Golden Bear or Bruin? One lifelong Cal fan examines the storied inter-UC rivalry as a conflicted UCLA student

When I was seven years old, I would go to school everyday dressed in blue and gold, from cap to socks.

I never wore red. I don’t think I even owned red clothing.

My binders and notebooks were covered in doodles of fierce-looking bears.

None of those things seem that out of place on this campus, actually.

Except for one thing.

The letters that I would impulsively sketch with waterproof markers onto the pages of endless coloring books didn’t spell out U-C-L-A, but C-A-L.

Growing up in Berkeley, blocks from the university campus, it just happened that way.

So it was a kind of worship, I’ll admit, but not anything different than what most kids practiced in reverence for Pokemon cards or Nickelodeon.

Mostly, I just couldn’t get enough of California Golden Bear basketball. Before games at the school’s ancient Harmon Gym, I would run down next to the court so as the players came out of the locker room I could slap hands with the giants wearing jerseys with that script logo I knew so well.

A glorious morning one March, my dad pulled me out of the second grade to watch the Bears play in the NCAA tournament at a pizza place packed with other Blue and Gold fanatics. I never learned the difference between a rhombus and a parallelogram that day, but Cal won and somehow 10 years later I still managed to get into college.

Of course, that’s where I find myself now.

When I first came to Westwood, every time UCLA played Cal in basketball it was like watching my two best friends get in a fistfight. I was the idiot in the Den yelling, “Can’t we all just get along!”

I’m sure there’s plenty of you sports fans out there that made a similar transition when coming to UCLA. Whether you grew up under the rule of your parents’ alma mater, are from some other state, or, God forbid, spent your childhood in a USC-supporting household, some allegiances get forced to the background.

Over the years my passion subsided, or matured, if that’s how you choose to look at it. Spending my collegiate career as a sports journalist covering Pac-10 athletics has turned me into a rather objective analyst, a far cry from my days as a full-blown sports fundamentalist.

But when these games come around I still imagine a seven-year-old version of myself cringing in agony at how callous my heart has grown.

Yet I don’t mind relishing how eventful the competition between these two teams has been in the last few years, regardless of any rooting interest. The excitement of basketball is color-blind, so to speak.

Last season’s Cal team beat UCLA twice en route to the program’s first regular-season conference title in half a century, cause for great celebration on Telegraph Avenue. But one can’t forget how the Bruins triumphed in the game played at Haas Pavilion when UCLA’s prolific shooter Mike Roll hit a mid-range jumper to seal a shocking one-point upset.

Or how two years previous at the same arena, a young Russell Westbrook threw down a tremendous jam over the Bears’ Jamal Boykin that set the precedent for the dunkalicious professional career that your kids will someday be watching on their futuristic 4-D version of YouTube.

And if you’re a senior citizen like myself, you might recall Josh Shipp’s 2008 buzzer-beating, behind-the-backboard prayer that sent Cal home on the last game of the season and sent Pauley Pavilion into a frenzy that lasted all the way until the Final Four.
Ah, the good old days.

Cal-UCLA is never really considered a rivalry ““ as each of the school’s supporters save their real hatred for cardinal-shaded foes ““ but it’s always a game I have circled on my schedule.

The fact that this Bear vs. Bruin series has produced some of the better games in the schools’ recent history is good news for you too.

At the very least, what you read in this paper after such a contest will be something I’ve been preparing to write since I scribbled the outline of a basketball in blue pen on the side of my size-three sneakers.

Smukler co-hosts the Daily Bruin Sports Show, which airs every Monday at 6:30 p.m. on UCLAradio.com. E-mail him at [email protected].