by Karnubawax
Before any of the political correctness, free speech and hippiedom and alternative lifestyles and all that... there was, is, and always will be, Cal Football. It's seems so incongruous that a hippie dressed up in reggae garb with huge dreadlocks will come up to you and ask "did Cal win today?" Cal Bear Football is in the blood of those who live here... and there's no escaping it... not even on drugs!
Cal ususally plays 5 or 6 home games a year - always on Saturday - usually about 1 PM or so. If you get the chance to see them - GO! You won't be sorry.
Cal plays in the absolutely gorgeous Memorial Stadium, and have been playing there for nearly 100 years! It holds 70,000 - small by today's standards - but it is so cozy and every seat is so close to the action. If you love stadiums and ballparks (geek!) then you absolutely HAVE to go! The best way I can describe it is that it gives me the same feeling I got from the piazza in Pisa where the leaning tower is... you almost feel like you're inside of a toy. The air is heavy with... I dunno... history I guess.
Bring food and water! Eats are available inside, of course, but they are VERY expensive and pretty lousy to boot. Seatbacks are available to rent for $5.
Cal tickets are pretty easy to get - good ones are not. But it really doesn't matter; even the end-zone seats are great because of the small size. In most cases you'll be able to walk right up to the gate on game day and get a ticket - for as little as $15!
The exceptions to this are USC, UCLA, and, of course, Stanford. You can usually get tickets to the first two up to within a week or two of the game. Stanford is another story. The Cal vs Stanford game is one of the hottest tickets in Northern California, especially if one of the teams is doing well.
Most Cal fans (and probably Stanford fans as well) buy season tickets just to be guaranteed a ticket to this one game! You can TRY getting tickets on the internet, but don't get your hopes up. This is one of the biggest and oldest rivalries in collegiate sports and passions run VERY deep! People take their families... and when the kids grow up they take their families... and so on. In an area known for its' transience, this is PURE tradition!
***UPDATE*** Cal has been doing great in recent years, so tickets are getting to be a little harder to come by. I'd check on Cal's website for advance tickets, though there are always scalpers around. Prices have gone up, too - end-zone seats are $25 and reserved seats $40 for your basic game, a little more for bigger games.
ANOTHER UPDATE: UC is currently trying to make Memorial Stadium earthquake safe, but it's running into lots of opposition from Berkeley residents (any good idea is bound to be unpopular here). There even talking about (God forbid) rebuilding in another location. But all of this is probably a few years away, so if you get a chance, go soon!
