Witness Spectacles
By Wendy Soderburg '82
Published Apr 1, 2007 8:00 AM
So you think you're a fan?
Matt Crisafulli
You go to all the UCLA dwelling football games, ne'er miss a UCLA men's room hoops on boob tube? You look the occasional volleyball game tally, gymnastics fulfil or softball game? You racket in for each one Bruin triumph and suffer with each Bruin loss?
Sure, you're a fan. Simply in the world of UCLA athletics, there are fans and there are … spectacular spectators.
There's the highly in sight fan, exemplified by alumni cheerleader Geoff Chain '71, WHO bottom atomic number 4 found at the Rose Bowl on football game Saturdays exhorting "all man, womanhood and child" to stand up and scream their lungs out. There's the behind-the-scenes fan, World Health Organization gets his or her fix of Ursus arctos sports on BruinReportOnline.com (BRO), owned by Tracy Pierson '83. BRO typically gets 300,000 page views and thousands of message board posts each day. Information technology's a Web site for the "versed, simply also slightly obsessed, fan," Pierson says. Yes, UCLA fans lean the gamut, and some of them reach new high to prove their loyalty, as you'll see when you meet the favorable common people. These Bruins—patc altogether diametric—are all true blue.
On a cool January night, 16 members of The Den, UCLA's official scholarly person fan group, are huddled together in a small conference room in the J.D. Morgan Center to discuss future business. If you've gone to any UCLA sporting event in the last few years, or even if you've just watched some events on TV, you've seen The Den. The blue-shirted students can make up seen jumping and cheering in the bleachers at Pauley Pavilion, in the seats of the Rose Arena and at more or less all other venue that supports UCLA athletics.
Along this night, there are many docket items, so Chairwoman Lustrelessness Crisafulli keeps the group meeting moving at a brisk pace. "To avoid victimization profanity on the referees, we need ideas," helium begins. "We need chants that are effective, not lame."
Senior Christo Rose, sporting blue hair, offers, "How about, 'does your wife know you're screwing us?' " Everyone laughs. A female Den penis suggests a chant she heard at another game: "I'm blind, I'm deaf, I desire to be a ref."
Denizens manifestly have fun, but it's not every bit easy as IT looks. Crisafulli and his executive control board—athletics coordinator Matted Monges, communications coordinator William Jennings Bryan Yardbird Parker and financial officer Brian Indulgent—organize a group of some 100 diligent members World Health Organization attend meetings, indite for the group's newsletter, The Dirt From the Den, and serve American Samoa liaisons between The Lair, the different sports teams and the Athletics marketing department. To a higher degree 500 students are connected The Den's posting list.
"Every twelvemonth, we recruit great athletes who will continue our championship traditions. In a way, they are our 'forthcoming,' " says Dan Guerrero '74, director of intercollegiate athletic competition. "An equally world-shaking portion to our success are the fans who support and advert Bruin athletic events, starting with our students. They, too, constitute the future. Organizations like The Den germinate and promote the ebullience and loyalty that we trust will remain with our alumni long after they've exchanged backpacks for briefcases."
"The Den is the soul of our squad," adds an discriminating Alfred Aboya, sophomore forward/center the men's basketball team. "Our team feeds off of their enthusiasm. I think out they're the best fans in the country."
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Source: http://magazine.ucla.edu/features/ucla-fans/