I waited 10 months to make my triumphant return to the Rose Bowl and on Saturday I waited two more hours.
They were two very miserable hours.
After lining up for the Rooter Bus at 5:30 p.m. with a group of friends, it took until almost 8 p.m. for us to arrive at our seats on a beautiful Pasadena evening.
We only missed five minutes of game time during which the Bruins fell into an early deficit, but I think it’s fair to argue that anybody who gets in line two hours before the game deserves to make it by kickoff.
In total, we spent 75 minutes waiting to even board a bus – most of those at a complete standstill – in the hot sun without any sunscreen. Sure, the sunscreen may have been my fault, but the process as a whole was a complete mess Saturday afternoon.
By the time we got to the top of the hill, the people who would normally be scanning BruinCards were telling students to pull up the email confirmation on their phones. A dozen or so people were stuck at the front of the line, clearly unable to find the verification that none of us were told was necessary.
Emil Shallon, a third-year electrical engineering student and co-president of The Den Roar Core, said that the Rooter Bus issues are a concern.
“We always count on our die-hard fans to be out there at every game,” Shallon said. “But we did lose some casual fans.”
Shallon’s point is key: Mishaps like Saturday’s mess aren’t going to deter passionate fans, but will certainly scare off the average student who isn’t able to devote more time to what is already a seven-hour affair.
The Rooter Bus is run by UCLA Athletics, and I was directed to Associate Athletic Director Scott Mitchell when I began looking into who was in charge of the game day transportation. Mitchell attributed last weekend’s problems to move-in weekend.
“It was an outlier,” Mitchell said. “We had record student attendance last season and didn’t have any issues whatsoever, so it’s a one-day phenomena.”
Mitchell added that they normally fill six buses at a time, but that number was limited to just two last Saturday.
I used the Rooter Bus consistently last year without many hiccups and the annual bus pass is amazingly cheap, so I’m inclined to give the athletic department the benefit of the doubt, but Saturday should serve as a strong wake-up call for those in charge of the program.
UCLA knew the BYU game coincided with move-in weekend, yet organizers remained unprepared and used the circumstances as an excuse.
Without an on-campus stadium, UCLA can’t easily fill its home football stadium to the brim with crazed students. The athletic department should be making it as easy as possible for students to travel to Pasadena.
Mitchell said that he expects more students to attend the Arizona State game on Oct. 3, but insisted that the process will be much smoother. With only four home games remaining on the 2015 schedule – including the ASU matchup – UCLA Athletics needs to ensure that the process is fixed soon, or risk losing casual Bruin football fans who are so crucial in filling the Rose Bowl.