I love football! NFL, NCAA, I'll even watch a good High School game on ESPN. It wasn't always that way. I grew up a big baseball and basketball fan as those were the sports I played as a kid. But around the time I started college at UCSB, Sunday became gameday. BBQ's, cold beers and Raider games were the highlight of the week for me. I wasn't all that into college football at the time, it's not like UCSB had a team or anything however we did excel in lacrosse (that's for you Brent and Brian). Different story altogether for Chan. She grew up a die hard University of Miami fan (she plays dirty just like the Canes) and went on to attend Auburn University where football comes first and everything else is an afterthought. Chan will never get tired of talking about gamedays in Auburn, streets lined with alumni in their pimped out RV's, Q'ing and drinking all day Friday straight through gameday. The traditional Tiger walk, where the team parades through campus shaking hands and giving hi-fives to the Tiger faithful that crowd both sides of the mile long path to Jordan Hare stadium. Before the game starts the crowd of nearly 90,000 raucous (drunk) fans goes silent as an eagle flies around the stadium and lands on the 50 yard line...War Eagle! Auburn is 2-0 after last nights big conference road win against Miss St., and their QB might just be one of the best in the country.
But Urbann Turbann is not in Auburn, Al, it's in Berkeley, Ca. Home of the University of California Golden Bears. Our neighbor Steve, the owner of Vinnies Cheesesteaks and La Val's, was telling us how he remembers not-so-long-ago, before coach Tedfords era began, when a Cal football game was about as riveting as a tennis match. A quiet and polite crowd with minimal energy barely cheering on their team. In 2002 Jeff Tedford showed up and for the past few years Cal has become a legit college football program, robbed of a Rose Bowl appearance after an amazing 2004 season in which they finished ranked 9th in the country (the same year Auburn went undefeated in the SEC and were robbed of a chance to play in the BCS championship game). NFL stars Aaron Rogers, Marshawn Lynch, Desean Jackson and Nnamdi Asomugha have all played under Tedford at Cal.
So by now you are clearly wondering what this has to do with UT, a small Indian wraps joint on Northside. Well...we are now open on Saturdays (11am-5:30pm) and Chan and I were both excited to roll through the streets around campus and see the students getting ready (hammered) for the season opener. We were very disappointed. It looked like everyone around campus decided to sleep in on gameday. Props to the Pike house for having what was either a giant inflatable slide or a bounce house ready to go for gameday...but Chan kept asking "where are all the tailgaters and people partying before the game?". And I internally pondered the same questions. What's up Cal fans? La Val's on Northside had a decent pregame crowd drinking pitchers and I'm sure the Southside standby's like Henry's and Ralieghs had good gameday crowds. I know we were only playing UC Davis in what was essentially a warm up game, but I expect more. More partying, more noise, more excitement, more fans, much much more debauchery! Tomorrow we welcome Colorado to the PAC-10 (or PAC-12), and the 12th man needs to be in full effect. While Colorado is not the program they once were, they also ain't UC Davis. The "experts" on ESPN picked Cal to finish 7th in the PAC-10/12, but Coach Tedford and company will not let that be the case. The road to the Rose Bowl begins tomorrow at Memorial Stadium, get out there and support your Bears.
And on your way to the game or back home from the game stop by UT for lunch. Our new big screen TV will be up with games on so you won't miss a minute of glorious football.
Go Bears!
War Eagle!
Cheers,
Aman
