I Don't Care What The Numbers Say - Bruins Nation Has Been Around A Lot More Than Ten Years

Like many others, I made it to BN by way of Dump (can't use the name - I just can't bring myself to write it out. Same with Coach Howland's predecessor, and same with the guy currently in charge of our basketball team.) Mrs. Fox 71 made it explicit that she didn't want me yelling at the TV, and if I wanted to rant I needed to find another way. So I looked on the internet (I think I searched for "Where can I go to rant?") and up popped Dump You Know Who. That was a long time ago. I have no recollection whatsoever of how ranting on Dump******* morphed into writing a zillion comments on BN.

I tried to find my first post, and gave up. I evidently don't know how to research well enough. I did find a post from December 28, 2006 about a sort of lackluster win by the Basketball team (this was when Howland's star was still ascending):

"I only caught the last few seconds of the game, but looking at the numbers, it seems that we didn't play all that well.  If indeed we didn't play well but still got a win, that bodes well for this season.  (Would be better if we got that kind of win on the road, but I expect to see such victories.)

I can't help thinking if only ....  If only we had a football coach who knew how to win, and who could teach that mind-set to his team.

But enough of that -- no negatives in a discussion of our 12-0, number one ranked Bruins.  (Boy, does it feel good to say that.)"

Eight and a half years later, we have the same sort of problem, but the other way around. There's some French term for the more things change, the more they stay the same. I think it goes "Ou est la plume de ma tante?"

While I was trying to find that elusive first post, I read lots and lots and lots of posts, including several from some of the icons of the BN, who you may have heard of - "Bill and Ted" and "Doctor Mexican." Bruinette88 helped me find some lengthy streams, which I'll link to below. There is a point to these that shouldn't be missed. Doctor Mexican was benign, but, well, a little bit different. He gained legendary status by going into detail about how well we would do in basketball because a certain player was returning and that player had hit 50% of his three point shots.  He went way, way out on a limb to point out that he thought Michael Jordan was one of the 20 to 30 best basketball players of all time.  Well, I'm not going to be outdone - I'll go on record right now as saying that the Pacific Ocean is one of the 20 to 30 largest oceans in the world. To this day, I'm not sure whether Doctor Mexican was simply pulling our leg.

Bill and Ted is (yep, singular) a different story. Bill and Ted was an apologist for Coach Toledo's Successor, and his arguments are textbook examples of what sets the BN apart from other sites. Bill and Ted refused to let facts (either a single fact or a long stream of facts) get in his way and affect his judgment. An example -- Bill and Ted would go on at length about how good Coach Toledo's Successor was (not at all unlike the way the apologists for the guy currently in charge of the basketball team go on at length.)  That would be met with something like this:

1-10 on the road against teams with a winning record.
Worst starting 3- AND 4-year record of any UCLA football coach since WW2, including Bob Toledo who was fired.
Worse winning percentage than Bob Toledo, who was fired.
3-11 against ranked teams.
2-7 against top 10 teams.
Only 6 conference wins against teams over .500.
19-14 in the Pac-10.
8-17 against teams with a winning record.
10 losses to unranked teams.
He has a losing record after October, 6-12.

The response? "That has to be taken with a grain of salt." Or something equally nonsensical. (I also like how Bill and Ted kept claiming he had been banned, but I don't think he was.) To his credit, Bill and Ted drove home the point throwing out an unsupported and unsupportable opinion wasn't going anywhere, and that fact based argument was a requirement in this place.

Bill and Ted and More Bill and Ted and Doctor Mexican have been gone too long, and I wish they would drop in from time to time. I could make a long list of others who have drifted away.  It's time for you Bruins to return.

There are lots more memories about the BN Epoch, but I'll leave some subjects for others to write about.