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by
Cameron Blount
 I’ve
been a UCLA fan for a long time. Not quite as long as some, but long
enough to understand what it means to bleed powder blue and gold. I’ve
witnessed a National Championship in basketball, a Cotton Bowl Victory
in football, repeated trips to the Final Four, and was privileged enough
to experience the phenomenon we can only refer to as “Eight Straight.”
And yet, throughout my tenure as a Bruin fan, I can honestly say that
we have an identity problem.
That’s right, in the very heart of Westwood, deep down within the
very underpinnings of Royce Hall, we, as Bruins, do not know who we are.
Now, I’ll be the first to say that this problem isn’t of our own
making. History tells us that, in the beginning, our Heavenly Father
first created UC Berkeley. Then, a few years later, God scraped up
enough money and created UCLA in Cal’s image (except for one very
significant note in their fight song which renders them pathetic and the
fact that UCLA remained in the Garden of Eden while Cal was booted to
the demilitarized zone that is Berkeley).
Because UCLA was initially founded as an extension of Cal, we adopted
the same school colors, blue and gold, fight song, and mascot, a bear,
from our northern California neighbors. This might not seem significant
at the outset but, as I’ll get to shortly, it turns out to mean
virtually everything.
Now sit back, close your eyes, and visualize the colors that
represent your UCLA Bruins.
What do you see?
Powder blue and gold, one might say.
Oh really?
Take a closer look. Let’s begin with UCLA’s football uniforms. Home
jerseys include powder blue shirts trimmed with strips of white and
gold, gold numbering, gold pants, and gold helmets with the omnipresent
trademark UCLA signature.
So far, so good.
So let’s take a look at the football team’s away jerseys. White
shirts trimmed with two dark blue stripes across the shoulders that
encase one gold stripe, gold pants, and the same gold helmets with the
school signature. And, thus, identity problem number one is identified.
Last time I checked, Cal was the team with dark blue and gold, not UCLA.
Not one stitch of UCLA’s away football jersey bears what most UCLA fans
believe to be the school’s trademark color: powder blue. At the very
least the numbers on the jersey should be a light shade of blue. And,
what is worse, the small bit of blue that is utilized in the jersey is
navy blue, almost black.
Ok, ok. Some might say that this is something trivial, almost
negligible. But stay with me here. It gets worse.
What about basketball, you say? Surely the time-honored tradition of
Bruin hoops has stayed true to the athletic tradition of UCLA?
Well…. yes and no.
UCLA’s home basketball jerseys are powder blue (if not a little
darker, but we’ll let that slide) with gold trim. Good enough to support
the home crowd, I’ll admit. The away jerseys are also respectable. All
white with alternating stripes of blue and gold trim. But it seems that,
every so often, the basketball team takes a foray into the unknown in an
attempt to forget their roots. Only three seasons ago (if memory serves
me correct) UCLA basketball players donned black away jerseys for their
first few games of the year. Let me repeat: black jerseys. Sure
there might have been some blue or gold trim to go along with the color
of death, but who could notice? Possibly LA culture briefly took over
the UCLA administration and they thought that it was more important to
look trendy than stay true to our Alma Mater. Good thing UCLA didn’t
schedule the Anne Rice College of Necromancy that year or distinguishing
players might have been a real problem. Whatever the reasoning was,
alumni and fans alike threw such a stink that (so the rumor has it) the
jerseys were incinerated. Good riddance.
And now this takes us to UCLA’s tried and true moniker, the one thing
that above all else is associated with the rolling hills of Westwood:
the almighty Bruin mascot. By comparison, the statue of the UCLA bear
and the California bear are practically identical. The only difference
is that Cal’s bear rears up on its two hind legs in a threatening
position while UCLA’s is on all fours, a thunderous roar seemingly
escaping its parted maw. And so one would reasonably assume that UCLA’s
mascot would resemble the statue. But Joe and Josephine Bruin couldn’t
be more unlike the statue if they tried. They look like Teddy Bears more
than anything else and one gets the urge to hug them rather than flee in
terror.
Now don’t get me wrong here. I love Joe and Josephine Bruin just as
much as the next fan. In fact, I didn’t know exactly how much I loved
them until the UCLA administration came up with the brilliant idea to
introduce a new mascot at a basketball game not so long ago. As I
recall, the fans weren’t too thrilled with the whole idea to begin with.
But then trots out this juiced up version of a bear that looked more
like a cheesy remake of Rambo than a mascot. All it needed was a string
of bullets across its chest and a floppy lower lip and the costume would
have been complete. The raucous chorus of boos and shower of trash from
the student section said it all. And now, presumably because UCLA
merchandised a mountain of products with the new bear, UCLA in essence
has two mascots: cuddly Joe and Josephine and a steroid shooting Green
Beret.
Let me close this piece by saying that this article isn’t intended to
advocate any particular version of uniform or mascot. The point is that
the administration needs to pick something - anything - and stick with
it. It’s no wonder that Bruin fans aren’t organized enough to wear the
same color to the Rose Bowl or Pauley Pavilion. Hell, if the team
doesn’t even know what colors to wear than how can the fans? Wisconsin
wears red. Washington wears purple. USC wears ketchup and mustard.
Simple, right?
It can be.
UCLA just needs to finally sever those last remaining ties to our
age-old brother from Northern California.
If nothing else, fans who already think twice about battling LA
traffic to even get to games won’t have to cope with the added
uncertainty of not knowing what to wear.
Considering the fickleness of LA fans, attendance could very well
double.
*****
Article written by Cameron Blount,
cblountus@yahoo.com
In my spare time I actually bleed powder blue and gold. I’m not
kidding, it’s a serious health problem. |
