On the Prowl and Proud : Chapman Fans Rally for Panthers’ 1st Home Game in 62 Years

They drew applause from customers that spilled out the doorways of Glassell Street bars like O’Hara’s Pub. They turned the heads of kids sitting outside the Dairy Treet, and they made a roar that jolted people a block away.

The Chapman University football team, more than 85 young men in black and white uniforms, marched down the streets of downtown Orange on Friday afternoon, accompanied by the screams and cheers of more than two dozen Chapman football fans. The team, called the Panthers, will play its first home game in 62 years today.

“I’m a-motivated . . . I’m a-dedicated . . . to Panther ball . . . football,” chanted the players as they walked, two-by-two, toward the traffic circle south of the Chapman campus.

Becky Falletta, Associated Students commissioner of communications, said she came up with the idea of having a spirit rally to kick off the team’s first-ever game in Orange. The university has had club football teams in recent years, but Chapman has not had an official football team since 1932--when the school was known as California Christian and was located in Los Angeles.

“We wanted to do this to have a bridge between us and the community here,” said Falletta, a junior majoring in public relations.

Falletta was among about a dozen young women decorated two Orange Fire Department trucks for the rally. One of the trucks, an antique model painted with yellow filigrees and toting a shiny bell, was plastered with butcher-paper banners that read: “Chapman Football on the Prowl.”

The players hooted and cheered when a student wearing a team mascot’s outfit padded by them and later hopped on the antique firetruck. “Woo woo woo!” they howled at the fuzzy black panther, whose pink plastic mouth was frozen in a perpetual growl.

“You can tell these guys are enthused,” said Chris Sandoval, Chapman’s student body president. “This is great.”

Young women wearing T-shirts reading “Panther Pac” leaned from the fire engines and cheered as firefighters drove the trucks around the Glassell traffic circle, sirens blazing. Many of the football players waved at their classmates and store owners, and greeted Orange residents as they walked down the city streets.

“I didn’t know what to expect when I came here,” said Efriam Miranda, 20, beaming. A defensive lineman and honorable mention All-American at Orange Coast College before transferring to Chapman, Miranda shied away from predictions for today’s sold-out contest against Claremont-Mudd.

“It’ll be a good game,” Miranda said with a laugh.

All the while, head Coach Ken Visser tapped at his watch repeatedly. “Yeah, I’m nervous,” he said. “I’ve got to get these guys back to practice!”

Chapman defensive line coach Bill Yurak directed players in their spirit chant, which was recently written for the team.

“ Everything here is just made up-- everything’s being done for the first time,” said Yurak, a former Marine Corps gunnery sergeant.

And who should be heading the row of players but Chapman President James L. Doti. He wore a gray suit, a new red and black Chapman baseball cap and carrying red and white pompons.

Doti usually doesn’t hesitate to give his predictions on economics, but he was close-mouthed about today’s match.

“I’m praying,” Doti said, “I will wake up Sunday morning as the only president of a university with a football team that has not been defeated in the last 62 years.”