Bears, Star Wars and Trail Mix
By: Casey Anderson, Posted 4 October 2002

I can’t recall the last time the Cal Bears beat the Huskies.  It’s not that I’m suffering from memory loss, it’s just that the last loss to the Bears happened on November 6^th, 1976, exactly two months after I was born, so you’ll have to excuse me if I can’t remember the game too well.

That being said, it seems as though the Cal Bears scratch and claw at the Dawgs until the bitter end of every game they play, heedless of their perennial Pac-10 doormat status.

Take last year’s game for example.  It nearly caused me to upchuck two energy bars and a half-pound of trail mix.  I was hiking Mount Si with a few friends while listening to the game fade in and out on an old Walkman.  Each time Cal scored, I bellowed and cussed into the trees.  The entire Snoqualmie Valley echoed with that my curses of the Bears.  Other hikers probably thought that some poor soul was being viciously mauled by grizzly.

However, like the previous eighteen meetings between the Bears and Dawgs, the Huskies eked out the victory, 31-28, saving my trail mix in the process.

In 1991, the Huskies found themselves tied with the Cal Bears, 17-17, at the end of the third quarter.  After a fourth quarter Husky touchdown, the Bears, then ranked #7 in the nation, marched down field on the final drive of the game.  The last play of the game was a pass into the Washington endzone, broken up by Husky defensive back Walter Bailey.

This Saturday, the Cal Bears come in with feisty attitudes and a chip on their bowl-ineligible shoulders.  The Dawgs are looking to beat the Husky home winning streak record of 17 straight wins, and, in doing so, hand Cal their 20^th straight loss to the purple and gold.  Cal is lead by a new coach, former Oregon offensive coordinator Jeff Tedford.  Tedford’s Bears may have lost to WSU last week, but it was only a few weeks ago that they put an ol’ fashioned whuppin’ on the high-powered Michigan State Spartans.  In the meantime, the Huskies have spent the last three weeks bullying the redheaded stepchildren of the NCAA. 

As Han Solo so eloquently said after flying the Millennium Falcon into the belly of an asteroid-sized monster, “I have a bad feeling about this.”  I’m worried that the Husky’s home winning streak, the X-Duck coach, the ridiculous 26-year Bear draught, and the weak competition of past month all add up to bad Husky karma.

But I have a simple solution.  The Washington Huskies must come out with the guns blazing.  Give the Bears no hope from the get-go.  The best defense is, indeed, a good offense.  The stars just might be aligned for a letdown this weekend, and the only way to insure that it doesn’t happen is to stop it before it starts.

If the Huskies don’t come out of the gate running this weekend, it could be a long day.  This first conference game is an opportunity for the Dawgs to be like the Death Star and show that they are indeed the ultimate power in the universe.  Or at least the Pac-10.  On the other hand, if the Huskies aren’t up by at least three touchdowns at the half, I’m going to avoid trail mix like the plague.