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2014: The Swole Season

Stephen Dunn

Bumped. GO BRUINS. - BN Eds.

Scott Quessenberry tweeted the other day that we were in the Swole Season.

According to the Urban Dictionary, that’s the time of year when you pump iron and get bigger, more muscular. The muscles get "swollen." But I propose we carry Scott’s thoughts a little further. 2014 is the Swole Season for UCLA Football.

It’s the year we, as a team, flex our muscles and go for the Natty.

I’ve written extensively about our last "Swole Season," 1954. (Of course, we didn’t have an Urban Dictionary back then, and few football players pumped iron the way they do now.) My Dad, a UCLA alum (1939), took me to every home game in 1954 at the Coliseum. And I listened on the radio to the scores of the other games. And read the Fishwrap attentively after every game.

That was our last and only National Championship, and it was not without controversy. While we were number 1 in the Coaches Poll and number 2 in the AP, and undefeated at 9-0, because of an occasionally-enforced "no repeat" rule, we didn’t get to go to the Rose Bowl and meet the other team ranked 1 and 2, Ohio State. (We’d lost the year before to Michigan State although I wasn’t following football then. I was 8.)

Instead of the dream matchup in the Rose Bowl on January 1, 1955, Ohio State played the pro team from Figueroa Street, a team we had demolished 34-0 at the Coliseum. And Ohio State won 20-7. Meh.

I’ve had 60 years of disappointment. Even in 1954 we got the shaft. I want us to win it all. 2014 is our Swole Season.

(And my Dad, now 96 and a retired orthodontist who still drives and invents dental appliances, wants it too. He follows every UCLA football game from his home in Leisure Village and, like me, often turns off the TV when we start to play badly. My Dad actually never graduated from UCLA. Back then you could get into the DDS program after 3 years of college, and get a combined DDS and BS degree. So my Dad transferred from UCLA to UCSF where he got his DDS and BS and then became a Navy dentist during WW2.)

Now we have the best shot at the Natty since 1998. So, come on, Bruins. Win it all in 2014. The Swole Season.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

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