UCLA Bruins Are No. 1 With Fans at Disneyland

Still exultant from winning their NCAA championship game, UCLA basketball players did the next logical thing Wednesday.

They went to Disneyland.

“The best thing is we get to go to the front of the lines,” Coach Jim Harrick said jokingly of the long queues that other park-goers had to endure to go on rides.

The UCLA Bruins, who defeated the Arkansas Razorbacks for the NCAA basketball championship Monday, starred in a parade and were honored at a ceremony by park executives. It was the first national title in basketball for UCLA in 20 years.

Many UCLA basketball fans abandoned their jobs and classes and flocked to Disneyland to see the players and coaches enjoy a hero’s welcome at the park.

Bruin fans packed together to catch a glimpse of the players and coaches as they paraded down the park’s Main Street U.S.A.

Brian Merritt, 40, of Los Alamitos was decked out in UCLA clothing even though he is not an alumnus and said he took the day off from his postal job as soon as he heard that the Bruins would be at the park. He also brought his two sons, ages 1 and 3, because “I want them to see things like this.

“We’re starving for winners in this town,” Merritt said.

James Reasbeck, 12, a seventh-grader from Carson, came to the park with his mother and younger sister to see the team, although he said the idea of skipping school was his mother’s.

“You get a better view of the Bruins,” James said. “This is really my first experience seeing them walk in a parade and stuff.”

One fan, Heather Goodlad, 19, of Westminster, said she came to see her favorite player, Bruin sophomore Charles O’Bannon. O’Bannon autographed Goodlad’s sign, which read, “Charles, will you marry me?”

“It was kind of weird, because you think they’re these big people, but they’re just like everybody else,” Goodlad said. Of O’Bannon, she added, “He was really nice.”

But not all of the park visitors were happy about the Bruins’ triumphant entry.

Heidi Lintott, 16, and Colby Strang, 17, Seattle students who are in Orange County on spring break, arrived at the park wearing matching Arkansas basketball uniforms. Both said they were huge fans of the Razorbacks and were not eager to cheer the team that beat them.

Strang said he and Lintott were popular targets for other visitors’ insults.

“We’ve had them say, ‘Get out of Disneyland,’ ” Strang said. “We’ve gotten tons of it.”

Scott Swan, a spokesman for the park, said that while Arkansas fans, like most people, usually enjoy coming to the park, “I think on a day like this, it might be bittersweet.”