I’m not saying we should sacrifice academics for athletics like they do, but I wish we had a Chancellor who emphasized both. My impression of Block is that he views athletics as an annoyance that has to be dealt with as part of running a major, nationally-known university – NOT as a source of usable income and a way to increase alumni loyalty and local community support. I once had a lengthy conversation with his wife and she was actually shocked that I considered athletics an important aspect of the university environment. Based on what she was saying, I could only assume Gene felt the same way. I also have friends who are part of the UCLA Parent’s Council (moms/dads who band together to give input to the administration from a parent point of view) and they tell me Gene’s disdain for anything outside the academic arena goes far beyond athletics – he evidently has no use for any of the spirit-building, social events/groups that gave so many of us the memories we have of our college experience – those that make us feel that connection to UCLA. Let’s face it: I don’t think back on some Poli Sci or Linguistics lecture to get the “warm fuzzies” about my college days – I think about beating SCum and the people I celebrated with; or the road trips I took to games in an RV packed with fellow Bruins. While I understand that building these memories isn’t in the job description of “Chancellor,” this guy seems to go out of his way to discourage them. I agree with many BNers that Guerrero is doing less than a stellar job, but I think this problem starts above Dan and lands solely on the Chancellor’s desk. I’m not sure we’ll see the athletic success we’ve enjoyed in the past until we get rid of Gene Block, first.

by UCLA4EVR on Jun 27, 2011 10:31 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs

Not to quibble,

but Nero sang while Rome burned. :)

"Every day was a good day at UCLA." -Coach John Wooden

by OswegoBruin on Jun 27, 2011 10:50 AM PDT up reply actions

The older I get, the more I cherish my extra-curricular activities

The key benefit of college is not what goes on in the classroom but out-of class activities with people who are different and who alter how you look at the world. As a South Campuser, without ‘spirit building events’ I would have met few students of Poli Sci, Film, Women’s Studies, etc. UCLA may have an incredibly diverse student body but if you never meet them, so what? Extra-curricular events create mixers so students have opportunities for ‘transformative experiences’

Athletic events and extra-curricular programs are central to the UCLA experience because it brings together students ‘democratically’ to mix together – and with 40,000 students, you need to do something …

by KnudsenRockne on Jun 27, 2011 12:58 PM PDT up reply actions

Your quote is the key

I don’t think back on some Poli Sci or Linguistics lecture to get the "warm fuzzies" about my college days – I think about beating SCum and the people I celebrated with; or the road trips I took to games in an RV packed with fellow Bruins.

I’m the same way. I’m appreciative of my U.C.L.A. education. But much of that road was an individual effort at which I worked my butt off for a long time.

I’m crazy rabid about my U.C.L.A. sports – caravans to the golf course on Saturdays, camping outside Pauley, road trips to No Cal, cheering the volleyball and gymnastics and tennis teams and all the other men’s and women’s non-rev sports. I did this alongside my fellow students and alums and fans. That was all of us, together.

Watch the youtube of Cade’s 2OT comeback against the trogans in ‘96. Watch the youtube of the Bruins climbing the mountain against Gonzaga. That’s what makes me love my school. That’s what gets me to donate.

Block needs to realize this.

greg in denver, UCLA guy for life - BruinsNation.com

by gbruin on Jun 27, 2011 1:29 PM PDT up reply actions

Our athletic program is straight out of "No Time For Sergeants"

In that movie, the sergeant wanted only one thing: “No Waves!.” That’s all our current “leadership” is concerned about.

Some athletic departments are unsuccessful under this definition. Duke had it’s rape scandal (scandalous on many fronts.) The entire SEC including its Los Angeles member has annual cheating scandals. But even those scandals don’t hold public attention long enough for those who run the programs to be held accountable.

We need to make waves, and that has to focus on the treasury. There needs to be an absolute boycott of anything that will generate any revenue at all for the athletic department. No attendance at anything. (That’s not to say no tail-gating at the Rose Bowl. Just don’t go in for the game.) No purchases of anything which would generate revenue for UCLA. This should be easy in our two biggest and most visible sports – football and basketball. We haven’t had a home stadium for football ever, and now we won’t have a basketball arena.

So just don’t go. Get the students motivated. Buy everything off campus. Don’t patronize the sponsors of UCLA events.

But alas that will never happen, and UCLA will become less and less relevant. Block and Guerrero will pat themselves on the back more vigorously, and eventually apathy will take over even in the BN. It’s hard to stay passionate when you keep hearing “Not tonight, dear, I have a headache.”

by Fox 71 on Jun 27, 2011 12:23 PM PDT reply actions

LOL

“I’m not in the mood.” Begs the question, does it not? In football as well as relationships.

The situation mirrors politics in more ways than I care to think about. Job security is paramount, success is relative, and the masses must simply buy and be pacified.

"Every day was a good day at UCLA." -Coach John Wooden

by OswegoBruin on Jun 27, 2011 12:34 PM PDT up reply actions

Poor leaders = poor results.

A chancellor who understands that athletic excellence is an important part of the UCLA student and alumni experience. An AD who demands championships of all teams, and provides the culture, the resources, and the coaches to win titles and compete consistently.

UCLA has neither. We have passive and disinterested leadership. We have Donald Sterling, Frank McCourt, and the Maloofs rolled into Guerrero/Block. Just as MexiBruin said above, we are locked into a one-way love affair. We cling to the occasional happy moment but live day to day in a dissatisfied state. I hope we can all mobilize UCLA fans across the world to get this relationship to change: Guerrero/Block must either show a commitment, or we need to divorce them.

by 1BruinMD on Jun 27, 2011 12:36 PM PDT reply actions

Time for a new website, fireblock.com.....

by Bruin'96 on Jun 27, 2011 1:28 PM PDT reply actions

Sounds like a site for selling

building materials for fire places and brick ovens

by Gen2Bruin1987 on Jun 27, 2011 2:32 PM PDT up reply actions

The series of blunders truly is amazing

Great post Bellerophon. Year after year, for many years, we see blunder after blunder after blunder in our athletic department. I know Guerrero is well-paid at the very least and would imagine that others in the athletic department are well-paid also. I don’t begrudge anybody making good money but when they do, I expect the highest level of performance…and that’s clearly not happening.

by RealisticBruinFan on Jun 27, 2011 2:20 PM PDT reply actions

The ONLY good thing

about the Bruins not making it to Omaha is that I have not had to spend much time listening to Mike Patrick on ESPN. Totally misses a wild pitch and though the runner advanced due to a balk.

by BruinFanGA on Jun 27, 2011 7:00 PM PDT reply actions

Expressed so well

Generally, it’s academics that brings interest from America’s best students to Westwood, but it’s athletics that builds the bonds between each other and our alma mater. For many of us, our love of UCLA is built not just from our gratitude for the world-class education we received, but from the joys and agonies of following UCLA sports and living and dying Bruin blue and gold.

EGO TROIORUM MALLEUS SUM

by Bruins102NCAA on Jun 27, 2011 8:48 PM PDT reply actions