Sherman Grancell’s love for UCLA still strong at 100 years
Sherman Grancell, president of UCLA Alumni Pioneer Bruins, looks at his 1930 UCLA yearbook at his home in Beverly Hills. Grancell celebrated his 100th birthday on Sunday.
By Theresa Avila
Feb. 8, 2010 9:43 p.m.
The rock wasn’t yet known as Founder’s Rock.
The university wasn’t even known as UCLA. It was simply, “The Twig.”
When Sherman Grancell first came in his father’s T-Model Ford for the dedication of the new site for the Southern Branch of the UC, there wasn’t much more than weeds, dirt and a 75-ton granite rock that would one day assume its place at Murphy Hall, as the symbol for the founding of the university.
It was 1926, and Grancell was a freshman.
“We knew there was something going to be built there,” he said. “We didn’t have any idea that it would grow to the extent that it is today.”
Little did Grancell know that after his graduation in 1930 he would return time and again to the campus, eventually coming to celebrate his 100th birthday there after having formed a close relationship throughout his life with the university.
Grancell spent his senior year on the new Westwood site. He has since become an active alumnus in university organizations.
As a result, Grancell, who lives in Beverly Hills, finds himself frequently on campus attending meetings, lectures and concerts, all of which he said are his main source of entertainment.
“Now I go there three days a week, sometimes four, and sometimes I’m even there twice a day,” he said.
Grancell held a gala at the James West Alumni Center on Sunday after turning 100 on Friday.
For many of the roughly 160 guests in attendance, the night was one to celebrate an esteemed Bruin whose school spirit has endured all his life.
“The school’s (almost a) hundred years old, and it’s very rare that UCLA is young enough that people like (Grancell) are still walking the face of the earth and cheering on the Bruins,” said Ralph Amos, assistant vice chancellor of alumni relations. “That’s one of the special things he represents. He’s the beginning of UCLA, and after all these years, he’s still a diehard Bruin.”
Born in Pasadena, Grancell graduated from Belmont High School in 1926. After completing his degree at UCLA, he ventured to the university’s rival school, USC, for a law degree.
Grancell, never having been one to miss a UCLA basketball game, except, he said, during his years in the military, said he still found himself rooting for UCLA even while at USC.
“When I was in the rooting section, I was still rooting for UCLA,” he said, adding that there were also other former UCLA students in law school who did the same. When asked if he ever once cheered for USC, the response was immediate. “Never.”
That Grancell loves his alma mater was a well-known fact for guests at his birthday celebration.
“He bleeds blue and gold, he really does,” said Darryl Johnson, chairman of the Chancellor’s Cabinet. “If you say it’s a UCLA function, he’ll be there.”
Johnson, who met Grancell seven years ago after finding that the two are in common organizations, said he has developed a close friendship with Grancell over the years, earning himself the nickname, “Little Brother.” The two, he said, have traveled to Tahiti together and often enjoy conversations on life and all UCLA-related matters.
Grancell’s vast experiences (he has been a worker’s compensation judge, a deputy commissioner, a founder of a law firm and is currently part of more than a dozen organizations) grant him an area of knowledge that, if asked, he is more than willing to share, Johnson said.
“He’s been there, done that,” Johnson said.
“I’ve seen (the university) grow through all these years,” Grancell said, recalling how different the campus and his life as a student were.
There were the times when he would drive nine to 10 of his fraternity brothers in a roadster from their house near Santa Monica Boulevard to campus, occasionally breaking the springs on the car.
There was the time when he learned how to play the banjo, and though he “wasn’t very good at it,” he and his friends would play for events on campus, sometimes earning as much as $5 a day.
And then there is everything he’s attended as an alumnus: the countless lectures, the numerous performances and other special events.
Having always been a great fan of classical music and the performing arts, Grancell currently sits as one of the Board of Directors for Design for Sharing, UCLA Live’s community outreach program that brings inner-city youth to see artistic performances on campus.
His late wife, Sylvia, was a musical instructor at a public school and an original member of Design for Sharing. It’s a program that Grancell said he is particularly fond of. Developing an appreciation for the performing arts, he said, is a lifelong endeavor.
As such, the Grancells established a scholarship endowment for the Herb Alpert School of Music and for the USC Music School.
Pattikay Gottlieb, a close family friend of Grancell and who is also on the board of directors for Design for Sharing and on the Board of Directors for the Jewish Home for the Aging, first met Grancell 20 years ago.
Never one to miss a game, she said, the date for the birthday celebration was set on Sunday so as not to interfere with the scheduled UCLA basketball game. It didn’t matter that Sunday was the 44th Annual Super Bowl.
What touched her the most about the night, she said, was that guests were not only representatives of different organizations, but that they are all friends with Grancell.
“They all spoke from the heart,” Gottlieb said. “He’s friends with these people.”
All of his involvement in the community and the support he lends is something that, at the end of the day, just comes naturally to Grancell, Gottlieb said. It’s simply part of being a good citizen.
“I don’t think he’d ever refer to it as community service,” she said.
Today, the area near Founder’s Rock is full of green grass. Murphy Hall and the law school, both nonexistent during Grancell’s time as an undergraduate, surround it on each side.
“All we had (in ’26) was a teacher’s college and liberal arts. We had no graduate schools and no degrees above bachelor’s degrees or teacher’s degrees,” Grancell said.
Today, the number of buildings that dominate the campus and the thousands of students who call Westwood their home astounds Grancell.
“It’s an enormous city,” he said.
