From: behzad@mdd.comm.mot.com (Behzad Khamneian)
Subject: Re: A Cal fan who went to Seattle- you know the story... :-(
Organization: Motorola, Mobile Data Division - Seattle, WA
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 00:07:24 GMT


Doug Fierro writes:

>  The only blemish in the trip is that we lost to the Huskies.  Typical Cal
>loss- they make stupid mistakes that good teams can take advantage of.  I
>can't even remember the last time I saw a muffed kick-off in the end zone-
>college or pro- but leave it to the Bears to put themselves in a hole against
>the number 1 team in the country.  You can't make mistakes like that and expect
>to win against the Huskies in their own stadium.

>  We flew in to Seattle Friday; the weather for the whole weekend was
>excellent- no rain or fog at all!  Seattle is a very beautiful city.  You
>Stanford fans should make the trip up when you play Washington.  It's a lot
>like the Bay Area.  We flew over the Washington stadium on final approach

  I don't mean to be too picky, but it is Husky Stadium.

>to the Seattle airport, which is about a 15 minute drive south of the campus.
>Driving to the hotel that afternoon, we realized that no one speeds in
>Washington.  What's the deal?  I guess I'm used to California drivers.

  I know..   Almost all drivers up here suck.  They are either sleeping or
aren't aware of other drivers when they drive.  There are exceptions though,
like myself.  Whenenver I go to southern California, I give them a run for
their money.  But seriously, people up here drive too slow.  They don't
even move over to the right lane if you are zeroing in on their tails in
a hurry..  *sigh*

>We ate and hung out Friday afternoon at a place called Steamers on Alaskan

  Steamers has good salmon!!!!  :)

>Way, which is right on the water.  Since it was such a gorgeous day, we 
>ate and drank outside- right next to the ferries that take people over to
>Vancouver B.C.  Great seafood and an excellent view of Peugot Sound, which 
>is the bay up there.   
>That town eats and breathes purple- I mean who else are they gonna cheer for 
>in Seattle- the Seahawks? :-)  The Husky purple and Gold permates everything 

  No kidding!!!  You got a point there..  The Seahawks downright SUCK!!  I
hope they go 1-15 just to put all those "get rid of Krieg/Knox" blowhards.

>up there, from the campus to downtown Seattle.  Little kids, big kids, old
>ladies, restaurants, stores, hotels, you name it.  A husky fan is to be found
>on every corner.  The fans, however, were surprisingly friendly and calm for 
>a city that sports the number 1 college football team.  We weren't sure if 
>they were pleasant to us because they did not view Cal as a threat, or if the 

  People up here are nice.  Except that some frat boys were rude to some 
Nebraska fans.  But, we did party with the Nebraska fans in the parking
lot.
  I am not sure if we could give Miami fans the same treatment, but I am sure
we could behave ourselves with a lot of them in town (providing that their
fans make the trip in '98).
  We take our football seriously up here, expecially the Huskies.

>people up there are just plain nice.  I would hate to see the day that the 
>Huskies actually lose a game at home- it would probably devastate the whole 
>city.  Prince would love Seattle- purple everywhere!

  The town would be in mourning.

>  That night, we headed over to campus to drink.  The campus area was pretty
>boring by college standards- we hit a few bars on 42nd street I believe and

  True!!  Unless you are in the Greek system, hanging around the U-District
is kinda boring.  You would have had a better time on Broadway.  More lively
and more interesting people and shops too.

>a place on University Way.  A lot of seedy bars around there- if you like
>topless dancers Seattle is your town.  And if you like drinking beer too-
>there are three breweries in the Seattle area- Ranier, Red Hook, and Olympian.

  Rainier!!!!  well...  Ballard Bitter is a good local beer too...

>I guess only Milwaukee can rival the town when it comes to beer.  I went

  Portland would be a good rival town too (microbrewery-wise speaking of
course).

>to see my greek house up on campus there and they said that Fridays are pretty
>much dead around campus.  The few houses I saw were huge and amazing- a real
>fraternity row.  They were actually amazed we made the trip up there.  I
>can't say there were a whole lot of Cal people in Seattle that weekend.  Seems
>like we were all on the same plane :-)

>  We got up for game day and headed over to the stadium, which is positioned
>perfectly among the ocean bay and the campus.  The walk through the main campus
>to the stadium was pleasant as well.  Some buildings reminded me of walking

  Actually, the stadium's east end is open and you can see Lake Washington
and Portage Bay (where people "watergate" with their boats :)!!  From the
student section, you can even see Mt. Rainier.

>through the Cal campus.  The whole campus is beautiful, clean, and rather
>quiet.  The stadium is pretty ominious and it got very loud during the game-

  It was as loud, if not louder for the Nebraska game.  My ears almost couldn't
take it in the student section...  I feel sorry for the players on the field-
They get the sound from all 72000+ at hand.

>especially when Chapman muffed the ball in his own endzone.  Gilbertson was
>smart in taking the crowd out of the game in the first half- the fans were
>almost lethargic up until the tie at halftime when it was 7-7.  When they
>get into it, the sound is distracting to say the least for the opposing team.
>The Cal section seemed so small.  It wasn't too hard to find reasonably-

  I was surprised that the Cal section was so small.  We had more Wisconsin/
Nebraska/USC/UCLA fans than Cal fans.  Strange...

>priced scalped tickets.  Unfortunately our seats were surrounded by Husky
>fans, but we weren't near the student section so we weren't harassed.  In
>fact no one rubbed the loss in at all.  It's almost sickening to be so
>patronizing.  The only way it seemed these people would slander us in any
>way was if Cal won.  But the better team one that day.  I don't think they

  If Cal had won, people would have been too devastated to say anything...
I was there when UCLA handed it to us two years ago and I haven't seen such
a quiet crowd after a game!!!!  Everyone was hanging their heads, almost 
with a certain degree of embarrassment.

>are 19 points better than us, but they are better.  When their passing game
>was shut down they made the necessary adjustments.  Their special teams
>made the big plays.  Cal didn't make the big plays (Jones's leap for the 
>pass at the end of the second half would have put Cal up 14-7. I was sitting
>right there near the endzone and he should have caught that pass.); instead
>the Bears made the big mistakes.  You can play sloppy against a team like

  *whew*  That was a close one!!!!  The play was right in front of us and
for a split second he had the ball!!!!

>Kansas, but not the Huskies and expect to win.  By the way, Lincoln Kennedy
>is larger than life- I have never seen such a tremendous individual.  Wait
>until this guy gets to the NFL!  (He's a Washington O-lineman (tackle?) I
>believe)

  I see him around the campus...  Yes!!  he is BIG!!  He broke a local 
sausage joint's (Schultzy's) competition record by  having 11 1/4-pound 
sausages in less than one hour...  In reply to a question as how he 
accomplished this, Kennedy said, "I like to eat!!"  But seriously, he is very 
skilled, quick, and LARGE...  We are gonna miss him next year.

>  So that night we went to drown our sorrows at the Red Hook brewery.  You
>had to be proud that night to be sporting Cal clothing, but what the hell.
>We ate dinner earlier at a great restaurant (Dukes) on the water and caught 
>the Braves/Pirates game.  Eating dinner on the waterfront at night with all 
>the boats was great- just making the trip was worthwhile, even if we lost.
>The people we talked to there again were very polite and went out of their
>way to make us feel comfortable there.  Not one yahoo gave us a hard time
>being Bear fans.  From there we went to Pioneer Square, which is the area
>you want to be in if you want to do some serious partying/drinking in 
>Seattle.  That place was great- live bands, cool bars, cute women :-)

  Red Hook Brewery, Duke's, Pioneer Square...  Seems like you picked the
best places in town...  :)  Glad you enjoyed it.

>That was our last night there.  In the morning on the way to the airport
>we went up in the Space Needle and got the birds-eye view of the city
>before we departed.  You can see everything from up there- the Washington
>campus, the King Dome, Mount Rainer, etc.  It is great town to visit.
>The needle was built for the world's fair in 1962.

>  So you future teams that have to play the Huskies- make the trip up,
>enjoy the town for the weekend, and have a good attitude before you walk
>into the stadium.  If your team does not silence the crowd early, it will
>be hard to try and come back from behind in the second half.  I would be
>impressed with any team that can go in there and walk out with a win against
>the Huskies.  It looks like Washington will be heading to Pasadena again
>this year, but we'll just have to wait and see.

  Yeah!!  Don't be shy and look up some of us Husky.net.woofers for drinks
before or/and after the game.  

>  Doug
>-- 

  I'm glad you enjoyed the town.  It is much quietter than other West Coast
towns, but the atmosphere is friendly.  

>                                                     Doug Fierro
>                                      |\             UTS System Software
>  O                         __________|_\______      CASE tools development
>  \_.______________________| * * * * * * * * */      fierro@uts.amdahl.com
> __\____                   |=================/       (408)746-7102
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With regards,

-Behzad

*only if we could get these drivers to step on the accelerator a little bit*


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