This is for all the cultists and morons, who are now coming out of the woodwork in support of our Doofus. Read these grafs from Adam Karon' Daily Bruin article dated February 20, 2001, that followed a Lavin victory over a Arizona:
The UCLA head coach dodged sportswriters, sidestepped the administration, and slam-dunked in the face of his critics last weekend when the upstart Bruin basketball team defeated Arizona 79-77 in overtime.
No one gave Lavin and his boys a chance. Those of you begging for a fellow named Pitino ought to buy Lavin a case of hair gel and send a letter of apology. Chances are he'd write you back. That is the type of guy Lavin is.
When I was 16, I enrolled in Steve Lavin's summer basketball camp. Shortly before the first day I found out I needed knee surgery and would be unable to attend. Due to limited enrollment, the camp had a strict no-refund policy.
Lavin not only refunded my money, he sent a message urging me to continue to play ball once I recovered. He did not mention the possibility of life without basketball. Instead he stayed upbeat and positive.
And that is how he survived what the UCLA community has thrown at him this year.
Perhaps I should have written something supporting coach Lavin weeks ago. Some will criticize me for waiting until he is on top of the world to write an admiring article. They are probably right.
I was not at the game Thursday night. In fact, I have not been to a game all year. I just couldn't bear the aggravation of UCLA fans deriding Lavin and chanting Pitino's name.
Kudos to the fans who went to the game. Well done to those who camped out for good seats. Congratulations to all of you who rushed the court. I envy you.
Watching the celebration on television from my couch was as painful as a Gilbert Arenas three-pointer, but I deserved the pain. I have waited three years to rush the court, but I missed the action on Thursday night.
I was not there in the cold and rain, bundled up waiting for the morning light and a precious priority pass. I did not risk arrest by being part of the first student body to rush the court in recent memory.
But I got what I deserved. I missed arguably one of the greatest experiences in the past four years at UCLA.
Westwood is still echoing with the chant "we love Lavin." Was it Valentine's day or did someone have a quick change of heart?
It is ironic that an entire community can go from shoving a coach to loving him. Saturday's victory over Arizona State is a good example. Four weeks ago, Lavin would have been blasted for allowing the Sun Devils to score the first 10 points of the game. Boosters would have ripped him for beating an 11-13 team by a mere five points.
And where was I throughout it all? Wrapped up in distancing myself from UCLA basketball. It was not because I didn't like the team. It was not because I didn't like the coach. I just could not tolerate the negative attention that Los Angeles seems to direct towards its most prominent athletic teams.
Yeap, once again we are hearing from same morons like Adam Karon (I bet whoever that clown is he is probably telling his friends how he always knew Lavin was a joke) following yesterday's predictable win over the choke artists from Berkeley.No one gave Lavin and his boys a chance. Those of you begging for a fellow named Pitino ought to buy Lavin a case of hair gel and send a letter of apology. Chances are he'd write you back. That is the type of guy Lavin is.
When I was 16, I enrolled in Steve Lavin's summer basketball camp. Shortly before the first day I found out I needed knee surgery and would be unable to attend. Due to limited enrollment, the camp had a strict no-refund policy.
Lavin not only refunded my money, he sent a message urging me to continue to play ball once I recovered. He did not mention the possibility of life without basketball. Instead he stayed upbeat and positive.
And that is how he survived what the UCLA community has thrown at him this year.
Perhaps I should have written something supporting coach Lavin weeks ago. Some will criticize me for waiting until he is on top of the world to write an admiring article. They are probably right.
I was not at the game Thursday night. In fact, I have not been to a game all year. I just couldn't bear the aggravation of UCLA fans deriding Lavin and chanting Pitino's name.
Kudos to the fans who went to the game. Well done to those who camped out for good seats. Congratulations to all of you who rushed the court. I envy you.
Watching the celebration on television from my couch was as painful as a Gilbert Arenas three-pointer, but I deserved the pain. I have waited three years to rush the court, but I missed the action on Thursday night.
I was not there in the cold and rain, bundled up waiting for the morning light and a precious priority pass. I did not risk arrest by being part of the first student body to rush the court in recent memory.
But I got what I deserved. I missed arguably one of the greatest experiences in the past four years at UCLA.
Westwood is still echoing with the chant "we love Lavin." Was it Valentine's day or did someone have a quick change of heart?
It is ironic that an entire community can go from shoving a coach to loving him. Saturday's victory over Arizona State is a good example. Four weeks ago, Lavin would have been blasted for allowing the Sun Devils to score the first 10 points of the game. Boosters would have ripped him for beating an 11-13 team by a mere five points.
And where was I throughout it all? Wrapped up in distancing myself from UCLA basketball. It was not because I didn't like the team. It was not because I didn't like the coach. I just could not tolerate the negative attention that Los Angeles seems to direct towards its most prominent athletic teams.
I will not back down one inch from my assertion that last night's win means nothing. As predicted the clueless beat reporters in LA's traditional media (such as the LA Times and the Daily News) are now out in full force parroting the party line of Dorrell showing his "cool" after last two weeks. And some of those morons will go as far as to speculate that somehow this victory is going to alleviate the pressure he had been facing throughout this whole season.
But the fact is UCLA won yesterday despite Dorrell's clueless coaching. We saw the same cowardly loser making a decision to not to lose by not going for it on 4th and 1.
As I wrote earlier this week I had a pretty strong hunch Bruins were going to win this game before an "emotional" crowd, in which players outstanding individual talent would carry the day more than any specific scheme or game plan, Dorrell and his incompetent staff drew up.
I get that lot of the students had a good ole time yesterday at the Rose Bowl. Congratulations to all of them to experience a big time college football victory for probably the only third time in last three years at the Rose Bowl. But if someone these guys are idiotic enough to think that last night's win over an over-rated Cal team with a mediocre defense means something, we should group them with those same idiots who serenaded the previous basketball coach with "We Love Lavin" chants at a holy place like Pauley Pavilion.
Well to be fair we do congratulate the players for their outstanding effort. As has been mentioned it was ATV's spectacular effort which sealed the (fluke) victory for Karl Dorrell:
Photo Credit: Lori Shepler / Los Angeles Times
Which leads me the question, why wasn't ATV matching up against D-Jack the whole game instead of him letting our Mouth, I mean Trey Brown getting burned time after time during first three quarters of the game.
Anyway, I am sure DeWayne Walker will give thoughts of giving ATV more time over Trey against athletic, fast receivers, when he is (allegedly) not busy plotting backstabbing his current head coach. That's a post for another day.
For now all our players have to do is go on and demolish Washington State on the road, and then following them up with an undefeated record in the Pac-10 season, which should culminated with a victory over another over-rated team at the Coliseum.
Cue Bruce Davis:
"The sky's the limit for us now," defensive end Bruce Davis said. "The way college football works this season, if we win out, you might still see us in the national championship game."
Great Bruce. We will keep checking with day-to-day, week-to-week, and find out where the team is at the end of season.We will remember those words if your team finds itself scrapping for a spot at some silly bowl game in San Diego. That works for schools like Cal, but not for UCLA.
With that out of the way let's "enjoy" this win today. Just don't make the same mistake those "We Love Lavin" morons made at Pauley during those dark days. If you want to be part of that crowd, BN is not the place for you.
GO BRUINS.