the good, the bad and the ugly of my trip to the holiday bowl:
the good:
-seeing old aacf folk. even though our seats were scattered around, we got to hang out before & after the game. some i hadn't seen since college.
-the camaraderie among fellow cal fans. anyone wearing blue & gold in the entire state of california this week would get smiles, hellos, and go bears from others wearing blue & gold. the city of san diego was inundated with blue and gold on game day. anywhere and everywhere we went, there would be cal fans. on our drive down, we stopped by the customary in-n-out at kettlemen city, and the whole place was packed with cal fans. taking the trolley to the Q - at least in our car, i didn't see a single texas tech fan. it was just all blue. driving back up, we again stopped by in-n-out, and again, cal fans everywhere. this time we were wallowing in misery together. :(
-our "texas tech" section. "texas tech" because even though our section was supposedly a texas tech section (you had to get tickets through texas tech to have seats where we were), there were maybe 50 folks in red, scattered around, but a few hundred folks in blue and gold. our section even had our own mic man (who i swear must have been a mic man when in school) who led our whole section in cheers the entire night. he was awesome, and he claims that he "traveled 7000 miles from baghdad just to be at the holiday bowl." my throat was already hurting the first 5 minutes into the game.
-the pre-game and halftime show. they were way better than expected. the pre-game show had navy seals parachuting out of helicopters, fighter jets flying above the stadium, and both bands performing. (the texas tech band is HUGE. let's just say their tuba section alone was like the size of half our band.) the halftime show consisted of fireworks and band performances. i didn't know where to look because there were fireworks going off behind the stadium behind us, and fireworks going off from the middle of the field. quite impressive.
-being at the game live. It's just like none other - such a feeling of excitement, electricity, and it's great to cheer with fellow die-hard fans. there was one guy who sat next to us who went to the game by himself. decked out in blue and gold, had binoculars and a walkman (to listen to the radio broadcast), and knew every single word to all our school songs. heck we dominated our section so much that texas tech fans had to heckle us and try to ruin our cheers because there were so few of them.
the bad:
-cal band's drum major. texas tech's massively huge band, color guard, dance girls, baton twirlers and cheerleaders performed first. their performance showcased this one special baton girl who was in the middle of the field, twirling and twisting the baton and throwing it in the air impressively. afterwards, cal's diminutive (at least compared to TT) band performed. the drum major, who also has a baton led the band out onto the field, and as he (she?) tried to throw the baton in the air, the baton proceed to fly about 10 feet away from him, where he tried to chase after it, but of course couldn't catch it in time. the drum major had to run after the baton before coming back to lead the band again. embarrassing.
-the weather driving up from SD to LA. it was horrendous - raining so hard we couldn't even see the car in front of us. thanks gma for driving and getting us back safely!! the weather for the game was actually very nice. even though it had poured the day before, there was not a single drop in sight on thursday. although i think rain would have helped our team greatly since you can't rely on the pass in the rain, and TT has no kind of running game whatsoever. aud's mom told us that if it had rained, we would have been soaked through, wet, and probably would have caught pneumonia; to which we replied - we'd rather be sick and happily victorious than healthy and miserably disappointed. yes, we're true fans.
the ugly:
-the outcome of the game. need i say more. what a disappointment. we played horribly, couldn't catch a ball, and couldn't defend the pass, period. the worst part of this is we now have no right to whine about the bcs snub. it totally invalidates everything that has happened because people will now (and do) say that cal didn't deserve the rose bowl. honestly, i think we would have beaten michigan. i was more worried about texas tech because they did not match well with us. we're bad at defending the pass, and they're a heavy pass-oriented team. despite the big disappointment, you can't deny the awesome season that they had prior to this game. seriously, when we were at cal, enduring the holmoe days, did anyone ever imagine we would be in this position three years later?
so that was my trip to SD. i'll post pics some time later. big thanks to gma & aud for letting me stay at their places!!
happy new year everyone.
the good:
-seeing old aacf folk. even though our seats were scattered around, we got to hang out before & after the game. some i hadn't seen since college.
-the camaraderie among fellow cal fans. anyone wearing blue & gold in the entire state of california this week would get smiles, hellos, and go bears from others wearing blue & gold. the city of san diego was inundated with blue and gold on game day. anywhere and everywhere we went, there would be cal fans. on our drive down, we stopped by the customary in-n-out at kettlemen city, and the whole place was packed with cal fans. taking the trolley to the Q - at least in our car, i didn't see a single texas tech fan. it was just all blue. driving back up, we again stopped by in-n-out, and again, cal fans everywhere. this time we were wallowing in misery together. :(
-our "texas tech" section. "texas tech" because even though our section was supposedly a texas tech section (you had to get tickets through texas tech to have seats where we were), there were maybe 50 folks in red, scattered around, but a few hundred folks in blue and gold. our section even had our own mic man (who i swear must have been a mic man when in school) who led our whole section in cheers the entire night. he was awesome, and he claims that he "traveled 7000 miles from baghdad just to be at the holiday bowl." my throat was already hurting the first 5 minutes into the game.
-the pre-game and halftime show. they were way better than expected. the pre-game show had navy seals parachuting out of helicopters, fighter jets flying above the stadium, and both bands performing. (the texas tech band is HUGE. let's just say their tuba section alone was like the size of half our band.) the halftime show consisted of fireworks and band performances. i didn't know where to look because there were fireworks going off behind the stadium behind us, and fireworks going off from the middle of the field. quite impressive.
-being at the game live. It's just like none other - such a feeling of excitement, electricity, and it's great to cheer with fellow die-hard fans. there was one guy who sat next to us who went to the game by himself. decked out in blue and gold, had binoculars and a walkman (to listen to the radio broadcast), and knew every single word to all our school songs. heck we dominated our section so much that texas tech fans had to heckle us and try to ruin our cheers because there were so few of them.
the bad:
-cal band's drum major. texas tech's massively huge band, color guard, dance girls, baton twirlers and cheerleaders performed first. their performance showcased this one special baton girl who was in the middle of the field, twirling and twisting the baton and throwing it in the air impressively. afterwards, cal's diminutive (at least compared to TT) band performed. the drum major, who also has a baton led the band out onto the field, and as he (she?) tried to throw the baton in the air, the baton proceed to fly about 10 feet away from him, where he tried to chase after it, but of course couldn't catch it in time. the drum major had to run after the baton before coming back to lead the band again. embarrassing.
-the weather driving up from SD to LA. it was horrendous - raining so hard we couldn't even see the car in front of us. thanks gma for driving and getting us back safely!! the weather for the game was actually very nice. even though it had poured the day before, there was not a single drop in sight on thursday. although i think rain would have helped our team greatly since you can't rely on the pass in the rain, and TT has no kind of running game whatsoever. aud's mom told us that if it had rained, we would have been soaked through, wet, and probably would have caught pneumonia; to which we replied - we'd rather be sick and happily victorious than healthy and miserably disappointed. yes, we're true fans.
the ugly:
-the outcome of the game. need i say more. what a disappointment. we played horribly, couldn't catch a ball, and couldn't defend the pass, period. the worst part of this is we now have no right to whine about the bcs snub. it totally invalidates everything that has happened because people will now (and do) say that cal didn't deserve the rose bowl. honestly, i think we would have beaten michigan. i was more worried about texas tech because they did not match well with us. we're bad at defending the pass, and they're a heavy pass-oriented team. despite the big disappointment, you can't deny the awesome season that they had prior to this game. seriously, when we were at cal, enduring the holmoe days, did anyone ever imagine we would be in this position three years later?
so that was my trip to SD. i'll post pics some time later. big thanks to gma & aud for letting me stay at their places!!
happy new year everyone.
posted by karen at
1:48 PM
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