Camping out proves to be a great way to find love

  Jeff Agase Agase lives for stories like
these. E-mail him at [email protected] with yours.

John and Jody Jacobs slept together on their first date.
It’s not what you think, though. Seriously, it’s
not.

You see, John and Jody Jacobs, UCLA Class of 1975, had their
first official date while camping out for tickets to the UCLA-USC
football game outside Pauley Pavilion in 1973. It’s the same
thing UCLA students did last night in order to get primo seats for
tonight’s Stanford basketball game, minus the romance.

After eyeing each other in class throughout the winter and
spring of that year and meeting occasionally to work on math
homework, John had decided to make his move.

“We had to wait overnight in line and camp out for up to
two tickets, and I had decided I was going to take Jody,”
John said.

Jody was there already.

“I said, “˜You know, I’m waiting in line to get
you a ticket so you don’t have to wait,’ but she said
she’d wait, too.”

Less than four years later, they were married ““ a match
made in Bruin heaven.

Although their first date centered around football, the
Jacobses’ real passion was the championship basketball of
John Wooden. They were in Westwood for the 88-game winning streak,
for the Bill Walton era, for the years that made UCLA basketball
the most dominating dynasty in sports history.

“Every game was sold out, and the only question was
whether we’d break 100 points and get a free Sepi’s
sub,” Jody said with fond wistfulness.

For John and Jody, UCLA basketball was both an escape from an
anti-establishment era and a connecting point to what had once
seemed like a distant campus life.

Both were commuter students living in Santa Monica. Because of
their distance from campus, they felt like outsiders to the campus
social scene.

But basketball brought them in.

“We were both working to get through school, and since we
didn’t live on campus, we couldn’t take advantage of
the college environment,” John said. “That’s why
we went to basketball games.”

And in a time of social upheaval, Wooden’s team was one of
the few things a majority of the campus could agree on.

“The times were very negative in the ’70s,”
Jody said. “We probably had some of that, but Wooden somehow
transcended all of that mess.”

The two still beam with the same unbridled excitement, whether
they talk about their student days at Pauley or about being there
two weekends ago for UCLA’s upset win over then-No. 1 Kansas.
A true fan, John effortlessly rattled off the length of
UCLA’s record winning streak, but misfired in saying their
25th anniversary will be this August (it’s fitting for a pair
of dedicated Bruin basketball fans that it’s actually in
March).

And it might come to the surprise of those who view alumni fans
as roadblocks in the way of a student’s good time to hear
what the Jacobses have to say about student seating.

“The student seating used to be all around the court, and
that’s the way it should be,” John said.

Added Jody, “I think it’s an advantage for the team
to have the students near the floor. If you’ve ever gone to
an away game somewhere else you see the difference ““
it’s just insane in some of those places.”

Their daughter, Chandra, is a second-year student at Duke. As a
member of the band, she’s one of the nefarious “Cameron
Crazies” that surround Cameron Indoor Stadium’s floor
and are happy to provide living nightmares to Blue Devil opponents.
When the Jacobs speak of “those places,” they’re
talking about Duke.

“Duke OWNS Cameron Indoor,” Jody said.
“That’s their house, and that’s all there is to
it.”

Seating at Pauley was festival-style in the Wooden era. Students
camped out up until an hour before game time, when there was a mad
dash to a sea of prime open seats. John and Jody were nearly always
there, eager and early. Now the sea is a puddle, and in many ways,
the Jacobs’ words about student seating sound like those of
today’s UCLA students. It’s a testament to the
excitement they still harbor.

Unlike the typical perception of championship-demanding alumni,
they didn’t tense up and make a guillotine motion when Steve
Lavin’s name was mentioned.

“John Wooden set such an impossible standard and the
talent level is so even right now that it’s not fair to any
coach to expect a championship every year,” Jody said.

“It really has leveled out,” John said, almost in
step with his wife. “Now everyone is 6-foot-9 and quick.
It’s hard to perennially be good, but UCLA has done
OK.”

John was presented with a quandary when UCLA took on Duke in
last year’s NCAA tournament.

“Our money goes to Duke, but I’m always a Bruin
fan,” he said.

Their Bruin fandom actually played a part in Chandra choosing
Duke. The night before she made her college decision, while
wavering between Duke and a number of other schools, she said
something to her mom.

“She wasn’t going to admit that she was listening to
us all along about school spirit and all that mushy stuff,”
Jody said. “But out of the blue, in the middle of the night,
she says, “˜I just want to have the same kind of basketball
experience you and Dad had in college.'”

“I was just floored. She sees us 25 to 30 years later, and
we still have such a joy about all of it.”

As an hour-long interview quickly became an hour and a half,
Jody laughed in amazement.

“We could talk about this stuff forever,” she
said.

They will.

Agase lives for stories like these. E-mail him at [email protected]
with yours.