What’s Bruin: Two UCLA Greats on College Football Hall of Fame Ballot

What’s Bruin this Wednesday?

UCLA Football

On Monday, the National Football Foundation and the College Football Hall of Fame announced that two Bruins, Cade McNown and Ken Norton, Jr., would be on the ballot for induction in 2019. The ballot includes 76 players and six coaches from the Football Bowl Subdivision and 100 players and 32 coaches from the divisional ranks.

Quarterback great, Cade McNown, was a four year starter and led the Bruins on a record breaking 20-game win streak during his junior and senior seasons. In 1998, he was the Co-Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Year and earned All-America honors, as well as the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award. He placed third in Heisman voting and also set school single-season records for passing yards (3,470), touchdown passes (25) and total offense (3,652). He finished his UCLA career 4-0 against Southern Cal and was inducted into the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame in 2009 and the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 2017. He has regularly come back to support UCLA at the Rose Bowl, signing autographs and interacting with fans in the Lot H Fan Zone. Additionally, he supported the Count on Me Family Foundation during the Jim Mora era and appeared as a regular celebrity golfer in the foundation’s annual golf tournament.

Ken Norton, Jr. played linebacker at UCLA from 1984-87, and was the team’s leading tackler in the 1986 and 1987 seasons and was a finalist for the 1987 Butkus Award (which was finally brought to UCLA by Eric Kendricks in 2014). He earned All America honors in 1987, and finished fifth on UCLA’s all-time school tackles roster and was inducted into the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame in 1998.

The announcement for the 2019 inductees will be made on January 7, 2019.

With regards to our current roster, incoming freshman Kazmeir Allen won the the California State 100 Meter Championship last weekend, blowing past his competition with a time of 10.44 seconds. The second place finisher, Asani Hampton (who will be on Michigan’s track and field roster next year), came in just .01 second behind him. Allen has never lost the 100-meter in his track and field career, which began last spring during his junior year. Let’s not forget the incredible football season he had this year, scoring a record-breaking 72 (yes, you read that right) touchdowns for Tulare Union High School.

UCLA Track and Field

UCLA has seven athletes heading to Eugene, Oregon this week for the track and field championships, and one of those is the Pac-12’s only athlete to qualify in three events. True freshman Alyssa Wilson will be competing in the discus, shot put, and hammer throw, and is the only athlete in the country to qualify in three throwing events (and is believed to be the first Bruin ever to triple qualify). Her highest seeded event is the hammer, where she earned the number three spot in UCLA history, which she set at the Pac-12 Championships. Additionally, Jessie Maduka (triple jump), Kendall Gustafson (heptathlon), Robert Brandt (10,000m), Justin Stafford (hammer throw), and Simon Litzell and Marian Spannowsky (javelin throw) will all be competing in Eugene this week.

UCLA Women’s Rowing

Five Bruins have been honored by the Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association. Junior Saskia Budgett has been named an all-conference team selection, and senior Jasmine English, juniors Lucy Jepson and Lanea Tuiasosopo and sophomore Haley Tong have earned National Scholar-Athlete recognition. Budgett has been on the varsity-eight crew in her three seasons with UCLA, and was also named and All Pac-12 her junior year. English is a three-time recipient for National Scholar-Athlete recognition, and the second for Tuiasosopo.

Additionally, 14 Bruins have been named on the Pac-12 All-Academic Team. Three rowers, senior Marie Jacquet and juniors Suzannah Henderson and Lanea Tuiasosopo, earned first team honors, while junior Lucy Jepson and sophomores Josie Beyer and Haley Tong were honored as second-team all-academic selections. Honorable mention selections included seniors Sophia Denison-Johnston, Mikayla Hart and KC Yeagley, juniors Saskia Budgett, Kyra Edwards and Erin O’Donohue and sophomores Fiona Buzzard and Nicole Ott.

UCLA Men’s Tennis

Grant Chen will replace Southern Methodist University’s Carl Neufeld as head coach, SMU announced Tuesday. Chen got his start with the Bruins as a student manager in 2001 and has served UCLA head coach Billy Martin for over 15 years in a multitude of roles, most recently as associate head coach.

UCLA Softball

Rachel Garcia, Bubba Nickles, and Taylor Pack have been named to the Women’s College World Series All-Tournament Team. This is the most players from UCLA in a WCWS since 2010. Nickles led the Bruins in the WCWS with a .545 batting average, including six hits in 11 at-bats, two home runs, three RBI’s and five runs. Pack held onto a .500 batting average and led the team with seven RBI’s, and also had two home runs and four runs scored. Garcia pitched in 23 of the Bruins’ 27 innings in the WCWS, recording 42 strikeouts, a pair of wins and three complete games. Over the span of the entire NCAA Tournament, she struck out 97 and had a 1.82 earned run average and an 8-2 record.

Incoming freshman Megan Faraimo has been named the 2018 Gatorade National Softball Player of the Year. This is the third year in a row that the Gatorade Player of the Year has been a Bruin, following Bubba Nickles (2017) and Rachel Garcia (2016). Faraimo had a 26-3 record for San Diego’s Cathedral Catholic High School, and had a .23 ERA for the season. At the plate, Faraimo had a .316 batting average with seven home runs, 22 RBIs and a .645 slugging percentage in her senior season.

And that’s What’s Bruin today!


Go Bruins!