Ever notice how much of Big Game Week (BGW)
enthusiasm, or lack thereof, is dictated by kal?
I mean, in those rarest of rare years when
the Naked Guy’s Alma Mater has something resembling a
football team – like when Bruce Snyder was being
frog-marched out of Berkeley – the local (Bay Area)
press would inevitably begin this week hyperventilating on Monday
and achieve total apoplexy by Saturday morning.
Radio sports-talk call-in phones would light
up with jabbering bear-o-philes slobbering into their handsets
(pre car-phone era).
Guffawing, guzzling gaggles of
blue-oxford-cotton-button-down kal people would actually show up
at the traditional blazer-and-rep-tie gigs in the City. According
to the kal folks, this was sure to “be a great game, cuz you
never know what’s gonna happen in the Big Game,” blah,
blah, blecchh.
But let Oskie’s stock-price thump along
the bottom like an overweight lure cast from some skow off of
Point Richmond and those same aging cheerleaders inevitably turn
off, tune-out and drop in to visit their kal brethren and
re-affirm their decision to blow off the game because “it
really doesn’t matter this year.” No one’s going.
The wives have pre-holiday volunteer stuff happening in Orinda or
Lafayette or Piedmont.
It’s always about them.
This disgusting, downcast, defeatist posture
is particularly conspicuous during those years when their team
sucks and it’s a Palo Alto venue, to boot. In other words,
every other year. Kal people hate Stanford Stadium under the best
of circumstances, i.e., an Indian-Summer November afternoon with
a bowl bid in the balance and a beatable Cardinal in their
cross-hairs (see “Gilby ‘93”). Admittedly, an
occurrence having roughly the same frequency as the Comet
Kohoutek
This season they detest the old girl –
our venerable stadium, that is. Show these lames (1) an iffy
weather forecast, (2) Tom Holmoe scratching his head on the
sidelines like he’s trying to figure out the ticket machine
for the BART train he just missed, and/or (3) their frat-league
intramural-ready team staring down the barrel at a buff,
bowl-bound Stanford, and what do you get? Kal Kouch Potatoes
flip-switching between KGO-TV and Antique Roadshow repeats, that’s
what. Bet on it: there’ll be plenty of good kal sections
available on Saturday.
Do they deserve a rich rivalry with
Stanford? Do they even deserve football?
Of course, there is an Rx for this repugnant
affliction. But it would have to begin with wholesale changes in
the way kal approaches what it fraudulently represents today as a
football program. Yeah, right. You might as well expect the
Taliban to gift-wrap Bin Laden and send him next-day air to Don
Rumsfeld.
This, I submit, is not good for Big Game
Week for multiple reasons. Kal-as-annual-patsy devalues a Stanford
win and reaffirms what most of us have known for years: in the
Bay Area, tenor of Big Game Week is largely determined by the way
kal has played during the prior two months. Big Game fever? More
like hay fever this year despite the natural storyline:
really good Stanford team with exciting players strive to retain
the Ax that Holmoe’s already figuratively received. Or
something like that. So we’re stuck with these suggested
media talking points this week:
- Who’s kal’s new koach?
- Can Steve “Sly and the Family” Gladstone bring
back that Andy Smith Wonder Team Spirit?
- Can he bring back early Gilby spirit?
- How about Gilby’s Gin?
- Is Gilby’s Gin still on the market?
- Was that really Oskie panhandling and foraging around
parked cars in Yosemite the other day?
So, yes, it’s a struggle to stay “Fiestive”
this week. But I’m gonna give it hell trying.