I have criticized the Bee for its decline in coverage of local college sports, so should acknowledge this morning that the Bee’s website ran AP articles on both the UCD and CSUS games, and that the print edition ran an article on the Davis game, attributed to “Bee Sports Staff.”
My father graduated from a Big Ten school. I have sat with him on snow covered bleachers and listened as he told fans who were flocking out of the stadium where the result was long since decided and the thermometer was approaching zero that the game's not over yet. Flash forward some years and he has moved to the Bay Area and adopted Cal as his college team of convenience. He left ONE game early...right after John Elway marched Stanford down field for a go ahead score. He left to move the family car for a post game tailgate. As he walked to the car he heard the crowd cheer...seems the Bears had taken the kick-off and proceeded to lateral ...well you know.
That was going to be next, but I couldn't get past the "Done" thread where one writer flat out abandons all hope and gives up on the the team forever and in perpetuity and until the end of days. In the dark times with the basketball team losing to a D-III art academy and the "always punt on fourth down" football team I never entertained the idea of flushing it all away. I swore a lot, but never swore it off.
I also like that the reserves weren't pulled the minute the waves started crashing over the side of the boat. Let them stay in, try to deal with it themselves.....hard lesson but valuable experience. One of the reasons for the streak way, way back, was that reserves got a lot of playing time and were ready when their time came to start. Sometimes you trip and fall before you learn to walk.
Hopefully the reserves got some experience that they can turn into a positive lesson. I doubt that UNC's covering the spread put a real crimp in the Vegas books.
A couple of things I do miss about the Midwest. My California born and raised wife and I were back there about this time of year ten years ago. She was in awe of fall colors and that was just driving along the Interstate near Chicago. Imagine driving through parts of Minnesota or Wisconsin, or along the Mississippi River between Iowa and Illinois in October and November. I don't miss humid summers, or sub-zero winters, but I would like to wake up to snow on Christmas morning. It can melt by the 26th, but that one morning a year...
Back to the Bee and recent coverage....they couldn't send a reporter a couple of miles to cover a Sac State vs Cal Poly game, but sent a reporter to a strip club in Rancho Cordova to cover an appearance by an aging porn star who is reviving her otherwise moribund career by telling her tale of bedding the groper-in-chief, ...but I digress.
"Bossy Cow Cow" should be a footnote, and a small one at that, in Aggie lore. It was a derivation of the mother campus' "Oski Wow Wow." I didn't mind other bovine images such as graphics, etc. Really liked the antique traction engine at Toomey. Then again I was born in the Midwest and probably lack the cultural upbringing of today's student body....
Years ago I actually wrote a letter to Sports Illustrated after they referred to us as the Mustangs. I received a nice written reply pointing out that there was some sort of style manual that listed the team as the Mustangs. As I recall in the 80s or 90s the administration was making an effort to remove the agricultural image in any shape or form. Pushing the name Mustangs, trying to get rid of horse and especially cow images....
A couple of notes on the Bee's declining coverage, or what passes therefor:
1. The game was at Sac, within a few miles of the Bee's office, yet the Bee purchases an AP account of the game.
2. This was on the website. Nothing in the print edition. (I have not checked the print/pdf "Extra" section yet.)
3. The article refers to Poly as the "Aggies."
4. Nothing on the website or the print edtion about the UCD game.
On a serious note, I have no reason to doubt that this is in fact from the school. Wish I did. With the changing fonts, random capitalization, grammatical errors, scripted "signature"....it reminds me more of the letters I get inviting me to a "free" meal where I can learn about how I will benefit by buying reverse mortgages, time-shares or annuities.
I think this is fake news planted by a foreign government's hacking operations to bring discredit to UCD and its athletic program. Elections are one thing, but this is Aggie football, baby!
UC Davis 44, Idaho 21
Montana 41, Sac 34
Eastern Washington 70, Cal Poly 17
Idaho State 25, North Dakota 21
Montana State 43, Portland State 23
Northern Arizona 31, Southern Utah 23
Weber State 45, Northern Colorado 28