Hardcore fans make voyage to tell Arizona fans to slow their roll

Monday, October 12, 1998

Hardcore fans

make voyage to tell Arizona fans to slow their roll

COLUMN: Frat brothers intimidate Wildcats with eight-clap, sheer
pride

Arizona Stadium looked like the Red Sea, filled to the brim with
58,738 screaming Wildcats fans.

Amidst the red tide, a section of Blue and Gold stood doing the
eight-clap ­ even though the University of Arizona fans
drowned out the Bruin chants.

But still they stood, cheering as loudly as they possibly could,
heckled by catcalls from sections surrounding them.

As one Sigma Chi student, Mark Anderson, put it, ‘It’s like
going to the South from the North during Civil War time and
chanting Å’North, North.’ Arizona can’t hold a candle up to
UCLA.’

And that is where the story ends.

The story begins in Westwood, Friday at 1:30 p.m. For some it is
time to face traffic, but for two traveling vans of Sigma Chi
fan-atics it is time to get fired up for the UCLA-Arizona game.

Twelve guys, five in one van and seven in the other, were
cramped in two cars for eight and a half hours, starting in rush
hour and ending in a hostile environment.

‘The road trip is half of the fun,’ Sigma Chi student James
Pennington said while his frat brothers got in a debate with three
Arizona fans. ‘More UCLA fans have to make the trips so they can
help us party when UCLA kicks ass.’

Part of that fun was a traffic stop and one van running out of
gas before they reached Tucson.

In Tucson, Sigma Chi truly showed their Bruin Pride by decking
themselves in blue and gold and waltzing into the middle of the
hang out joints by U of A. Like twelve gunslingers out of a ‘Young
Guns’ movie, they pulled out their eight-claps and told the Arizona
fans to ‘slow their roll.’

‘We went out to Maloney’s and a few other places to represent
UCLA and were immediately harassed,’ one Sigma Chi member chimed in
as he prepared his mask. ‘They were throwing rocks and bottles.
It’s enough to make me want to go back and spend my time on the 405
during traffic hour.’

Then it was time to turn in at the Marriot to prepare for the
huge game in Arizona Stadium.

The next day, Arizona fans were awake and pumped for what the
Daily Wildcat said was Arizona’s biggest game of the year and
possibly of all time.

The Red Siege came out in droves to fill up the parking lots and
tailgate.

There was so much red that if Senator McCarthy saw the lot he
would have believed that Communism had finally won over the United
States.

In the middle of the bloodied parking lot sat a group of UCLA
fans, all whom seemed like they had gravitated toward the blue and
gold balloons and the Spirit Squad.

Helping to fire up the crowd of Bruin faithful were Sigma Chi
members who were talking more trash than Deion Sanders.

‘Football is the only sport they have out here,’one member said
while donning his Sigma Chi shirt. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen an
undergraduate student out here, only older folk. Did you see them
having Arizona basketball try-outs on that rubber rim?’

Sigma Chi was playing a great game of trash talking-talking down
any Arizona fan that stepped within a few yards of the Bruin Club
tent.

Then it was one hour before the game started.

Time for the mask to make an appearance.

One Sigma Chi member pulled out a black mask to wear whenever
UCLA scored a touchdown.

‘The black mask is a sign of disrespect to Arizona.’

Like a grim reaper being aided by vultures, Sigma Chi and their
masks walked into Arizona Stadium pulling for a Bruin wallop so
their trash-talking could be backed up.

‘We want to be able to look up on that scoreboard and see UCLA
has won,’ Pennington said.

‘We will feel like we helped UCLA pull out that win. We want to
be able to tell Arizona to slow their roll.’

All in all the trip was a time for camaraderie and a time to
experience the total college package: the famous national
championship-implications road trip.

No matter where that road trip is, every college student should
have the feeling of traveling in a tightly packed car with a bunch
of friends for over eight hours to go into a metaphorical hell and
watch a battle of giants.

That’s what being a sports fan is all about.

That is what being a college fan is about.

Being road warriors is what fans like Sigma Chi are,
understanding the indescribable euphoria of attending NCAA
sports.

Salmon is the football beat writer who gives shout-outs to the
Padres, the Killer Bs (the UCLA Å’Backs) and all those who
ventured down into Hell to watch UCLA win (sorry Alpha Chi ladies,
we tried). If you want Rocky to slow his roll (thanks Jeff) email
him at [email protected] Salmon

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