It's Monday morning, and once again, it's time to head back into the office and make it through the grind, but it's also time to get the work week started with the round-up of the various bits and pieces of news from around the UCLA-iverse. So, let's get to it this morning's edition:
- Starting with (what else) college football, our SBN colleague in Seattle, Danny Kelly, talks about former Seahawks head coach and current UCLA head coach Jim Mora in a recent column. Kelly talks about Mora's infamous line where he told reporters he wanted more hard-nosed, tough-tackling players, or dirtbags, as he called them. Naturally, with Mora wanting to develop a tough, hard-hitting culture at UCLA, known for being a soft program the past decade, the dirtbag references were sure to return.
- Speaking of college football, in case you missed it when it was posted earlier, the folks at Pre-Snap Read previewed our Bruins as the #58 program. Considering how mediocre we have been the past decade, that's not too bad. You know what's really sad? Before this lost decade of mediocrity (thanks Chianti Dan!), UCLA was the #1 ranked program in the country. Doh! Oh, and this was pretty cool too:
Where do U.C.L.A. fans congregate? A handful of solid fan sites: Bruin Report Online, Bruin Blitz, Bruin Gold and The Bruin Zone. For consistently illuminating coverage of U.C.L.A. sports, look no further than Bruins Nation.
- Turning to basketball, former UCLA hothead Reeves Nelson is back in America after his aborted attempts to start a professional basketball career along the Baltic Sea. He finds himself, surprisingly (considering the holes in his game and the major questions surrounding his attitude), with the Lakers on their summer league roster in Las Vegas. It'll be a long shot for a guy who couldn't cut in in Lithuania (averaging 2.5 points and 3.3 rebounds in limited action).
- Finally, on the academic side, one of the hot-button issues in California politics is the funding for and construction of the proposed California high-speed rail project, one that is supposed to link San Francisco and Sacramento with Los Angeles and San Diego, in a 2-3 hour bullet train trip. This past week, an economic analysis of Japan's bullet train system by Jerry Nickelsburg, a senior economist at our very own Anderson School of Business, has cast new doubt on both the economic viability of California's bullet train and the promise of new jobs.
Alright folks, those are your Bruin Bites to start the work week with. Fire away with your thoughts, takes, and additions in the comments thread.
GO BRUINS