The Star's Bruce Pascoe goes behind the scenes in Berkeley:
BayCats represent
The sidewalk board outside the Freehouse gastropub in Berkeley read “Welcome Back Bears,” but that didn’t stop the BayCats, Arizona’s Bay area alumni group, from setting up shop squarely inside the courtyard area about two blocks from Cal’s Memorial Stadium.
There, BayCats president Stephanie Pang said about 50 or so UA alums and families showed up for an unofficial pregame gathering, creating an island of red in the middle of a largely blue- and yellow-clad crowd.
While UA fans were largely drowned out inside Memorial Stadium — in part because Saturday was both Homecoming and Parents Weekend at Cal — the BayCats have accounted for nearly half of the crowd at some recent UA basketball games at Cal and Stanford, where the home team is often not well supported.
“#McKaleBayArea is our hashtag,” Pang said.
Lute!
As he was finishing up his MBA at Arizona in 2012, Nick Bajema was hanging out with wife Tessa at Dirtbags. The couple began to talk about what they might someday name a son if they had one.
Since they had both earned undergraduate degrees from UA and were sports fans, one name naturally came up. They didn’t know Tessa was pregnant at the time, and the opportunity to use that name came up sooner than they thought.
So, two years later, outside an NCAA Tournament game in San Diego, a toddler named Lute Bajema found himself in the arms of his namesake, legendary former UA basketball coach Lute Olson.
Now 9, Lute Bajema showed up Saturday with his parents and 6-year-old sister, Charley, at the BayCats’ gathering at the Freehouse.
Little Lute was decked out with a UA jersey and eye black with the block A logo, his father, Nick, fittingly wore a UA hat ... and a Dirtbags T-shirt.
He said it
“We took some pictures and it was good to see him over there giving signals and stuff. Cool experience to be on the same field as your brother. It’s a little different — we were always on the same team growing up — but was good to see him across the field.”
— Cal quarterback Jack Plummer, on seeing his brother Will, a reserve UA quarterback, at Saturday’s game.
Partying parents
Cal’s campus was festive, in part because it was both Homecoming and Parents’ Weekend.
Parents were seen hanging out at several Greek houses, with some offered a special welcome at Sigma Alpha Epsilon.
“Moms Drink for Free,” a Sigma Alpha Epsilon banner read, in blue and gold lettering. “Parents weekend 2022.”
Cheap vs. free
While resale tickets were selling for as low as $25 at gametime Saturday, about 60 fans took advantage of the historically free option for watching Cal football.
That was, of course, sitting among the dirt and Eucalyptus trees of Tightwad Hill, the unofficial name of Charter Hill, which rises above the east side of Memorial Stadium.
Saturday’s collection of fans on the Hill included one guy with an Oakland A’s hat, one with a Giants cap, one in a green uniform and boots, several with yellow Cal shirts and two with no shirts at all. Plus a stuffed bear that was lodged into a tree.
At one point, two UA fans approached the Hill gang, chatted for a while, and then they kept going.
Throwing shade at Cal’s card stunt
Before Saturday’s game, Cal papered the student section with blue and yellow poster board squares that together spelled out the word HOMECOMING.
Quickly, the words became unreadable. Many fans picked up the squares and used them as shields against the sun, while early in the second half, even with a game still then very much in doubt, the section was over half-empty.
Crypto Bears
Technically, the turf at Memorial Stadium is now known as FTX Field at Memorial Stadium, paying homage to the Bahamian-based cryptocurrency trading platform that sponsors the place.
The FTX logo was painted between the 20- and 30-yard lines, while the stadium’s digital scoreboard occasionally ran a banner instructing fans to “Invest in Crypto Your Way.”
‘The Play’ broadcaster stepping down
Hall of Fame broadcaster Joe Starkey took in his final regular-season Cal-Arizona game Saturday, having announced this would be his final of 48 seasons calling Bears football.
Starkey, 81, was best known for his call of “The Play,” when Cal beat Stanford in 1982 thanks t an improbable, lateral-filled kickoff return, when Cal’s Kevin Moen finished it by plowing through 15 members of the Stanford band en route to the end zone.
“The band is out on the field!! He’s gonna go into the end zone!!!” Starkey said on his famous call, as his voice became hoarse. “He got into the endzone!! Will it count? The Bears have scored but the bands are out on the field. There were flags all over the place. We don’t know who won the game. …
“…Everybody is milling around. AND THE BEARS!!! THE BEARS HAVE WON!!! THE BEARS HAVE WON!!! Oh my God, the most amazing, sensational, traumatic, heart rending... exciting thrilling finish in the history of college football! California has won! The big game over Stanford. Oh, excuse me for my voice but I have never seen anything like it in the any game in my life!”
Plenty of room
While more fans clustered in the shady south side of Memorial Stadium on a warm and sunny afternoon, there were still empties everywhere. In a stadium with a 63,000-seat capacity, Cal announced a crowd of 37,216 on Saturday.
That was a bigger crowd than Cal’s home opener against UC Davis (34,984) but less than its Sept. 10 win over UNLV (38,180).
The big numbers
7: Penalties against Arizona, for a total of 61 yards, after the Wildcats committed just one penalty for 15 yards last week against North Dakota State.
274: Rushing yards by Cal’s Jaydn Ott, who made touchdown runs of 73 and 72 yards.
244: More yards gained by Cal on Saturday (599) than Arizona’s first three opponents did on average.
— Bruce Pascoe
