Twelve Days of Pac-12: California

Actually, here is a nice bit from a beautiful Sports Illustrated article about Jill Costello, the 21-year-old Cal women’s crew coxswain who died of lung cancer last year a couple of weeks after leading Cal to a second place finish in the national championships:

The support was only beginning. . . . Letters and e-mails poured in from rowers at Princeton, Stanford and Yale. Rivalries evaporated on the spot. The Stanford coach contacted Jill and said, “Whatever you need, just let me know.” Her response: Help her get in touch with this one oncologist at Stanford. Within a week the president of the university had assigned his assistant to Jill. Give her whatever access she needs, he said. . . . Just as she had directed her boat, Jill now drove her treatment. She spent hours researching drugs. She e-mailed two top oncologists at UC San Francisco so often and struck up such a relationship with them that she began her messages, “Hi, boys!” With Heather Wakelee, the Stanford oncologist, she exchanged texts and took particular glee in pointing out whenever a Cardinal team lost.

There is no fighting in the stands between fans.

Must not have attended the 1992 Big Game.

/er, Cal fans started it, but yes, there have been fights.

// actually the players started it. we just rushed the field.

That is one thing I’ve always liked about the Cal-Stanford rivalry. There isn’t a lot of vitriolic animosity here. Its a fun rivalry and people certainly get into it, but nobody is going to poison anybody’s trees (though my fraternity brothers stole your tree mascot like 13 years ago).

I have a lot of respect for Stanford and although I root very strongly for it to fail in a variety of sports, I also root for it very strongly to fail in a variety of non-sports fields, also! Like when the Supreme Court ruled against it the other week. GO BEARS!

I’m a Cal alumnus as well, and I agree the the rivalry, while very real is not one of mutual hatred. Of course for me it’s a little different, since my Mom owed her life to the Stanford Medical Center, where she received the first of four open-heart surgeries in 1969, when it was very cutting edge.
Thanks Oscar for this post.

and Cal logos infiltrate the site? Just kidding. I’m really looking forward to this series, and thanks to all the Cal fans for dropping by. Good luck against the Hoos.

I think we need to assign each school a ‘12 days of X-mas’ gift. Hopefully we don’t get stuck with those useless leapin’ lords.

There is no fighting in the stands between fans. There are no vitriolic Letters to the Editor about either school in the San Francisco Chronicle.

I Pringled at this. Certainly your central point of this being an overall amicable rivalry is correct. But as always, the exceptions prove the point. Others have noted some of the more memorable incidents, but on the whole, yes, this is much more a Harvard - Yale thing than, say, a Ucla - USC thing.