Listen freshmen: You see that big piece of grass between the
Wooden Recreation Center and Drake Stadium? The one that is the
size of nine football fields or the Cerritos Auto Square? Yeah,
well for the past two years ““ my entire tenure at UCLA thus
far ““ it has been a big, stupid dirt pit.Â
Anyway, that field is there for you; it is where intramural
sports are to be played. Or at least it’s for sunbathing or
something.
The point is, this UCLA thing is pretty sweet. You have got to
take advantage of all that the university has to offer because
before you know it, bam! ““ you’ve got to make decisions
about floral arrangements and figure out what to do with your APR
and what a 401(k) is for. Trust me, I deal with those twice a day,
and they can be quite the headache.
Nobody gave me this information when I first arrived at UCLA,
and since you are spending at least a few days on campus for
Orientation this summer, you should get a least one piece of useful
information out of your visit here. So I’m going to give
all you incoming freshman some tips for a productive sports life at
UCLA.
Now this list only goes up to six, and you may be thinking,
“What the hell, lists like this go up to 10.” Well,
dudes, this is college. We don’t have to conform; we think
different. It’s like the new Radiohead album.
6. Join an intramural team. I actually haven’t done so.
But people swear by it. My girlfriend plays intramural soccer, and
she digs it. It’s a great way to meet people and not get fat
off that delicious dorm food. (As an aside, I should tell you that
the country fried steak in the DeNeve dining hall is delicious. I
swear.) I personally am too busy with my book club to join an IM
team, but you should try it.
5. Go see your Bruins play somewhere else. It’s weird man,
but you’ll be home in Palo Alto for your cousin’s
wedding and surprise ““ the UCLA football team will be playing
Stanford. Watching your Bruins clobber a bunch of yuppies and
being able to talk smack on their turf is worth a drive to any
godforsaken place outside of Los Angeles.
4. Don’t get too attached to a head coach ““ he may
not be employed for long under athletic director Dan Guerrero.
3. I used to play sports video games in my dorm room while
hitting the beer bong! Oh man, I love beer! Beer is basically what
defines my collegiate experience. They’ve got it at the
fountain machines in the Hedrick dining hall. I even wear a beer
helmet in class!
There’s nothing like light beer. I love it. I had a
kegerator in my dorm room. As a freshman I brewed beer in the
closet of my dorm room in Hedrick Hall. Have you seen “Old
School” or “Van Wilder”? Well that’s what
its like here. Literally. All the time.
Well, in reality, life at UCLA is like those movies with a dash
of “Das Boot.”
2. Go to the football games. People whine about having to drive
to Pasadena, but it is fun. When I showed up at the first game of
the season as a freshman and walked through that tunnel and saw the
vast sea of students I would be learning/living with, I lost all
control of my emotions as a wave of anxiety/fear swept through my
body and heart. It was fun.
1. If you see a football player at a local bar, be sure to run
away.