Meanwhile, Back at the Only Game That Counts

According to Bill Plaschke’s Jan. 2 article, “UCLA isn’t a football school. Period.” That’s not only an insult to the fans and the team, it also flies in the face of the fact. UCLA had one of the top two recruiting classes in the country last year. The Bruins drew an average of 74,000 fans in 1998, tops in the Pac-10. They have back-to-back 10-win seasons and New Year’s Day bowl games and they have beaten the other “football school” in town eight consecutive times.

Apparently, Bill doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Period.

RON TAMBURELLO, Upland

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The best UCLA team in years lost to an excellent Wisconsin team by seven points. The only thing “asinine” was the way Bill Plaschke reported the loss.

DON GATELY, Valencia

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After reading your mindless praise of Wisconsin fans in your coverage of the Rose Bowl, I thought you might need to come to terms with some reality: UCLA fans will never be like Wisconsin fans--and thank God for that.

It takes many factors to create the type of fan base like the one they have in Madison. First, you need it to be 12 below in January. You also need there to be absolutely nothing to do for hundreds of square miles. Well, I take that back--a typical Wisconsinite can eat cheese and drink mass quantities of alcohol, get fat, white and pasty and die of a coronary when he’s 45 with a round of Edam in one hand and a Badger banner in the other.

Did you really look at the Badger fans at the Rose Bowl? They’re predominantly bloated, conservative white men with cheesy mustaches and Roseanne look-alikes for wives. Is there a group of fans more homogenous? Did each come from the same test tube wearing the same red Badger sweatshirt?

I’ll take my laid-back, too-tanned, but well adjusted UCLA fans every time. Because, essentially, it really is only a football game, and being fans to the degree that Wisconsin fans are is bordering on dementia. And because when it comes down to it, all those Badger fans are now back in Wisconsin bunkered in their houses watching the tape of the Rose Bowl over and over again and, well, I’m taking my family on a picnic today.

MICHAEL PIERSON, Thousand Oaks

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Bruins Badgered, huh? So the bloom is off the Bruin rose. Even the pro-UCLA staff is talking about a lack of class, heart and fan support. It’s about time, but it doesn’t make up for the “El Stinko in El Paso” headline.

Maybe The Times’ staff should think about its own lack of class.

JOEL ROSENZWEIG, Studio City