This is An Amazing Prank
The people behind this are amazing. From rangelife:
At last Saturday’s Cal men’s hoops season finale versus USC, Bears boosters pulled a prank that straddles the fuzzy gray line between “Crap-Yer-Pants Hilarious” and “Inexcusably Cruel.”
*Update* The rumor is that RallyComm was behind this, but people I know in RallyComm are denying it. Anyway, if anyone can get me the IM transcripts I would love to post them or link to them if they are online. *End Update*
[thanks to CC for the tip]
please, please someone please post the conversations
Comment by captian duh — March 8, 2006 @ 6:53 am
Hey if you wanted to see the coverstations, maybe you shouldn’t have been a Cal nerd and instead bought basketball season tickets. The full transcript was handed out at the game. Cal basketball and football have pathetic student support considering that we are a major D1 program (with a student population of 30,000).
Comment by Conversation — March 8, 2006 @ 9:32 am
Maybe because this school is centered around intellectualism, not athleticism, and most of the athletes wouldn’t even have gotten into this school without their ability to toss a little leather object around. Us versus Them. You’re not a part of ‘us’. Buh-bye.
Comment by iliketapioca — March 8, 2006 @ 12:11 pm
Whatever man, I got into this school sans athletics so I am part of “us”. Why do you consider athletes vs. non-athletes an “us” vs. “them”–support your fellow students (all the seniors on the basketball team are graduating). Also, Duke is a better school than Cal and they are crazy about basketball–are they not intellectual enough for you? This school is about lazy union employees, affirmative action, and segregated ethnic clans (aka “diversity”) not “intellectualism”.
Plus, only an “intellectual” could be clever enough to pull off a prank like this.
Comment by Conversation — March 8, 2006 @ 12:43 pm
haha. that is AWESOME!
Comment by mano — March 8, 2006 @ 1:20 pm
conversation, if you didn’t realize duke is actually more left leaning than berkeley, and they use affirmative action and Berkeley doesn’t. kind of puts things in a perspective, doesn’t it?
Comment by cheguevara — March 8, 2006 @ 1:24 pm
haha.
“we now return to WHEN FACTS ATTACK”
“Berkeley, California, Wednesday, March 8. It’s just another sunny day on the blog, an unsuspecting conservative commentator _thinks_ he is in a debate with an wannabe intellectual who has mistook him for a wannabe meathead. What he doesn’t know is that hes about to become another unsuspecting victim of… FACTS.”
“Unbeknownst to the commentator, a fact is lurking around the corner. When he launches into a proof of his academic credentials to the ‘nerd’ who has assailed him, he lets slip a venomous attack on diversity, labor unions, and affirmative action, as he invokes Duke as an example of a ‘nerdier’ school that likes sports ‘more’”
“This catches the attention of an astute bystander, who lets loose with a fact, catching our commentator off guard”
“With no time to react, the vicious attack unfolds with blazing speed, and the commentator is unable to react. He is soon knocked off his feet and flails about helplessly on the ground, flattened by the overwhelming weight of the realization of his own hypocrisy.”
“As blog owners rush to the scene, he struggles to hold on to his dignity, but will they arrive in time to save it?”
“As facts continue to get in the way of another hastily and poorly construed opinion, other predators with political agendas begin to circle, and it quickly becomes clear that only another post by blog owners will distract attention and allow the thoroughly humilated commentator to escape from the vicious beating. But unfortunately for him, the blog owners have not been posting with any regularity”
“The perils of offhand commentary make themselves known to yet another sucker on the well-stocked hunting grounds of conservative-airhead academia.”
Comment by mano — March 8, 2006 @ 1:50 pm
wait, duke is a better school than cal?
transfer to duke, dude.
Comment by Anonymous — March 8, 2006 @ 2:54 pm
Go to Oxford, Cambridge, Karlsruhe, Sorbonne, Pisa, etc.- ask them if they know what “Duke” is.
Comment by McMike — March 9, 2006 @ 12:47 am
Or anywhere in Asia, for that matter.
Berkeley 2nd best in Asia. After the big H.
Comment by Anonymous — March 9, 2006 @ 11:31 am
dailycal website is down again…
Comment by guy — March 9, 2006 @ 1:52 pm
Oxford, Cambridge, Karlsruhe, Sorbonne, Pisa, etc.
yes, go there, and watch them try to play basketball.
Comment by mano — March 9, 2006 @ 3:34 pm
beijing university has an excellent basketball team
Comment by cheguevara — March 9, 2006 @ 9:56 pm
Rally Comm isn’t allowed to pull pranks like that, because of NCAA regulations about that kind of stuff (Rally Comm is an official University and Cal Athletics entity, much like the Dance Team or the Mic Men–that’s why they’re never the first to rush the field at football games, they don’t drink at any sporting events, etc.). Usually Rally Comm people who want to pull pranks are smart enough to be anonymous about it. Walk around the Stanford campus and you’ll notice that many things are visibly missing……
The flyer that got passed around at the basketball game said that it was Rally Comm and had a picture of Rally Comm on it. If it was a member of Rally Comm who actually did it, that person probably fucked up the privileges they get and the relationship they have with Athletics. Rally Comm has to be goody-goodys to keep the perks that they have.
Comment by amber — March 9, 2006 @ 10:44 pm
i think you mean beijing university has excerrent team.
Comment by Anonymous — March 10, 2006 @ 9:24 am
Heya!
All other discussions aside, I’ll clarify that it wasn’t UCRC that pulled the prank- like Amber said, we need to maintain a working relationship with Athletics and the administration, and pranks like this aren’t exactly conducive to that. And I wouldn’t want our group to take credit from whoever did pull it off, though that seems to be the way things are panning out. My guess would be someone was worried that there might be trouble because of it and just wanted to cover their tracks and we seemed the obvious pick. Couldn’t say for sure though. Things on our end are resolving well, though, so no harm done. Rather disappointed that they’d use our organization’s name, but that’s about it.
-Nate Hedberg
Chair, UC Rally Committee
chairman@ucrc.berkeley.edu
Comment by Nate — March 10, 2006 @ 12:23 pm
Nate:
always remember, plausible deniability.
Comment by mano — March 10, 2006 @ 2:42 pm