Wednesday, January 8, 1997
COMMENTARY:
Put aside school loyalty and cheer for your favorite team, even
if it isn’t UCLAYou know what I noticed the other day? (Actually, I
noticed it a long time ago, but "you know what I noticed a long
time ago" just doesn’t have much of a ring to it.) A lot of people
around here wear UCLA jackets, sweatshirts, T-shirts, etc. UCLA
stuff is almost as popular as Calvin Klein.
You know something else? Ask anybody around here who their
favorite college basketball or football team is, and they will all
say UCLA. There are Bruin fans everywhere.
Why does everyone root for UCLA? I don’t need to ask people;
they volunteer their reasons whenever they see me doing anything
besides rooting for UCLA. The most common reason for rooting for
UCLA is "it’s your school, man."
Well, I guess people don’t really tell me their reasons. They
just say, "It’s your school, man." But I’m sure they have good
reasons. (I should probably be saying "you" instead of "they"
 which probably numbers in single digits  because the
audience here is probably mostly made up of UCLA fans. My
mistake.)
However, I know my reasons are good for not always rooting for
UCLA, and with that in mind, let me enumerate them (that means to
count them out  one of the few SAT words I remember).
Actually, there is only one reason I can really think of off the
top of my head. Hopefully quality will make up for quantity
here.
* * *
If you had to complete the sentence, "I’m proud to be a ," how
would you complete it?
Maybe you’re a member of the ecology club, and so you would put,
"member of the ecology club." Maybe you’re a native of Antarctica,
and you would put, "native of Antarctica." Answers would probably
include ethnic groups, religious groups, clubs you’re in,
"American," "Daily Bruin columnist," etc.
Anyway, I personally think people overdo this. Why emphasize our
differences? Why get most enthusiastic about being part of a group
that others are not part of?
See, I would fill it in with "human." No, that excludes animals.
And what about plants and algae  a professor just yesterday
was telling my class that "we owe tremendous gratitude to algae,"
because they give us oxygen. So I would fill in the sentence with,
"living organism."
And so that’s why I don’t have Bruin pride, or very much of it.
I have "living organism pride." Everything is worth rooting for. Go
plants. Go Tennessee Volunteers. Go banana slugs. Go bacteria. Go
San Francisco Giants.
Okay, it’s true, I have never rooted for any of those above
things before. But I would if the right situation came up. If a
banana slug was fighting its way to the top of a hill so it could
get in someone’s way so they would slip on it at the top, I would
root for it. If someone on my least favorite team, the Giants, made
a comeback from injury, or if the Giants tried to come back from 36
games down to win the NLWest, that would be such a good story that
I would root for them.
So if you like to root for another college, and anyone bothers
you about it, ask them, "where’s your living organism pride?"
And if you don’t have living organism pride, well, that’s a
problem. Every night before you go to sleep, repeat 10 times … "I
am proud to be a living organism." It’s a hell of a feeling.
Mark Dittmer is the Daily Bruin Sports Editor. God help us
all.
Mark Dittmer