"Big C" is a fight song of the University of California, Berkeley. It was composed in 1913 by Harold P. Williams, with lyrics by Norman Loyall McLaren. It was written to commemorate the construction of the large concrete "C" in 1905 on the "rugged Eastern foothills" of the Berkeley campus. The song was the winning entry in the Daily Californian school song competition in 1913. Arrangements of the tune are used by other schools in the University of California system.
Kelly James, then Associate Director of the UCLA Marching Band and alumnus of the Cal Band wrote an arrangement of "Big C," for a halftime show performed by the combined marching bands from UCLA, UC Davis, and Cal.[when?] Afterwards, UCLA continued using James' arrangement of "Big C" as its fight song, adding their own lyrics and renaming it "Sons of Westwood." It was soon adopted as UCLA's fight song.
Many Cal fans, most notably Cal Band director James Berdahl, were enraged over what they saw as Kelly James' theft of their song. A bitter exchange ensued between Berdahl and James for the next several years concerning the legal and ethical grounds for James' adaptation of the song. Finally, on February 18, 1969, UCLA lawyers were told by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress that "Big C" had never been copyrighted, and was therefore in the public domain. However, whenever Cal plays UCLA and "Sons of Westwood" is played, Cal fans sing a parody ending, "but damn you, it's 'Big C.'" Likewise, whenever Cal plays "Big C" UCLA plays their signature "tag" at the end, which is a part of "Sons of Westwood" but not "Big C".
On the rugged eastern foothills Stands our symbol clear and bold Big C means to fight and strive And win for Blue and Gold Golden Bear is ever watching Day by day he prowls And when he hears the tread Of lowly Stanford red From his lair he fiercely growls
Grr-ah! Grr-ah! Grr-rr-rr-ah!
We are sons of California Fighting for the Gold and Blue Palms of glory we will win For Alma Mater true Stanford's men will soon be routed By our dazzling "C" And when we serpentine Their red will turn to green In our hour of victory!
A recording of 'Big C'.
Recordings
The song has been recorded by the Loftner-Harris St. Francis Hotel Orchestra in October 1931 and also recorded on several albums by the Cal Band, including Big C (1976), California, Here's to Thee (1991), and University of California Band (2003).
The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, the system is composed of its ten campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz, along with numerous research centers and academic abroad centers. The system is the state's land-grant university. Major publications generally rank most UC campuses as being among the best universities in the world. In 1900, UC was one of the founders of the Association of American Universities and since the 1970s seven of its campuses, in addition to Berkeley, have been admitted to the association. Berkeley, Davis, Santa Cruz, Irvine, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and San Diego are considered Public Ivies, making California the state with the most universities in the nation to hold the title. UC campuses have large numbers of distinguished faculty in almost every academic discipline, with UC faculty and researchers having won 71 Nobel Prizes as of 2021.
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the California State Normal School which later evolved into San José State University. The branch was transferred to the University of California to become the Southern Branch of the University of California in 1919, making it the second-oldest of the ten-campus University of California system after the University of California, Berkeley.
The NCAA Women's Water Polo Championship has existed since the 2001 season. Seven conferences have teams competing in women's water polo: the Big West Conference, the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA), the single-sport Golden Coast Conference, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC), the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF), the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) and the Western Water Polo Association (WWPA). Some teams compete at Division III either as members of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference or independently. Teams qualify by either winning their respective conference tournament or receiving one of the few at large bids available. Unlike most NCAA sports, only one National Collegiate championship is held each season with teams from Division I, Division II, and Division III competing together.
The Los Angeles Westside is an urban region in western Los Angeles County, California, United States. It has no official definition, but sources like LA Weekly and the Mapping L.A. survey of the Los Angeles Times place the region on the western side of the Los Angeles Basin south of the Santa Monica Mountains.
The Oski Yell is the University of California Berkeley spirit yell from which the school’s mascot, Oski the Bear, derives his name. Although Oski appeared in 1941, the yell was first performed around the turn of the 20th century. The yell's origins are uncertain, although the University of Illinois originated a similar yell in 1899. Another early version is credited to Vince Wirtz, who led a similar cheer beginning in the 1920s at football games for Hamilton, Ontario teams.
The Solid Gold Sound of the UCLA Bruin Marching Band represents the university at major athletic and extracurricular events. During the fall marching season, this 250-member band performs at the Rose Bowl for UCLA Bruin home football games. Pregame shows by the band aim to build crowd energy and enthusiasm with traditional UCLA songs like "Strike Up the Band for UCLA", "Bruin Warriors", and "The Mighty Bruins". Throughout the game, the band performs custom-arranged rock and pop songs, as well as the traditional fight songs and cheers of the university. The UCLA Varsity Band appears at basketball games and other athletic contests in Pauley Pavilion. In 2018, the Bruin Marching Band was featured on the Muse album "Simulation Theory" performing the Super Deluxe version of the song "Pressure."
The University of California Marching Band, usually shortened to Cal Band, is the marching band for the University of California, Berkeley. While it is administered under the auspices of the university, the Cal Band is student-run and represents Cal at sporting events and social gatherings. The name of the band is "The University of California Band" by the constitution, but is typically called "The University of California Marching Band" or "The Cal Band". When the band marches out of Memorial Stadium's North Tunnel for football pre-games, it is referred to as "The Pacesetter of College Marching Bands, the Pride of California".
"Mighty Bruins" is a fight song of University of California, Los Angeles sports teams. Composed by Academy Award-winning composer Bill Conti, the song was commissioned by the UCLA Alumni Association on its fiftieth anniversary. It debuted in 1984 at the football game against Stanford University, with the school marching band conducted by Conti himself.
"Rover" is a song traditionally sung at the end of athletic contest victories by fans of the University of California Los Angeles. It is a parody of the song "I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover". The UCLA Band arrangement opens with "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight". Following the opening, the band then plays the chorus to "I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover". The band and students sing the lyrics, then the band plays the chorus again.
Bruin Warriors, also known as "Sons of Westwood" and "Big C", is a fight song of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The tune comes from Big C, a school fight song for the University of California, Berkeley. The UCLA Bruin Marching Band plays the song as part of their football pregame show as they move into the script UCLA formation. The song has been updated since 2016 with the new title "Bruin Warriors", and lyrics that include "daughters" as well as "sons".
The Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) was a college athletic conference in the United States which existed from 1915 to 1959. Though the Pac-12 Conference claims the PCC's history as part of its own, with eight of the ten PCC members now in the Pac-12, the older league had a completely different charter and was disbanded in 1959 due to a major crisis and scandal.
"Hail to the Hills of Westwood" is the school song or alma mater of the University of California, Los Angeles. It was written by Jeane Margaret Emerson a 1929 graduate of UCLA, and adopted by the school in 1960. The current arrangement performed by the UCLA Marching Band was written by band member Dwayne S. Milburn for the 1985 football season.
The Phoenix Five were a group of five University of California, Berkeley (Cal) students in Theta Chi who stole the Stanford Tree from the Band Shak on the campus of Stanford University in the early morning hours of October 17, 1998. The Phoenix Five held the 10-foot-tall (3.0 m) costume and university's unofficial mascot "hostage" for two weeks, and the reaction to the heist by school administrators fueled a frenzy of media coverage which resulted in the prank being regarded as one of the most famous and notable in the history of the Big Game rivalry between Cal and Stanford. The Phoenix Five used pseudonyms to hide their true identities, going by Mr. Black, Mr. Green, Mr. Orange, Mr. White, and Mr. Yellow.
"Strike Up the Band" is a 1927 song composed by George Gershwin, with lyrics by Ira Gershwin with the collaboration of Millie Raush. It was written for the 1927 musical Strike Up the Band, where it formed part of a satire on war and militaristic music. Although the musical was not successful, the instrumental version of the song, titled the "March from Strike Up the Band", has become quite well known. The song was also used in the Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney 1940 film Strike Up the Band.
The UC Men's Octet, sometimes termed the Cal Men’s Octet or the UC Berkeley Men’s Octet, is an eight-member male a cappella group at the University of California, Berkeley. Founded in 1948 as a member of the UC Choral Ensembles, the group's broad repertoire features several genres of music including barbershop, doo-wop, pop and alternative, and a healthy dose of Berkeley fight songs. The Octet has recorded over a dozen albums and is one of only three multiple-time champions of the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA)—the other two being USC's SoCal VoCals and Berklee's Pitch Slapped—having won the competition in both 1998 and 2000.
Robert Orlando Briggs was the longtime director of the University of California Marching Band. He was the fourth full-time director since the founding of the band in 1891.
The University of California Jazz Ensembles, also known as the UC Jazz Ensembles, UC Jazz, or UCJE, is the student jazz organization founded in 1967 on the University of California, Berkeley, campus. Founded in 1967, it comprises one or more big bands, numerous jazz combos, a vocal jazz ensemble, an alumni big band, and instructional classes. With a mission statement to foster a community for the performance, study, and promotion of jazz at U.C. Berkeley, its Wednesday Night big band provides free concerts every Thursday noon on Lower Sproul Plaza, its various units perform throughout the San Francisco Bay Area including area high schools, travel to collegiate jazz festivals, and perform overseas, and for many years it sponsored the annual Pacific Coast Jazz Festival. It also provides master classes by its instructors and clinics by prominent guest artists. It has nurtured numerous musicians who have become professional jazz musicians and educators. UC Jazz Ensembles is one of three groups, with the Cal (marching) Band and UC Choral Ensembles, forming Student Musical Activities (SMA), a department within Cal Performances on the U.C. Berkeley campus. Its members are primarily U.C. Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students, representing many academic disciplines.
David W. Tucker (1929–2003) was an American jazz trombonist, music educator, composer of band and orchestral music, record producer, and marching band arranger, most renowned as the director of the University of California Jazz Ensembles from 1969 until 1985. Under his direction, the organization expanded to become the largest musical organization on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, had an international reputation resulting from foreign tours, and sponsored the Pacific Coast Collegiate Jazz Festival. Numerous student members of the organization have become renowned jazz musicians, composers, and music educators.
The California–UCLA football rivalry is an American college football rivalry between the California Golden Bears football team of the University of California, Berkeley and UCLA Bruins football team of the University of California, Los Angeles.
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