Wearing the blue and gold, not so proudly

Saturday night a group of us met up to watch the two Final Four games. Of the eight of us, one had gone to UCLA, two had gone to UNC, and one had gone to Kansas, so we'd figured that someone would go home happy Saturday night. Alas, that wasn't me.

It's been a long time since I was a student at UCLA - well over a decade - a fact that came home to me when I was getting ready to show my Bruin pride Saturday and realized that the only Bruin paraphernalia that I still owned was a sweatshirt. So I wore the one baby blue t-shirt in my wardrobe - a Red Bull shirt I got in Thailand last summer with writing in Thai - and told everyone it was in honor of UCLA's Asian studies department.*

Watching the game was fun, but I'm glad I didn't cough up the money to see the games in-person. I kind of felt like I should, since how often will I be living in the city where the Final Four game is being held when UCLA makes it? Then I decided that I could do a lot more with the $300/ticket that was being asked of alumni...and that was the starting price.

Instead, we got to sit in an uncrowded sports bar, where the beer was cold and the cheese was melted, and have unrivaled views of the big screen TV and unfettered access to the women's bathroom. Call me an old fogey but that's how I'd rather see a game anyways.

* Back in my day, we didn't have an Asian studies department. In fact, they had to hold a hunger strike just to get a Chicano studies department. Kids today don't know how good they have it...