MSU fans make presence felt in California
Berkeley, Calif. — Hot dogs were being grilled, coolers were being emptied and a shout of “Go Green!” was quickly answered with a “Go White!”
Hours before MSU was set to open the 2008 college football season against host California, Spartans fans opened up their tailgating season with a bang.
Over 500 MSU fans and dozens of parked cars packed the West Anna Head Parking Lot two blocks off the Berkeley campus to do a little tailgating MSU-style.
“It’s awesome to come into a parking lot and see 99 percent of the places taken up by State fans,” said Eric Gillow, a 1999 MSU graduate from Okemos. “We came in here at 9 a.m. and there were only four cars here, but they were all from MSU.”
By noon not much had changed, as the parking lot was full of MSU Green and White, with just a few Golden Bears fans in the lot.
Scott Chinoski, a 2003 graduate and President of the MSU Alumni Club of the San Francisco Bay Area, said the tailgate was just a small part of what his group planned for the traveling fans.
“We expected over 12,000 alumni to come out here and as the host alumni group, we just have to make sure they feel at home and make this an extension of MSU,” Chinoski said. “We had a city tour, a bar crawl, this tailgate, we provided maps, and we just wanted to raise awareness for the alumni association and what we can do.”
According to 2007 graduate Mike Findling, the Friday night Bar Crawl was a great success. The Los Angeles resident and Detroit native said he and his group of friends felt like they were “back in East Lansing.”
“It’s a good representation for the school,” Findling said of the turnout. “I knew there were going to be a lot of people here but not to the extent that they were taking over every place they were in.”
The MSU faithful did indeed take over the West Anna Head Parking Lot, and by noon Cal’s Parking and Transportation Department had to start turning people away due to spots reserved for media parking.
Lot attendant Max Liu said the department usually doesn’t send attendants to lots until 11:30 a.m., but with the vast following of MSU fans, he had to come into work early after receiving a call from his supervisor at 9 a.m.
Niu said the early phone call was definitely a surprise.
“Quite frankly, yeah,” said Niu, who added the number of MSU fans present was similar to what other Pac-10 teams bring to Berkeley. “It’s a pretty big turnout. I know it’s the first game of the season and all, but to come from all the way out in the Midwest is pretty impressive.”
MSU fans continued to impress, as every few minutes another car had to be told there was simply no room to park.
“It’s awful, and a lot of people have been saying that, it’s just not a good tailgating area,” said 1996 graduate Kris Sanford, who moved to California three months ago, and had to beg Niu to let him in. “I don’t think the Pac-10 is that much into tailgating like the Big Ten is. With that being said, we’re going to give them a show.”
No matter how crowded the tailgating area was or who would win the evening’s game, the MSU faithful were enjoying the chance to be around other die-hard Spartans on the San Francisco Bay.
“You can’t beat this,” 1982 graduate Thaddeus Unold said of being in California. “We came out Thursday and saw the city, enjoyed a ball game in Oakland against the (Minnesota) Twins and (Oakland) A’s and just hooted it up and enjoyed ourselves.
“We went to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco and saw so many people wearing Green and White. It was really, really nice to see that out here.”
Published on Saturday, August 30, 2008
Comments
Jon
08/31/08 @ 4:10am
It isn’t that Cal fans, or especially Pac-10 fans in general, aren’t into tailgating. The parking lot situation on the Berkeley campus just isn’t conducive to it. There are a few dozen relatively small lots spread out around the urban campus, and almost everyone arrives on foot or by shuttle or public transit at the stadium. To drive to a random lot like Anna Head and pay a ton for parking doesn’t make sense for a Berkeley resident attending the game. USC, ASU, Oregon, Stanford, and I’m sure others, all tailgate loudly and proudly.
Warren
08/31/08 @ 4:23am
Taking over the Anna Head lot isn’t exactly a huge accomplishment, that lot holds what, 100 cars? Like Jon said, there’s no place to park. It’s an urban campus, it is old, the area is dense, most aren’t driving to get there. Get over it, Kris Sanford, it’s not awful. It means it has something else to offer. Go explore that instead of whining in a tiny-ass little parking lot a mile from the campus about how where you are isn’t like home.
el
08/31/08 @ 10:16am
There is not a lot of parking for Cal football fans. As a long-time season ticket holder I have a permit for one of the lots on the north side of campus,and some of friends have permits for other smaller parking facilities around campus, not on campus. We can’t really tailgate like those at SC and Stanford where there are park-like atmospheres. I was glad to see so many MSU fans wandering around our campus and enjoying the scene in the shopping district. My wife and I stayed over in Emeryville, about two miles south of Berkeley, and ran into a ton of Spartan fans in our hotel, all having a great time, at least before the game.
Those who parked at Anna Head, formerly a private girls prep school, were indeed lucky. It is not often that visiting fans can get within two blocks of campus, more often they are found wandering around the downtown area, west of campus, looking for anyplace to stick their cars. Not many visitors also know that Memorial Stadium is an uphill walk about 3/4 mile or more from spots on the campus, so the Anna Head parkers were indeed luckier than those coming from downtown and other points south and west.
I also noticed an organized event for MSU fans right behind the student union. Looked like a big BBQ with hundreds of fans coming and going from a large tent. It was located in a great location right in the center of a lot of Cal activity including the pre-game warmup by the Cal Band.
Smokey
08/31/08 @ 1:40pm
It doesn’t matter how big the parking lot was.
The point is over 10,000 (i’ve heard 12 to 15,000) fans showed up. The stadium was about 25% Spartan fans.
You think this would have happened 5 years ago? Or even 2 years ago?
Regardless of the outcome of this game, Dantonio is brining back the faith.
Mad props to anyone who was at the game.
GO GREEN
GO WHITE
GO STATE
dave
08/31/08 @ 8:21pm
MSU fans showed up big in an exciting game that could have gone either way. Other than Tennessee last year, that was the largest non-conference visiting crowd in years. How did the MSU faithful enjoy our Memorial Stadium? The worst stadium (seats, bathromms, food) in the most beautiful setting in college football.
VDUB
08/31/08 @ 11:17pm
Gotta’love the SLC Spartan pride. Sorry for the Spartan loss, but the UTE win over the WHORE makes everything feel A.O.K! Go Spartans, Go Utes!
Rob
08/31/08 @ 11:26pm
Went to Berkeley and found the campus beautiful, the fans nice, and the walk up the hill was fine. The stadium is clearly the worst in college football! Wooden,aged seats; small aisles, and I’m not kidding … one tiny sink in the bathroom quite literally next to the pee trough. The press box is smalller than some high-school boxes — I couldn’t figure out press sat.
Yes, there were small tailgates here and there, Spartans were a HUGE presence, but Berkeley students don’t seem to have the passion that of Big Ten schools. And does ASU tailgate? A definite NO — I went to grad school in Tempe and the students and alumni go to bars before games.
Yes, there were bad calls, still, we are good enough to win these games. We just need a little Chicago Cubs magic.
Brad
09/02/08 @ 12:58pm
Does anyone have video of this Utah idiot (watch video) just before we went into the game? Him and his buddy were the 2 drunkest people I have ever seen in my life. This video was taken 4 hours too early. They were BBQing beans by pouring the beans on their grill. I can’t even describe what I saw that day by those two. Keep checking youtube…hopefully somebody video taped them. Classic!!
Joe
09/02/08 @ 4:44pm
MSU fans were nice… but only in your dreams were there 10K+. You almost filled 4 sections (out of 50) with some fans sprinkled here and there… According to people who know at CAL, they estimated about 6K MSU fans… a nice turnout to be sure.