For dedicated Midwesterners, fandom is a piece of cake

Think twice about cheering for the return of the NFL to Los
Angeles.

Besides the thought of having a team named the L.A. Vikings
““ or even worse, the L.A. Chargers ““ the arrival of
another team will spread a city full of sports fans with wavering
loyalties even thinner.

I’m not saying this city doesn’t have devoted fans,
but when one wants to cheer, there are so many choices in Southern
California. It’s hard to find a fan who doesn’t have to
split his or her time between the teams that call SoCal home.

The fervor of fans elsewhere ““ namely, places such as the
Midwest ““ takes the cake, so to speak.

The pride and devotion Midwestern fans show for their teams
rivals some parent-child relationships. When my mother returned to
her hometown in Iowa last fall for the Iowa-Iowa State rivalry
game, an unexpected five-point loss for the Hawkeyes made her
composure on the phone sound more like she was visiting a funeral
rather than a reunion.

As for my grandfather, it might as well have been a national
holiday when the Packers played. It’s got to take a lot of
guts to wear a block of cheese on your head or brave sub-zero
temperatures to see your boys play ball. I guess you could say he
was a gutsy guy.

But despite the claims from the sophisticated L.A. crew that
volunteering to shovel snow off your team’s home field is
simply preposterous and lacking in any common sense, Midwestern
fans are using their passions for a cause.

Take note, Bruin boosters.

A small group of Ohio State fans started a competition in 1991
to pay homage to their home field, nicknamed the Horseshoe, that
surpasses the call of fan duty.

I would like to see this kind of absurd devotion even remotely
challenged by collegiate football fans in our neck of the
woods.

They build a cake modeled after the stadium.

It all started during a tailgate party, probably over a 12-pack
or so of Busch, when one Buckeye claimed such a feat couldn’t
be done. Apparently Ohio (not Missouri) should have been nicknamed
the “Show-Me State” because the challenge was on.

The soon-to-be-assembled “Cake Crew” (yes there is
such a group, but acceptance rates into the prestigious club are
quite low) fervently took the dare and created the annual Ohio
State Stadium Cake, now in its 12th year. But this is not your
average Betty Crocker two-tier chocolate variety with some red and
white sprinkles on top.

This is a construction project unto itself: last fall, local
businesses donated 84 cake mixes, 252 eggs, 1.5 gallons of
vegetable oil, 126 pounds of powdered sugar, 21 pounds of
shortening, 1.5 gallons of milk and 24 ounces of vanilla extract
for a project that took 174 hours to create. The replica is
complete with fans in the bleachers, luxury boxes with their
occupants, players, a scoreboard and every structural aspect found
on the building itself.

Call them crazy, but there’s a point to the Cake
Crew’s endeavors: last fall, over $9,037 was raised by
corporate donations and by selling slices of the masterpiece, all
of which are donated to the Stadium Cake Scholarship fund at Ohio
State.

Imagine being able to say your education was financed by the
sale of football fans’ confectionary imagination.

Regardless of whether or not Los Angeles adds another team to
its roster, fans (especially those of the Bruin variety) should
take a look around the country before claiming hard-core
status.

Show me a cake and then I’ll believe you.

Newman wants to start the Rose Bowl Cake Club. E-mail her at
enewman@media.ucla.edu for an application.

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