They Miss Out on Total Experience

Sometimes it’s hard for freshmen players to realize there is a UCLA campus.

“I remember that when I came here, until we started classes I didn’t know there was a campus,” quarterback Cade McNown said, remembering a year ago. “I didn’t know there was anything beyond that stretch of grass over there.”

That stretch of grass was outside the Morgan Center, part of the athletic complex.

“There’s a lot of campus here,” McNown said, laughing.

It’s the same feeling Bruin scholarship freshmen felt Thursday on a day spent in academic orientation. It’s something that will recede into their memories, overwhelmed by playbooks and by returning players, who arrived later Thursday night. Because UCLA is on a quarter system, by the time the freshmen have their first classes, on Sept. 26, some of them will have played two games (at Tennessee and against Northeast Louisiana in the Rose Bowl) and will be hard at work, getting ready for a third, at Michigan on Sept. 28.

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Two-a-day drills begin Saturday at Spaulding Field. Work in pads begins Wednesday.