Studying history is the key to understanding the present. And,
since I am a student of history (read: total dork) I’d like
to take a historical look at this week in the Pac-10. The UCLA
Bruins have totally quit on this season. Unimaginably, the team has
gone belly up, losing the respect of their fans and their
opponents. Rick Andersen, one of Arizona’s centers, was
shocked after the Wildcats demolished the Bruins. “We thought
they were going to play hard,” Andersen said. So, given that
the team is universally reviled, pitied, mocked and not respected,
all without ever putting up a fight, there can be only one
historical example that matches this debacle: those cheese-eating
surrender monkeys themselves, the French of World War II. And, as
we all should know by now, the word “hors
d’oeuvres” is French for “I give up!” Those
guys gave up Paris without firing a shot, and then had le cojones
to march behind American tanks as they “liberated”
their country. The Bruins, too, maintain a similar kind of
blasé attitude, apathetically shrugging their shoulders after
each loss. “Sacre bleu!”
Ңbull;Ӣbull;Ӣbull; Mighty Joe Shipp, on the other hand, is
dominating the college basketball scene. Cal’s super senior
was named Pac-10 player of the week for the second straight week.
I’m still waiting for the run to end, but Joe just keeps
proving me wrong time and again. Is there a historical comparison?
How about Ronald Reagan, who was implausibly elected twice simply
because the competition around him was non-existent. Everybody knew
that Ronnie Raygun had nothing going for him under the hood, and
yet the man got elected … twice! It must be one of
history’s mysteries, I suppose. Speaking of Cal, they face
USC in Berkeley on Thursday. This could be an exciting game, as the
Trojans stuck close with Arizona for a while and managed to beat
Arizona State in their last game.
Ңbull;Ӣbull;Ӣbull; Arizona State faces Arizona today. In any
other year this would be completely meaningless, but the Sunny
Delights have a real player in freshman Ike Diogu. Ike has made
more free throws than anybody else in the conference has even
attempted, an incredible feat. In fact, that’s so impressive,
I cannot find an appropriate word in the traditional English
lexicon to describe it. Maybe something like
“shaqalicious.” Hopefully, that conveys a better
understanding. An upstart army marching with a brilliant general
facing an established, even superior force: sounds like the Civil
War to me. The South was wrong, ideologically, but even the most
hardened Yankee respected General Robert E. Lee. Once, I stopped in
Virginia on my way up to Washington, D.C. Since I am a complete
nerd, I visited an old civil war battlefield. As I toured the
grounds, the park ranger-guy came up to me and, out of nowhere,
posed this question. “You know, right, that next to Jesus H.
Christ, Robert E. Lee is the greatest man to ever walk the face of
this earth?”
Ңbull;Ӣbull;Ӣbull; Not that anyone cares, but the Bruins
might actually win on Thursday. It seems that every year UCLA wins
in Palo Alto and Stanford wins in Westwood. Now that Casey Jacobsen
is gone, the Bruins might have a shot at sweeping the series this
year. (Haha, yeah.) The battles between these teams remind me a lot
of the Pelopenessian War. The Spartans reached Athens, conquered
it, and then had to vacate the city since the Athenians were busy
sacking Spartan capitals. “In the words of Socrates: I drank
WHAT?” If you have something nice to say about those crazy
Gauls, keep it to yourself. Otherwise, e-mail Colin Yuhl at
cyuhl@media.ucla.edu and let the bashing continue.