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By Jamey Austin Thursday night. I’m standing on the shiny surface of Pete Newell court, the backs of my calves against the first row of wooden bleachers that stretch from the walls to courtside. Basketballs pound the hardwood floor, their thunking vibrations on the soles of my shoes. Students congregate and chatter around me, filling Harmon Gym to its ancient rafters with a buzzing cacophony. My face is flushed in anticipation. Just moments before, I was waiting in line with the rest of the students at the north end of the gym. At the turnstile, I proudly flashed my Cal ID—all that’s needed to enter. Ten paces in, excitement gets the better of me and I begin to jog, dodging past slower fans. Up ahead I see an opening; I maneuver to the front of the crowd, step beyond the overhang of a corner gangway, and…I’m inside, on the floor, in the warm, bright lights. Players dribble and move and their shoes squeak as they take shots right next to me. I pass alongside, sizing them up, imagining myself out there shooting with them, and I suppress a twinge of jealousy. My friend Jeff Mercer has managed to enter the gym early and stake out courtside seats; he catches my eye and waves me over. I take my place with Jeff, our friends and fellow students all around, the noise of the packed gym reaching crescendo, when suddenly…it begins. From another corner gangway comes the startling announcement of drums. The booming rolls send a hush over the congregation. The sound is wondrously galvanizing; in moments, we are rallied together as one. The California Straw Hat Band bursts onto the court, marching just inches from my body. Immediately, viscerally, I am proud, eager, ready to do whatever I can to root on the Golden Bears. I look up into those rafters, those lights, my heart beating in time with the drums, and my body fills with one of the most pleasant satisfactions I’ve known: I made it. I’ve arrived. A junior transfer student in my first year at Cal, for a year I’d been miserably mired in the homogeneity of Santa Barbara and its nontraditional sports community. I’d spent another year at Diablo Valley College
From our courtside vantage, my friends and I watched USC’s Harold Minor perform jazz-influenced, 360-degree warm-up dunks. We stood inches from UCLA’s Tracy Murray as he rained threes on us. We glared at referee Ritchie Ballesteros, screaming bloody murder into his sun-bronzed face when he called a play the wrong way—which is to say, against Cal. And, of course, we watched the Bears. We watched the Bears win and lose; we watched the Bears compete and falter. We were there watching every game we could. Indeed, it was from that vantage, during a lull in crowd noise, that I screamed out,“You suck, Lou!” toward beleaguered coach Lou Campanelli. Ol’ Lou caught my gaze, and froze me stiff in my ardent, student impudence. And it was there that I fell in love. A love that remains undiminished today, one that causes in me great fits of passion and inner turmoil, and one that has seen me pulling off shakily to the side of the road to avoid losing radio reception as Roxy Bernstein narrates an Ed Gray jumper, an Al Grigsby board, or a Brian Wethers dunk. That fondly remembered Thursday was at the beginning of the 1990 season, and my interest has not waned since. I must admit there have been times when I’ve wondered if it’s healthy to continue to be so gripped, to be rendered so emotional by a sports team. Is it really okay, for example, to duck out of parties or work or even conversations to hole up with a small TV to catch a rebroadcast of a game I already know Cal won? But it doesn’t take me long to decide: Sure! It’s the Bears. And nothing you feel such passion for should ever be questioned. |
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