Stopping to Smell the Roses
I haven't been to a Cal football game in 20 years -- since the Saturday before Thanksgiving in 1984, when Stanford won by something like 24-10 down on the Farm (I could look it up, but why don't you, and post a comment?). But like every Old Blue, I'm riding the bandwagon now, woopin' and hollerin' Go Bears, and I'm even contemplating making my way down to Pasadena on January 1, 2005, for the Rose Bowl. Barring something freaky, the Bears are going to be there, for the first time since 1959, when that loveable old rockhead Joe Kapp was throwing, like, six passes (five of them seriously wobbly) a game and otherwise playing quarterback the way Butkus would play linebacker.

Now, some party-poopers are going to note that these '04 Bears didn't win the Pac-10, and that they're in line for the Rose Bowl only because league champ USC appears headed for the BCS championship game (the Orange Bowl this year). Yeah, whatever. It's still the Rose Bowl, it's Cal, and it's been nearly a half-century. Isn't that enough? And who knows, it may be another half-century before they get there again. Because, again, this is Cal, and surely Jeff Tedford will bolt for the big dollars and swank facilities at some football factory, Aaron Rodgers will take off for the pros, Marshawn Lynch will shred a knee playing Ms. Pac-Man at Kip's, and within two years we'll be staring at 3-8.