I’ve never rushed the field after a Big Game.
These days that does not seem so surprising, I know. But back when I was in school, beating Stanford was the norm, not the anomaly. I—and the many that were members of my cohort—were spoiled.
These were the days of the “Ted Head” tie-dyed t-shirts. These were the days when Stanford was coached by someone called Buddy Teevens or—much worse—Walt Harris. These were the days when Aaron Rodgers was Cal’s quarterback while some guy named T.C. Ostrander quarterbacked the Cards.
I never respected the Cal-Stanford football rivalry while I was a student. There was no need to. I stepped foot on campus at the peak of the football program under Jeff Tedford, while at the same time the Cardinal was facing its worst five-year stretch probably in history. (I did, however, take beating Stanford seriously in all things other than football, in the sports where it truly mattered to Beat Stanfurd—women’s basketball, soccer, water polo, swimming, lacrosse, baseball, etc.) But football, in my time, was not one of them.
The rivalry was an afterthought. I was not even in attendance for the Big Game my freshman year. Failing to get tickets earlier in the semester, I had to watch the Rodgers-led Bears steamroll Stanford from my dorm room with other hapless freshmen. The students rushed the field, the roses came out and I can pretend my way of having been there because I know so many who actually were.
The next year, in 2005, I took BART and then CalTrain down to The Farm for my first in-person Big Game—and the last at the Old Stanford Stadium. There was a fence between the Cal student section and the field—and between the Cal students and everyone else—preventing us from storming the playing surface after fullback-turned-quarterback Steve Levy led the Bears to victory.
In 2006, I could not muster enough emotional support to race down the Memorial Stadium steps and onto the field. That was the year that Cal had two shots of getting to the Rose Bowl. They failed both times, our dreams of playing in the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1959 wilting in the desert sun and then finally being crushed in the full glow of the Los Angeles moonlight. I was in no mood to take the field after the Bears beat a team that would win one game all season. Stanford football was so pathetic in 2006 that to inspire their fans, the football team entered Memorial Stadium through the stands, while a huge “I Believe In Stanford Football” banner was unfurled by their students. This win did not call for celebration.
And so I never had the chance to rush the field, and as I entered my senior year at Cal, I wouldn’t. I took over the football beat for the Daily Cal. I was ensured that any victory down at The Farm would end with me in a tunnel somewhere, asking questions and conducting interviews as fans celebrated on the field.
And as that cold November night came to a close, that’s exactly what I did, except it had not turned out the way I imagined it.
