BERKELEY — Going their separate ways in the college sports landscape hasn’t eased any tensions between Cal and sister school UCLA.
All one had to do to feel the lingering animosity Saturday was stroll down Piedmont Avenue, just a Hail Mary away from the Golden Bears’ beloved Memorial Stadium.
The signs hanging from the fraternity and sorority houses said it all.
“WTF is a Bruin” read one.
“F–k U(CLA)” read another.
“Taking a No. 2,” stated a third, with UCLA written inside a steaming pile of poop.
Yep, it’s fair to say that the rivalry is alive and well.
The Bruins may have left the Golden Bears behind in the Pac-12 on their way to the Big Ten, forcing Cal to join the Atlantic Coast Conference, but they will always be that little school down south to students from the school that started the University of California system.
“You know, they thought they could run from us by leaving the Pac-12,” Cal senior Zoe Eastham said, “but here we are, so we want blood today.”
The 95th meeting between Cal and the school once known as the “Southern Branch” was the renewal of a rivalry and a new beginning. It was the debut for UCLA coach Bob Chesney and Cal counterpart Tosh Lupoi at their respective schools, as well as a nonconference game between teams that had not met since 2023.
“You know what, UCLA screwed us a couple of years ago,” Cal student Andre Risz said, “so this is our get-back — we are going to kill UCLA today. We’ll show them who No. 2 is.”
Among other things, the schools have long jockeyed for the title of best public university in the United States, with various publications crowning either school in any given year. While U.S. News & World Report listed Cal above UCLA in its most recent rankings, the education research platform Niche crowned the Bruins as No. 1.
“I think it’s pretty clear who No. 2 is,” Risz said. “They’re our little brother, we created them, they know that, they’re just sad about it.”
The fraternity brothers of Acacia decided to put a playful spin on the rivalry, holding a “Dunk A Bruin” fundraiser for Shriners Children’s Hospital. Two tosses at a target went for $5 to possibly send a willing UCLA fan plunging into a water tank.
What fate might one meet walking around in Bruins attire?
One UCLA student in a Troy Aikman jersey bravely mingled with Cal counterparts at the Kappa Alpha fraternity, saying no one was giving him a hard time.
“I mean, I’ve just been being friendly, trying to make friends,” said Chase, who declined to give his last name after driving up from LA with a group of friends. “It’s a friendly rivalry, you know?”
What about all those anti-UCLA signs?
“Yeah, you put it up out front,” Chase said, “but no hard feelings, you know?”
Well, maybe some. The sisters of Delta Gamma made shirts reading “fucla” in Cal Blue-and-Gold.
Some Cal students got a kick out of “Calimony” — those $10 million annual payments from UCLA to Cal for abandoning the Pac-12, as ordered by the University of California Regents.
“Hey, free money to demolish them?” Paul Nguyen said after being informed of the arrangement. “We’re about to obliterate them. I love it.”
At the house she shares with a group of fellow Cal seniors a few blocks from Memorial Stadium, Eastham and her friends draped a “Fucla” sign above the stoop.
“It’s not so much a dislike for them,” Eastham explained of her feelings, “but it’s a pride in our school — UC Berkeley, No. 1 public university in the world and Bruins, eat s–t today.”
And with that, her friends broke into cheers over a rivalry sentiment universally shared.
