The 2011 Bruins Nation Awards - Your Votes and Your Winners

by gbruin on Jan 4, 2012 6:00 PM PST in BN Community

Only slightly less prestigious than the 108 National Titles at U.C.L.A. are the annual Bruins Nation Awards. Shown above are our two winners for 2011, as selected by the readers of Bruins Nation. For Best Post of the Year, the winner is tazmiami with Sent My Voided Check, UCLA Gear & Letter to Chancellor Block. For Funniest Post of the Year, the winner is Rowdy44 with UCLA's Athletic Department to Merge With USC's. Congratulations to our winners!

It would be most fitting that these two pieces of eloquence, intelligence, and love for U.C.L.A. be proudly hung in front of the Bruin Bear on campus and displayed there for all to read. Anyone in Westwood can feel free to do that. Being in Colorado, I am relegated to finding another appropriate location. Fortunately, for whatever reason, the Colorado Convention Center in downtown Denver features a 40 foot high blue bear outside the facility. Perfect. Below are photos of taz's and Rowdy's articles taped to the bear's lower leg (and then NOT left there so as not to annoy the Convention Center staff).

taz's post. You can tell by the photos throughout the article.

Rowdy's post. Really. It is. You'll have to trust me on this.

Rowdy44 and tazmiami now join our 2010 winners, insomniacslounge, for An Update on Tyler, our Gutty Little Bruin: A Story of Strength and Perseverance; and truebluebruin for The Original Trogan. The 5 inch high replicas in the top picture will be mailed to the winners as soon as I get addresses and then feel that it's safe to venture back to the post office. Yup. Big time prizes here at BN.

An honorable mention goes to jrose and his article suggesting that some guy named PetersEn deserved consideration as The Next Football Coach. Though it wasn't included on the ballot for Funniest Post, there was a strong write-in voice supporting him. If only Petersen's wife felt as strongly. Oh well. Also, Bruinut gets a special mention for having 3 articles on the ballots this year, and he received the greatest cumulative number of votes for Funniest Post. If he can manage to limit himself to just one great post in 2012, he'll be a heavy favorite next Dec.

Finally, in all seriousness, I want to extend a huge thank you to everyone who contributed on Bruins Nation in 2011. At the risk of neglecting anyone deserving, I wanted to give a special HT to of this years nominees including Class of 66, IEAngel, insomniacslounge, BruinIke, ucla7477, and LABruin; as well as to Mexi, bruinkid, Venice, Fox, KSBruin, oswego, LV, jtthirtyfour, island, Seth, and too many regulars to name here (if you think you could be included here then you should be), to our guest bloggers throughout the year, and most of all to Nestor, Tydides, and all the front page crew for letting me be part of this place and for building this amazing community. 2011 was a difficult year for Bruin fans, and I am thankful that Bruins Nation, and that includes every writer, commenter, reader, and lurker out there, was here to help us all get through.

Here's to 2012 finding us a new Athletic Director, a new attitude, and a new hope going forward. Go Bruins!

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Just call me

the Buffalo Bills of BN. :-)

As IE Angel said, I am humbly honored even to be nominated among all these terrific writers and passionate Bruins.

These awards give one a chance to go back and, not just to re-read posts, but to re-live the times of the posts. History tends to get blurred, and this year-end recap serves to bring important times back in focus.

In particular, when I went back and read Class of 66’s wonderful post By the Students for the Students?, I was moved all over again. 66 called the UCLA administration on the carpet, and demanded to know who they were working for.

IE Angel’s Quitting post gave us privileged insight into the psychology of sports, in a way that even couch potatoes could appreciate. Insomniaclounge’s post reminded us, in case we needed it, how precious is life and how plentiful are our blessings. Tyler remains the guttiest little Bruin of all. Had there been a monetary award, and had I won, the prize would have gone straight to Tyler.

In the end, Tazmiami’s epic actions and resultant post put us all to shame, in that his post was so much more than words. A true, deserving winner, and a true, blue-blood Bruin. MexiBruin is another true Bruin who, time and again, put himself on the front line, fighting for students. If there were a Lifetime Achievement award, I’d bet Mexi would win hands-down.

So many others deserve mention. The types of posts by jtthirtyfour, 03rdn9, AHMB, and many others are just chock-full of insight, normally beyond the grasp of us couch potatoes. Yet, these great posts, helpful and encyclopedic as they are, don’t tend to get nominated for awards.

And that brings us to the front-pagers. I can’t count the number of pleasurable and passionate hours I’ve spent, devouring the posts by Nestor, gbruin, Bellerophon, Tydides, Ryan, tasser, Achilles and other front-pagers. I’d love to see categories for front-pager awards, too.

[Starting to feel a hook coming to yank me away from the podium…]

From the heart of my Bruin soul, thank you, BruinsNation, for all you have given me.

by Bruinut on Jan 4, 2012 7:09 PM PST reply actions 1 recs

Nah ...not the Bills

You are more like a “BN Blog Warrior” like those Ben Ball Warriors from Howland’s early years. 3 Final 4s but no banner. Doesn’t matter … Those guys are still legends.

by Nestor on Jan 5, 2012 4:24 PM PST via mobile up reply actions

LOL

As Kramer said, much to the chagrin of Jackie Chiles, “I’ll take it!”

by Bruinut on Jan 12, 2012 3:25 PM PST up reply actions

Congrats to the winners

They are great posts. The nominees included.

by Trueblue'09 on Jan 4, 2012 7:10 PM PST via mobile reply actions

I can't think of two more deserving award winners.

Those were two great fan posts and easily among the most memorable of the past year.

Congrats Taz and Rowdy44!

Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. ~ Vince Lombardi

by MexiBruin on Jan 4, 2012 7:30 PM PST reply actions

What about DG?

I assumed he would get some write-in votes for most technologically adept AD in the country, for figuring out how to use the internet tubes for his thrilling, up-to-the-minute, fact-packed blog.
Guess this was restricted to BN posts, as it should be.
Seriously, hats off to G- you are a great add to the front pagers- I learn more about chemical reactions, epilogues, psych experiments, etc. I can’t imagine more learned posts than we have on BN.

by islandbruin on Jan 4, 2012 7:33 PM PST reply actions

Huge thank you!

Thanks G! My wife is not nearly as excited as she should be to be married to an award winning author. She did say that I could put your picture on the fridge, though. So there’s that.

On a serious note, though, I’m going to echo Bruinut and say that it was an honor just to be nominated.

Also, big thanks to Bruinut personally for writing some amazing articles whose mocking tone certainly influenced mine. Also – huge thanks again to Bruinut for making my day with yet another one just a few days ago.

Last, I’m going to follow Bruinut’s lead yet again and say special thanks to the front pagers and every other contributor here. It’s a really hard time to be a Bruin fan and I find quite a bit of solace in the community here. I don’t contribute a whole bunch (a fact that I would like to change) but I do read just about everything that’s posted. I learn something almost daily and am consistently impressed with the level of effort that so many of you put into this place. You guys hear lots of praise and you deserve lots of praise. This place is amazing – and it’s even more evident in times of trial.

Let’s hope that 2012 brings brighter days. If not, let’s follow the geezers’ advice and mock the hell out of the powers that be. That seems to be our best weapon.

by Rowdy44 on Jan 4, 2012 8:18 PM PST reply actions 1 recs

No thank you Rowdy!

by Nestor on Jan 5, 2012 6:18 AM PST up reply actions

Rowdy,

Please let us know when those “I’m a WTFer” t-shirts are ready. I’ll take three.

by Bruinut on Jan 5, 2012 10:12 AM PST up reply actions

+1

by tazmiami on Jan 5, 2012 10:36 AM PST up reply actions

I had forgotten about that until I reread his post

WTF’ers was so awesome.

greg in denver, U.C.L.A. guy for life - BruinsNation.com

by gbruin on Jan 5, 2012 3:44 PM PST up reply actions

Thanks to everybody involved and congrats to the winners!

I get a lot more than I give here. I am very grateful this gathering place exists for those of us who love UCLA.

by waters96 on Jan 4, 2012 9:14 PM PST reply actions

Same here

This is a great, entertaining, enlightening site thanks to all of you involved.

by Markpav44 on Jan 5, 2012 7:23 AM PST up reply actions

And My THANK YOU To GBruin!

And all the others on here. Makes me VERY glad I’m a UCLA Bruin!

Los Angeles Rams and the UCLA Bruins!!!!!

by Minnesota Bruinfan on Jan 5, 2012 4:23 AM PST reply actions

Another reason to love being a Bruin.......

….is that no matter how awful and dark the environment surrounding our athletic programs and the poor leadership that currently clutches our beloved school….we have one another here at BN and will always be part of the UCLA fabric.

Major thanks go to the managers and contributors of BN for giving all of us a platform to vent, post ideas, take action, cry and even laugh every now and then. You are a special crew and UCLA is fortunate to have people that act as stewards for the voices of students, fans and alumni who often feel forgotten and ignored.

I have always considered myself so fortunate to have had the privilege of being educated at UCLA and want the same outstanding experiences for the next generations of students that are welcomed into Westwood. Thankfully, here at BN, I know that I am not alone and am surrounded by Bruin faithful that have the same Blue and Gold running through their veins.

Thanks again and keep up the fight to remove DG – one cancer than can be cured!

by tazmiami on Jan 5, 2012 8:32 AM PST reply actions