Perhaps nowhere else in America is the color and pageantry of college football better captured on autumn Saturdays than at the University of California and Memorial Stadium, which was judged to have the best view of any college stadium in the country by Sports Illustrated. The rich history of the Golden Bears on the gridiron, now 118 years strong, has borne some of the most colorful and time-honored traditions in the sport today.

Blue and Gold
Official colors of the University of California were established in Berkeley in 1868. The colors were chosen by the University's founders, who were mostly Yale men who had come West. They selected gold as a color representing the "Golden State" of California. The blue was selected from Yale blue. Cal teams have donned the blue and gold since the beginning of intercollegiate athletic competition in 1882.

Golden Bears
In 1895, the University of California track & field team was the dominant power on the West Coast and decided to challenge several of the top teams in the Midwest and East on an eight-meet tour that is now credited by many historians as putting Cal athletics onto the national scene. As a symbol of the University, Regent Arthur Rodgers, class of 1872, commissioned a blue silk banner emblazoned with a golden grizzly bear, the symbol of the state of California. The banner was carried by the team on its successful tour, which saw them win five of the eight competitions. Cal athletic fans were so ecstatic over the team's performance that Professor Charles Mills Gayley was inspired to write the song, "The Golden Bear."

Cal's athletic teams have been known as the Golden Bears ever since.

Card Stunts
The Cal rooting section is credited with establishing one of the most time-honored traditions in college football -- performing card stunts at college football games. Cal began this activity for the 1910 "Big Game," a rugby match between California and Stanford. The original stunts performed that afternoon depicted the Stanford Axe and a big blue "C" formed on a white background.

The tradition is a crowd favorite at Memorial Stadium as several times each season Cal students perform as many as 10 different stunts, using more than 5,000 cards. The painstaking process of plotting the positions of the cards, which once took days to complete, is now aided by computers that add to the precision of the images produced in the card section.

The Axe
The Stanford Axe, the trophy awarded to the annual Big Game winner, actually made its debut on the eve of a baseball game between the rival universities of Cal and Stanford on April 13, 1899. On that afternoon at a pre-game rally, a group of Stanford students introduced the instrument to decapitate a straw man adorned in California blue and gold, much to the delight of the Indian faithful who chanted "Give 'em the axe" while the proceedings continued. The next day, Stanford rooters taunted their Cal counterparts by cutting pieces of blue and gold ribbon with the axe and by using it to chop at a designated piece of wood whenever the Indians made a good play.

Cal rallied for a stunning upset over Stanford, and the Golden Bear fans were so overcome with emotion that a group of Cal men wrested it away from the Stanford students and smuggled it across the bay via ferry, where it was placed in a safe at a Berkeley bank, to be removed once a year for the Axe Rally.

By 1933, each side decided the Axe would make an ideal Big Game trophy. It was mounted on a plaque that lists the scores of each game since 1933.

The Game
Saturday morning arrives and Cal fans come from across the country. Tailgaters line Strawberry Canyon and prepare to cheer the Golden Bears on to victory.

The field is beautiful in its symmetry. The new grass is heavenly green. Fans quickly fill the seats of the cavernous stadium. The sound of snare drums begins the staccato march of the California Marching Band as it enters the stadium. Everyone cheers its appearance.

Oski buzzes around the field, exhorting the fans. The band breaks out in the Cal fight song.

Suddenly the excitement raises to a fever pitch as the first of the players appears in the tunnel.