Stop what you are doing right now. Get up and leave class, even
if it’s right in the middle of the lecture (or if you are a
judge reading this in your courtroom, bang the gavel and say,
“Court is adjourned.”). Grab a sleeping bag. And a
pillow. Head over to Pauley Pavilion as quickly as possible,
because it’s time to pitch a tent.
Camping out for UCLA men’s basketball games is back. While
it doesn’t make sense, this is what I have deduced: Now that
the team seems to care, the fans do too. I know it’s weird,
but go with it.
“This is the same as it was from 1966 to 1975,” said
Jim Young, who is an usher for section 212-B in Pauley (He told me
to say that he used to usher sections 4-A and 5-C in the glory
days). “There is more noise and more people enjoying
themselves.”
Jim is right, more people are enjoying themselves (Jim also said
more students are trying to sneak into the reserve section, and he
must stop them), and that means it’s harder to get a decent
seat ““ thus the campouts.
For those who don’t know what I’m talkin’
about, basically students sleep outside Pauley for a chance to get
premier seats to the following day’s game. I’m told it
inspires camaraderie, and if you are lucky some players will stop
by, pity you, and give you free pizza. But, because the Bruins will
be facing the Trojans Wednesday night, some UCLA students have put
together something special.
The Sports Marketing Association at UCLA has organized special
campout festivities, which include a burger-eating contest between
five UCLA students and five USC students at Westwood Plaza from
8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. tonight. First prize will win $1,000 and
free Carl’s Jr. for a year. While free Carl’s Jr.
sounds like a punishment to me, I’m interested in
handicapping the contest.
Here’s the deal: Competitors will be eating the new
low-carb, half-pound Carl’s Jr. Six-Dollar Burger. This thing
is wrapped in lettuce, not a bun, and if I’ve lost 90 pounds
on the Atkins diet, so can you. The way I see it, this will be a
close competition. USC students love the Atkins diet, and UCLA
students, well, we love free food.
There will be two professional competitive eaters at the event:
Hungry Charles Hardy will captain the USC team, while Sonya Thomas
will lead the Bruins. The two could not be reached for comment
through the International Federation of Competitive Eating,
probably because they were too busy signing autographs and
endorsement contracts to talk to me.
After you watch a bunch of kids eating a bunch of bunches of
lettuce (“bunch” usage count for sentence: three), head
over to Pauley and camp out. There are a bunch (not again!) of
rules for signing out when you need to go to the bathroom and stuff
like that, but people there will explain the protocol. I say just
bring a bedpan.
Over 100 people slept out for the last home game against
Arizona, and by 6:30 a.m., more than 200 priority numbers had been
distributed for seats.
“I got 15 minutes of sleep that night. … I (was) running
on pure adrenaline,” camper-outer James Jackson said.
So for all that hard work, what do you get? A great seat. The
atmosphere has been electric inside Pauley the last few games. Even
the spirit squad has noticed, and they are perpetually excited.
During the Arizona game, I watched yell-crew member Andrew Green
sprint around the student section with a pizza in hand. He was
supposed to give the pizza to the best UCLA fan, and the euphoric
grin on his face made it clear ““ I had to talk to this guy
about his life-affirming pizza dash.
“It’s very exciting to hear people get so excited
(for the free pizza),” Green said. “It is tiring. You
run up and down.”
Green added that it is nice when fans cheer as loud for the team
as they do for the pizza. Oh wow, this ties into the beginning of
the column, when I said UCLA students like free food. Well,
here’s the kicker: There will be free Carl’s Jr.
burgers for the first 300 students at the campout tonight.
Seriously, leave class right now.
I just did.
E-mail Miller at dmiller@media.ucla.edu to talk about
Atkins.