Crazy For Those Cupcakes, Cousin - Cal Beats Portland State, 42-16
In a game where oddsmakers were hesitant to even offer a betting spread, the Golden Bears beat the Portland State Vikings, 42-16.
The game was a great experience to see Cal’s future, as second and third string players came in on defense during the second half and held their opponents to no points. On offense, Marshawn put on a great first half, and fourth-string running back Bryan Schutte put on a pretty good show in the fourth quarter to give fans a glimse of what life might be at Cal in the post-Marshawn era.
In other football era news, is there someone out there that can defend this year’s less-than-stellar Mic Man performances in the last two weeks? I feel too old to be chanting “We Want Kate” again…
The Mic Men aren’t “designated dorks” from Rally Comm. After watching Harris during BB games, he is actually a real fan (unlike all the posers in Rally Comm who think they are real fans, but are mostly full of shit).
Comment by Anonymous — September 18, 2006 @ 5:14 pm
I would just point out that the Mic Men have nothing to do and are in no way connected with the Rally Committee. They are completely separate entities.
True, in the past, many active Rally Committee members have gone on to be Mic Men. However, that is the only connection. I would note that the best Mic Men have come from the Rally Committee - Kate, Chad (Head Mic Man during 1-10 season), and Chris Lilla (tall blonde guy, last season in 2000, MC for Funzone before football games today).
And anonymous, I don’t give a crap if someone who is a Mic Man happens to be a Real Fan. Whatever that means. If they don’t keep in the game and come up with original material, even when we are losing, they suck. Plain and simple. The student section is without real leadership and there haven’t been any new cheers in years. It can look pitiful at times.
Comment by N — September 18, 2006 @ 5:18 pm
Further, a History Lesson:
The Mic Men came about one day when the Yell Leaders at the time (early to mid 90’s, can’t remember the date) sucked balls. Everyone in the stands hated them. One day, the crowd gravitated down to the Spirit Bench, picked up the douches, and rolled them up. Power to the people, they just got rid of them. One random student (forgive me, I can’t remember his name), went down and picked up the mic. He started with some simple cheers and then really got the crowd into it. That’s how the Mic Men were born.
Now, if you talk with many of our Mic Men alumni, they are mostly all in agreement that the students should and must roll up any crappy Mic Men because that’s all that will keep them good. This idea has died out among the general student body. When Danny was the head Mic Man a couple of years ago (red head), many many older students called for his roll up because he blew. Instead of taking it and either improving or going up, he cried to the stadium security and had the people thrown out of the game. Yep. And here we are today, with the exception of Kate, who was fabulous in her own right.
What we saw in Tennesee was simply unacceptable. They gave up. We never saw them in the stands aside from pregame. Alumni were leading cheers throughout the entire game, even when we were getting our asses handed to us.
Comment by N — September 18, 2006 @ 5:24 pm
yeah, it’s pretty awesome of you, Anon, to make a massive generalization about an organization with hundreds of members. surely not one of those “full-of-shit posers” cares even a hint about cal sports; they’re clearly all just self-deluded assholes who trick themselves into thinking that they actually care about the university. i’m glad to see someone who’s so open-minded and so averse to sweeping generalizations gracing these hallowed pages. good job.
Comment by Sarah — September 18, 2006 @ 9:18 pm
To be honest, he fits in here quite well. *shrug*
Comment by Chris Smyr — September 18, 2006 @ 9:55 pm
Thanks Sarah for pointing out how idiotic anonymous’s comment was.
Furthermore, Anonymous-
You obviously don’t know what you are talking about. You don’t know anything about the Rally Committee- what we really do (trust me, cheering at games is not our primary activity by any stretch of the imagination), any of our big accomplishments, nor would you know anyone that is moderately-to-very involved in the committee.
If you knew any of these things (or any of those people), you wouldn’t be making such a glaringly incorrect comment.
Comment by Eddy Crochetiere — September 19, 2006 @ 1:19 am
Just some observation from a fan -
I feel like the last two years the problem has been mostly volume and timing. Not only did kate seem louder (even though i bet the mic was the same volume), she had better timing. She knew exactly when to start the claps for the third down so that by the time the opposing team broke the huddle we were just finishing. The new mic men haven’t really had that, they start the claps before the opposite team even looks like they are ready to huddle, and sometimes we have done the clapping and there was a flag on the play before it, or a time out was called. Kate, through some magical wonder formula (maybe just a good sense of the game) knew exactly when something was going to happen on the field and when to start the corresponding cheers.
Comment by You Know it! — September 19, 2006 @ 8:49 am
I knew this guy in Rally Comm who thought we were called the “Golden Beers”
Comment by chet (CEO) — September 19, 2006 @ 9:44 am
You know it - I quite agree. I can tell you this about knowing her. She actually knows about sports, including football. The Mic Man has to know the game, not try to make the game go on their schedule.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that whether the opposing team is in a huddle, there is an injured player on the field, or we are at commercial. I don’t even know the difference between some of the football positions but I even know that the guy on the field with a bright orange sleeve is the TV guy and we are at commercial as long as he is standing on the field. We don’t come back from commercial until he waves the orange arm and walks off the field.
I think the problem is is that they don’t actually watch the game. It is all about timing. You have to watch the game instead of the student section.
I agree with you about volume - the Mic is the same volume. Kate knew how to use it. We’ve had Mic Men that aren’t loud enough and Mic Men that screamed into the Mic so that you couldn’t understand it.
Finally (sorry for the book), my train of thought about active (read “active”, being on the Committee one year as a means to be Mic Men doesn’t count) Rally Committee members being good Mic Men is that they spend at least a couple of years around the game and the behind-the-scenes of how this stuff works. They aren’t people who become Mic Men and walk in and think they own the place and can do things their way because they want to.
Comment by N — September 19, 2006 @ 9:18 pm
So wait - I am too young to know who this Kate is. Describe her miraculous mic powers. I feel empty only knowing the Mic man for this year and last.
Comment by Christine — September 21, 2006 @ 9:18 pm
Christine-
She once killed a mammoth by getting the crowd to sing “My Girl Wants to Party all the time” in perfect harmony with the power of a thousand giga-suns.
Clutch.
Comment by You Know it! — September 24, 2006 @ 11:02 am
You know, the team must be pretty good if all you can complain about is the mic-men.
As far as the Tennessee game, there’s a good time to keep your damn mouth shut, and that time is when you’re trailing by 35 points and looking awful in every way, shape and form in a hostile stadium full of 100,000+ crazed southerners.
Sitting up on Tightwad Hill, I have to concur the Mic Men aren’t paritcularly memorable, but, then again, I’m far more pleased by the team in front of me and the six-pack on my side.
LL
Comment by L.L. Taraval — September 26, 2006 @ 4:43 pm
I highly disagree re Tennessee. If you were there like we were, I would respect your opinon. But - we were sitting right next to the band, close to the field, and the mic men were in our view. Really now, they didn’t do much of anything, even before we were loosing badly. I don’t remember them doing anything except trying to lead a couple of cheers at the beginning. If the other team goes up, you try to get the crowd into it and perservere. It was only 14-0 at halftime and we barely remember them picking their asses off the field (field being a good distance away from the first row of the crowd).
And yes, there were over 100,000 hostile fans there, but they are genearally nice to people who travel to come to their games who aren’t from an SEC school. Most of them came up to us at the bar after and were apologizing that we had come all that way to see our team get spanked.
Plus, if you recall the 1-10 season with Chad as head Mic Man, he never quit and was always amusing.
Sorry, but standing on the sidelines with your arms crossed talking with the Dance Team is just unacceptable, esp when our crowd was still into it and the alumni had to lead the cheers.
Comment by N — September 27, 2006 @ 5:35 pm