Rooting Section

College Football rooting sections used to be more fun than today's.


When Oregon came to Stanford one year they brought along a tall, stunningly beautiful cheer leader. So, Stanford's cheer leaders "kidnapped" her. The price of her freedom was to lead a Stanford cheer. She did. Then she called on us to do a cheer for her team. The Oregon rooting section joined in. The whole stadium shook with "ORRRRRR - re GONE." The game?  It was ignored.


U.C. Berkeley was .....well, it was Berkeley.


U.C.'s students didn't go to games to watch football. They showed up, ten thousand in the section, to entertain each other. They often disregarded the cheer leaders, instead giving their own cheers, always rowdy, often bawdy, and always irrelevant to the game, or team, or the university. Routinely, some college fan would be "rolled" down the section. The rooting section sang songs that probably had been composed the night before in an Oakland bar, printed off-campus, then discreetly distributed before game time – to the embarrassment of selected victims.


I attended a game when Santa Clara University was very, very good, and Cal (UC Berkeley) was not.  Cal had actually gotten to Santa Clara's five yard line. A "movement" penalty was called, costing U.C. five yards. As the referee stepped off the five, Cal's rooting section counted with him: One, two three, four, five," then screamed in unison  "YOU (bleep)!"  So, the referee stepped of another ten, which the rooting section chanted again, including the "You (bleep)."

At that, the referee stepped off another ten. Same result.  The referee had to go to the coach and make him go to the microphone to tell the section that one more chant would result in awarding the game to Santa Clara. The rooting section at least quit swearing in unison, not because they cared about the game.  They just didn't want to go home that early.

U.C. eventually did find an effective way to curb the Cal rooting section’s behavior. The university's teams began winning football games. Now about the only insufferable fans left at Cal games are the freebie folk who climb to "Tightwad Hill," above the canyon-nestled stadium, and sort of watch the game though binoculars while partying.