The Stanford-Cal rivalry has a storied history dating back to the famous Stanford Band game in the mid-’80s. The two Bay Area institutions are quite familiar with one another both on and off the field, which adds a little more spice to the rivalry. It’s one of the few rivalries that extend past the football field and into the classroom. However, we have not gathered here today to discuss the football teams or the intelligentsia at either of these schools. There is a sacred ritual performed at Stanford before every Stanford-Cal football game and its madness must be deconstructed.
Students on the Stanford campus gather around for a ritual referred to as the Bearial of the Cal Bear. Horrible pun aside, it’s a ritual that resembles Cersei’s walk of shame in last season’s Game of Thrones. A man dressed as Beetlejuice and a poorly constructed Stanford mascot lead a group of mourning students through campus to the White Memorial Fountain where Oski, the Cal mascot, is violently impaled. The entire ritual is bleek, morbid and quite possibly the greatest tradition in the history of college football.
Every school should offer the other team’s mascot as a sacrifice to the football gods before every game. Maybe if schools offered more sacrifices to the football gods, college football would finally have a full-fledged playoff system. Until then, enjoy the Bearial of the Cal Bear.
(Via Campus Rush)
