Big Game Bonfire Rallies
The Big Game Bonfire Rally is a pep and bonfire rally that takes place at University of California, Berkeley in Hearst Greek Theatre on the eve of the Big Game. More than 10,000 students gather to hear the history about The Stanford Axe and the Big Game. The University of California Rally Committee is in charge of the planning and setting up the bonfire, as well as refueling it during the rally. Specifically, freshman members of the UC Rally Committee, as well as freshman band members are sent out with pallets to the chanting of "freshmen, more wood." Several alumni show up to perform traditional rituals. A tradition unique to Cal is the performance of the Haka, a traditional Maori war dance/chant. Traditionally performed by an alumni Yell Leader, the Haka performed was written in the 1960s by a Cal rugby player of Maori descent. The traditional Axe Yell is also made and visits from the UC Men's Octet and Golden Overtones are always expected. The University of California Marching Band is also present, playing traditional Cal songs throughout the duration of the Rally. The highlight of the Rally is the lighting of Big Game Bonfire itself, with the fire reaching over eight stories high at its zenith.
The Big Game Bonfire Rally always ends with the reciting of a speech known as the "Andy Smith Eulogy" or "The Spirit of California". Written in remembrance of the fabled Cal football coach, who led the Bears to five straight undefeated seasons starting in 1920s before tragically dying of pneumonia in 1925, the speech closes the Rally annually. During the speech, candles are passed out among the attendants and are lit for the singing of the campus alma mater, "Hail to California."
For decades, Stanford also held a bonfire on the dry lakebed of Lake Lagunita, but this was discontinued in the 1990s due to the lake being a habitat for the vulnerable California tiger salamander. Stanford now holds a laser light show commonly known as the "Non-Fire," as well as the annual student produced play, "Gaieties," during the week leading up to Big Game in place of a Bonfire Rally.
Read more about this topic: Big Game (American Football)
Famous quotes containing the words big, game and/or bonfire:
“Under the Big Top, only two days count—today and tomorrow.”
—Fredric M. Frank (1911–1977)
“The indispensable ingredient of any game worth its salt is that the children themselves play it and, if not its sole authors, share in its creation. Watching TV’s ersatz battles is not the same thing at all. Children act out their emotions, they don’t talk them out and they don’t watch them out. Their imagination and their muscles need each other.”
—Leontine Young (20th century)
“That spring, briefer than apple-blossom’s breath,
Summer, so much too beautiful to stay,
Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves,
And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.”
—Elinor Wylie (1885–1928)