It’s not like Los Angeles is averse to throwing its conquering sports heroes a parade. We’ve had three in the last four years alone, courtesy of the Dodgers and Rams. The Kings had two in the space of three years the decade before. The Lakers were good for a whole bunch of them before that while the others were well off that mark.
But somehow, for all the success that UCLA has had in basketball, especially during the John Wooden era, we had not evolved enough as a society to be either celebratory or opportunistic enough to do that on the same level. The last time the men won it all in 1995 we got nothing but chaos, as no less than three DAILY BRUIN undergraduates–Julie Ann Silva, Alisa Ulferts and Phillip Carter–chronicled, we got nothing but this:
Mass mayhem erupted in Westwood Village Monday night when
thousands of students stormed the village to celebrate UCLA’s first
NCAA title win in 20 years…Hundreds of students ran chanting, drove cars honking and formed
a sea of roaring fans as they streamed out onto the streets…hundreds of riot police from the Los Angeles Police
Department tried to impose order on the crowd…LAPD officials confirmed 15 arrests for charges including
assaults on police officers and drunken behavior. More than 20
persons were treated at UCLA Medical Center Emergency Room forminor
injuries and seven LAPD officers also sustained injuries in Monday
night’s melee.
Maybe that’s why as of this writing the placeholder page authored by MARCA’s Caliope Smith is notoriously devoid of any details for anything that will honor the accomplishments of this year’s women Bruins, which culminated yesterday afternoon with as emphatic a victory as anything the boys ever delivered. Per CNN’s Jacob Lev:
UCLA put on a masterclass performance to down South Carolina 79-51 in the women’s national championship on Sunday at the Mortgage Matchup Center in Phoenix. The win secured the Bruins their first-ever women’s title in program history.
Despite star center Lauren Betts spending some time on the bench, dealing with what she described as something being stuck in her throat, UCLA was able to weather the storm with defense…They held the Gamecocks to a 26% shooting percentage from the field through the first two quarters, including 1 for 8 from three-point range and took a 13-point lead into halftime…The Bruins didn’t take their foot of the gas to start the third quarter, increasing the lead to 22, the largest deficit SC has faced all season…UCLA outscored South Carolina by 16 points in the third quarter, the largest scoring margin of any quarter in women’s title-game history, according the ESPN broadcast.
Calling that a win would be an understatement. So would calling it inspiring.
And hey, lookie here. There was a watch party in the venerable Pauley Pavilion that put on display a far better face for this generation of students and fans than the one before them showed back in the ’90s.
There are some of you who might try and play the card that these are just college students. On paper, yes, but in the NIL era, that argument gets tossed pretty significantly. And sadly, there might be some of you that could play the card that these are just girls. I won’t even engage those of you who would even attempt to espouse that.
What we saw yesterday was as dominant and conclusive a championship game result as anything any team, pro or college, has ever brought to this city. It capped off a 37-1 season that saw the Bruins avenge their only loss of the season at the hands of Texas with a Friday night semifinal victory that showcased equally stifling defense.
Off that result alone I’d contend that the city should have already had plans in place to do something to commemorate this team. Plenty of cities run by someone like Karen Bass, especially in an election year, would have already put such a carrot out there as inspiration. I’m actually stunned that such an announcement didn’t drop yesterday.
And please, forget the fact that it’s a holiday. It’s not like politicians aren’t otherwise putting far less positive thoughts out on social media–and at least in this case the use of an f-bomb as an adjective might have been both welcome and apropos. Lately, the city apparently loves to have gatherings to stick a finger in the eyehole of someone otherwise inclined to do that. A celebration of a team lead by someone the likes of Betts would kill several birds with one stone.
I’d offer that you refresh this page if you happen to be reading this after sunrise this morning. I’m really hoping Ms. Smith gets to fill in the blanks in the placeholder fields she’s created. The Bruins deserve it. The city of Los Angeles deserves it. Women deserve it.
Courage…