I’ll admit I was excited. I mean, there’s really only one way to react when your university announces that it’s open to the idea of hosting a massive orgy.
Before you rush to the Central Ticket Office to sign up, let me make it clear I’m talking about Monday’s announcement that UCLA would play host to the notoriously raunchy Olympic Village in Los Angeles’ bid for the Olympics.
Unless you’re an elite athlete, you won’t get a chance at the impending international intercourse festival, but there’s still plenty of reason for excitement for us mere fans: The role of Olympic Village offers an opportunity for the Bruins to ascend to the peak of college sports.
See, UCLA might have the most NCAA titles overall with 113, but don’t let that confuse you: Stanford is the preeminent athletic powerhouse.
Not only have the Cardinal trounced the Bruins on the gridiron throughout the Jim Mora era, pummeling the Bruins each of the past five years with a physically superior brand of football, but they’ve also gained a significant edge across the Olympic sports.
For 21 straight years, the Cardinal have won the Division I Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup, given to the program most successful across a list of 20 different sports. And UCLA’s lead in national championships is slipping. Stanford is just five behind, with 108, having produced the most since 1980 – 98 – and the most since 1990 – 75.
But here come the Olympics – maybe – and with them, a chance to turn things around.
If young athletes see that UCLA is good enough for Olympians, how could they not find it good enough for themselves?
The UCLA sports brand is already powerful enough to attract the attention of any recruit. The added exposure, though – the worldwide transmission of Westwood as an athletic ideal – can’t hurt.
“This place looks really fresh,” as LA 2024 chief executive Gene Sykes said.
Yes, Sykes is obviously going to put a positive spin on the accommodations in hopes of securing the Games. But he’s right, it does look fresh, and come 2024, that freshness may be on display for sports fans across the world.
That can only be a positive.
Consider the recruits of the late 2020s, who will visit campus with images of the UCLA dorms fresh in their memories, set to the regal soundtrack of NBC theme music and the voice of a 72-year-old Bob Costas.
Or consider the prospective NCAA athletes of the 2030s, who remember their childhood heroes eating and sleeping here as they charged through Olympic competition.
Lastly, consider the handful of hyper-athletic 17- and 18-year-olds who will visit UCLA in 2042 or 2043 and be told that this is where they were conceived by their pair of ex-Olympian parents.
Don’t you think they would commit on the spot?