On Sunday afternoon MexiBruin launched a petition effort that echoed the BruinsNation's call for wholesale regime change at UCLA. In little more than 48 hours the online petition - without any promotion of a large email list or traditional media coverage - has already generated over 1000 signatures. Just wow.
To give some perspective the petition to save student's court-side seats at Pauley reached 1000 signature mark after about couple of weeks of online campaign and offline efforts by MexiBruin, which included getting signatures at Spring football game. In contrast, 1000+ signatures have swarmed in just 2 days. That is nothing short of amazing and should send a signal about how widespread the resentment has built up and exploded in the Bruin family about the state of our football program.
If you have not signed the petition yet you can do it here. The digital firestorm around our embattled football program is not just limited to Mexi's petition drive. Some added highlights from last few days after the jump.
- The BruinsNation post calling for wholesale regime change at UCLA has at least 100 likes on Facebook.
- There are two posts in our recommended fanpost section featuring letters to Chancellor Block pleading for changes at UCLA. The comment threads have filled up and from all reports it appears that the Chancellor's office has been getting overwhelmed by callers.
- The video Telemachus posted about the embarrassment in Arizona is approaching 2000 views. Even more humiliatingly for UCLA football the video of the streaker is now over two million views
- OccupyUCLAAthletics is already organized in a website as it is going through steady growth both on Facebook and on Twitter.
It sure looks like there something happening out there. Doesn't it? It's not a pretty picture for UCLA.
If I were the administrators of UCLA (I am talking about Murphy Hall, not Morgan Center), I would pay very close attention to the messages coming in from petition. I would pay close attention to the frustration alums are venting across various social media outlets linked above. I would also pay attention to threats of donation freeze coming from our own here at BruinsNation.
I really hope UCLA administrators understand that what is happening right now is pretty historic. What happened during Lavin, Toledo and Dorrell years is not much, compared to the messages coming from Bruin alums across multiple channels today.
We realize there is a game coming up on Saturday and it's "home coming." However, if UCLA administrators want to keep alums at home, we will have to see drastical changes in how UCLA handles it's football program. If we don't see any changes and we continue to read messages that comes across as out of touch, the fire storm will only get more intense.
GO BRUINS.