
	:: UCLA TODAY Home
	:: Contact Us

	:: UCLA HOME
	©2004 The Regents of the University of California

VOL. 24. NO.2 SEPTEMBER 23, 2003

what's on my mind

His love of Bruin football: it's more than just a game

BY Paul feinberg

Karl Dorrell and I go way back.

As a student in the early ’80s, he was on the field at the Rose Bowl, catching passes for UCLA. As a student in the early ’80s, I was in the stands at the Rose Bowl, watching him catch passes.

OK, so we’re not exactly best friends.

But it is 20 years later, and Karl and I are still hanging out. So to speak. Only now, he’s spending Saturdays on the sidelines, as the new head coach of the Bruins. I’m still in the stands, watching.

How great it must be for him, returning to the stadium where he made his mark as a player, bringing the same quiet-but-smoldering intensity to his coaching that he once brought to his play. It’s easy to understand his role in our relationship.

It’s harder to articulate why I’m still at the games. When I was a student, I never considered the “why.” Where else would I be on Saturday? After graduation, season tickets were the way to go — now on the shady side, thank God. My future wife and I went to a UCLA football game on our second date, we built vacations around road games. It’s what we did.

Then, like Coach Dorrell, I spent a few years away from the program.

He was making a name for himself as an assistant coach at Northern Arizona, Colorado and Washington and finally in the pros with the Denver Broncos, while I drifted away from the bleachers. There were kids too little to drag to the games and watching football went from play to work. Distance led to cynicism. I decided my affection for the team was a love unrequited, players and coaches can never return the emotion bestowed by fans, many don’t care or even try. They were bigger than me, but I got tired of looking up to them.

But at some point, things changed again. When it comes to UCLA sports, I’m more passionate than ever. My kids and I go to baseball, soccer and volleyball games. We can’t wait to see Coach Howland’s basketball team in action. I’ve rediscovered the simple joy of being true to your school.

For us, football is the best. I must admit, I like the frills. The hot sun and the cold beer. The band and the cheerleaders. I realize that only a few times a year, the Bruin family — students, faculty, staff, alumni, children and others in our extended family — gathers in one place, for one purpose. For some, it’s the game; for others, the party or the picnic. The relationship between those of us in the stands and those on the field is not at all equal. But that doesn’t mean going to a game is a passive experience. A UCLA football game is a participatory event: a verb, not a noun.

Twenty years later, Karl Dorrell and I are still spending Saturdays together. Karl is circumstance. Me — along with 60,000 of my fellow Bruins — we’ll do the pomp.

Feinberg is editor of Anderson Assets.