Our Sturdy Golden Bears

I grew up in Berkeley at a time when Cal football was a really big deal. Every home-game Saturday my father would buy my mother a giant yellow chrysanthemum corsage with a navy blue "C" in the center made out of a fuzzy pipe-cleaner. She'd pin it to her suit jacket, put on her white gloves, and the two of them would walk, arm in arm, from Shattuck Avenue up the hill to Memorial Stadium.

When I got a bit older my father would sometimes take me to watch the team practice. It was the only thing we ever did together and even though he rarely said a word, I coveted the time. And the sport. And the team that made it all possible.

This morning I put on my navy blue t-shirt with CALIFORNIA BERKELEY in big yellow letters and the official university seal dated 1868. And I drove over Siskiyou Summit to Mount Shasta, California. My destination was the sports bar with giant-screen TV at the Mount Shasta Golf Resort. The Cal Bears were number six in the nation. Number six! Ahead of USC and UCLA and Washington and Stanford and everybody! They were playing the University of Oregon in Eugene and I wanted to watch the game with compatriots -- Californians who understood the significance of a ranking not seen since Pappy Waldorf coached the team in the early 50s.

Cal lost by 40-something to 3. It was a baffling and humiliating defeat at the hands of the Ducks. But you know what, for a little while there was hope. And excitement. And yelling and clapping and commaraderie with a bunch of strangers. And memories. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.