FAVORITE ROAD TRIPS: TEAMING UP WITH THE BRUINS
BY PAUL FEINBERG

A native New Yorker, I was 11 when my family moved to L.A. I became a Californian — and a Bruin — two years later when John Sciarra led us to a Rose Bowl win over Ohio State. (That his son — John Jr. — is now a candidate for starting quarterback makes me feel nothing but old.) It was a significant event, a key to my SoCal assimilation.

But my favorite moment in a long and emotional relationship with UCLA football — including years in the student section and later the press box as a freelance sportswriter — came last year just prior to the season opener.

I saw the cherry-tops first, flashing bolts of primary color in jarring contrast with the noirish, black-and-white background of a wet, misty day in Tuscaloosa. In deliberate slow motion, the Alabama state troopers rolled onto the campus, leading the phalanx of buses carrying the UCLA squad. College football is high drama throughout the South, and the players’ gate at Bryant-Denny Stadium is the performers-only entrance to center stage.

We weren’t supposed to be there; at least the players and coaches didn’t expect to find hundreds of UCLA supporters a little soaked and, yeah, a little soused after a day in the Alabama rain, the only shelter a series of barbecue-and-beer joints playing Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” on the jukebox.

But there we were — and for the first time in a long time, I found myself fully expressing my inner Bruin, chanting “UC” (clap, clap) “LA.” The upperclassmen maintained their game faces, but freshman Matt Ware was all smiles as he bobbed to the rhythm. It was a time capsule scene that actually topped the game itself — a 20-17 UCLA win.

It’s easy to take school spirit for granted at home in L.A., where meeting another UCLA alum is all too common. But surrounded — literally — by a Crimson Tide of ’Bama fans, every blue-and-gold shirt signified brotherhood.

At UCLA, we take pride in the diversity that makes our community strong and interesting. Football gives us a chance to celebrate our collective culture, the players providing the common soundtrack to our lives. Just hearing “Freeman McNeil” or “Matt Darby” or “Karl Morgan” returns us to specific points in time — recalling wonderful collective memories — just like a classic rock song. Traveling to games and showing support for the team are great ways to show gratitude to them.

Road games are also a great way to see parts of the country you’ve been meaning to visit. Before the kids came along, Patti (UCLA ’83) and I planned vacations around football games, making it a point to plan that Seattle trip for the week Troy Aikman & Co. were visiting Husky Stadium.

Now, I take my sons, Miles, 10, and Hunter, 6, to games — the older was with me that day in the southern rain. Reexperiencing the purity of youthful enthusiasm through their eyes means so much to me. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more “Bruin” than I did with my boy, doing the eight-clap, 2,000 miles from home.

Feinberg ’85 is the editor of Anderson Assets magazine.