Digger Phelps, Bobby Knight have wacky time at UCLA-Cal game

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Another reason college sports are more fun than pro?

What happens off the court.

While UCLA was dispatching with Cal, 72-68, on Saturday, ESPN’s analysts were putting on a show of their own.

First it was Digger Phelps, the longtime Notre Dame coach, answering the question, ‘So, you think you can dance?’

Note the blue marker -- legend has it that Phelps always carries one matching the color of his tie.

Phelps’ personal rivalry with the Bruins is the stuff of actual legend, and fan sites today are downright venomous when discussing the man who ended UCLA’s 88-game winning streak (granted, Phelps nearly incited a riot in Westwood when said that UCLA losing was good for college basketball). Despite some public ridicule of his dance moves, you have to give the man credit. He boogied with a couple of college coeds in front of an entire arena. May we all have so much fun when we’re 67.

Bobby Knight, never one to be upstaged, nearly incited a riot of his own by wearing red at Berkeley’s home court. The color of communism is stunningly unpopular at Berkeley sporting events (the school’s archival, Stanford, wears cardinal). Fans chanted, ‘Take off that red shirt!’ at the legendary coach-turned-analyst-turned-prospective-coach.

Knight probably had security around to prevent the incident from escalating. A Bay Area native, I once made the mistake of wandering into the Cal student section during a football game to look for a friend. I was wearing red, and a large group of students struck up the same chant, eventually shoving me out of their area.

I never found my friend that day. It’s been eight years, and, come to think of it, I haven’t seen him since.

-- Adam Rose