When All Else Fails, Just Believe

I’ll admit it: I’m a little spoiled. Hell, we all are. For the past five years, Cal football has experienced a renaissance unseen since the Edsel was a good idea. Three of those years, I’ve had the pleasure of standing with 3,000 of my closest friends at the 50-yard line and cheering my heart out, never leaving Memorial Stadium with my voice intact.

But this Big Game is the end of the line for me. Our fraternity bus trip down to Palo Alto will be my last chance to do a kegstand in traffic. It will be my last chance to break a seat at an opposing stadium and bring it home as a trophy. It will be my last game as an undergraduate.

I’ve seen my fair share of ups and downs with Cal sports. I’ve covered the baseball team for the past two years, seeing great talent and potential every spring, only to see it wither under the summer sun. I’ve seen two Holiday (Consolation) Bowls, cockiness that outpaces talent and talent that has gone unrealized.

But the one thing that keeps me going, and the one thing that should keep all Bears sports fans going, is something President Benjamin Ide Wheeler once said: “To the University of California, then, cheer for her, it will do your lungs good. Love her, it will do your hearts and lives good.”

We all chose to come here, to walk these halls and asphalt roads, to stand on those blue and gold benches, to sit in the bleachers at Evans Diamond. We chose to wear ‘California’ across our chests. We chose the blue and the gold.

And every time I see Cal uniforms, be they the striped polos of the rugby players, the skull caps of the swimmers or the Joe Roth memorial throwbacks, I shout a little louder, because they remind me of what it means to be a Golden Bear, and that’s what Wheeler meant.

Cheering and loving Cal makes you feel like a part of something far grander, far greater than any one individual. It makes you want to go to any lengths to better yourself, so that you can do those colors proud.

When I first heard that the downsized Stanford Stadium wouldn’t accomidate all of the Old Blues who make their annual pilgrimage, I was furious. But then I found out how resourceful some of those Old Blues can be. Some bought Stanford season tickets, just for that one game. Some refused outright to give any more money to the Junior University, and scoured eBay, paying whatever they had to, just to be able to be a part of the tradition, perhaps for the last time.

Many of them went to Cal when the Bears were dreadful at football. That 56-year gap between top-two rankings wasn’t exactly filled with near misses. And yet, despite what they remember Cal football to be, they still go to any lengths just to come. Not because they believe in Cal football, but because they believe in the blue and gold.

We can learn from these past generations, who stood right where we stand every Saturday, who learned in the same classrooms that we do now, and who have screamed and yelled for the Bears longer than we’ve been alive.

Cal may be down on its luck this year. Many of us were dreaming of a BCS title run not a month and a half ago. Now, I hear some of the most blasphemous words I have ever heard on this campus, from my own fraternity brothers, friends and colleagues: “We’re going to lose the Axe.”

Not if I have anything to do about it. Not if we all have anything to do about it. When that crowd, gets on its feet and blasts its lungs to the heavens, yells until every throat is raw and jumps up and down enough to make 70,000 other people think the Hayward Fault is just about to go, it’s magic.

But it’s not just the sound that does it, or the seismic activity. Anyone can scream, but it takes the kind of love that Wheeler talked about to make those screams matter. It’s that bursting forth of the heart that gives those screams texture, gives those screams substance and power.

So cheer for California, because it is a part of you just as much as you are a part of it. Love California, because unlike a lot of things in life, it will always be there, ready to welcome you home with open arms. And above all, believe in California, with all your heart and all your soul and all your body. Roar as loud as you can and shake those trees to the ground. Believe in the Gold and the Blue.

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