1893 Cal is a little upset after having lost the first Big Game to an underrated, upstart Stanford team the previous year. The night before the second Big Game, Cal ire is increased when some Stanfordites toot a fifteen foot tin horn to announce their presence in San Francisco. At dawn, a group of Californians promptly raids the hotel, 'lifts' the horn, and paints it blue. When Cal blows the horn at the game a battle ensues, crushing the horn beyond repair.
1898 Stanford conducts its first bonfire rally when students drag wood into the dry bed of Lake Laguanita to create a symbolic funeral pyre for the Golden Bear.
1899 Cal men capture an axe that was wielded by Stanford Yell Leader Billy Erb.
1905 The Big "C" is built atop Charter Hill by Cal freshmen and sophomores. It quickly becomes a popular target of Stanford raiders. The Berkeley Gazette reports on one of the first attacks. A student walking on campus notices that the "C" has been defaced. After climbing the hillside, the student finds that part of the cement structure has been destroyed, apparently by use of dynamite. The "C" is later repaired, but the culprits are never found.
1910s In what is believed to be the first-ever instance of aerial bombardment, an airplane dumps hundreds of anti-Cal flyers over the Berkeley campus.
1914 Cal fanatics prematurely burn the Stanford bonfire. Stanford paints the "C" red. Cal hits the Leland Stanford statue and Memorial Arch, turning them blue and gold. Each campus then takes a defensive posture, awaiting the onslaught of the other with barricades, bonfires, chains, and student guards.ALL OF A SUDDEN ... nothing happens.
1918 Stanford paints the Big "C", Campanile, and Sather Gate red.
1923 Several Cal students go to Stanford and help stack all the wood for the bonfire on Thursday night. They volunteer to relieve some of the guards that night and promptly burn down the stack of wood the day before the rally
1925 Cal students preburn the Stanford bonfire. The Cal Guardians of the "C" Committee uses hundreds of sophomore guards on three hour shifts to protect the "C".
1928 The woodpile again burns before the Stanford bonfire. Students join in scrounging for wood, collecting old railroad ties and anything else that would burn. However Stanford is later assessed $400 in damages for "wrongfully appropriated property."
1930 Stanford's Don Knopp leads twenty other Stanford seniors masquerading as reporters, photographers, and Cal freshies. When the Axe emerges from an armored car after the Axe Rally, the Stanfordites take the Axe with the aid of flash powder and tear gas. The 'Immortal 21' (or, depending on your perspective, the 'Immoral 21') are chased to the brand-new San Mateo drawbridge. The Stanfordites manage to raise the drawbridge, stranding their persuers.
1930s A band of Stanfordites paints the bear statue by the Delta Tau Delta fraternity red. The following year they try to repeat the prank, but are caught by several Cal students, who shave the vandals' heads into mohawks.
1938 Stanford burns a 20 by 30 foot "S" into the Memorial Stadium grass and paints Wheeler Hall, Sather Gate, and the Senior Men's Bench.
1939 Bowles Men paint blue and gold "C"s on buildings in the Stanford Quadrangle. Fifteen carloads of Stanford students attack the Big "C" but are repelled by Cal student guards.
1942 One hundred twenty layers of paint are scraped off of the Big "C". Eighty layers are gold, and forty are red.
1946 Raids on bonfires resume after the War. Cal paints "C"s on Hoover Tower. Stanford paints the Campanile and steals a bear rented by the California Rally Committee.
During a daring nighttime raid, six Cal students steal the Axe by maneuvering the entire display case into the back of a black '38 Chevy pickup. The Axe winds up in the back seat of a Palo Alto Police squad car.
1947 The Daily Californian complains of Cal rooting section abuses -- drinking and "rolling down" of late comers. A Stanford plane writes "Down Cal, Hail Stanford" in the sky and drops handbills. Eight Cal students are arrested for trying to start bonfire rallies on the streets.
1948 The Axe is stolen from Cal. One Monday in June a trio of horseback riders discover it leaning against a tree by the Stanford golf course.
1954 In June Stanfordites steal the Axe from the Cal display case. (According to the Stanford Axe Committee, they leave $5 in the case to pay for the broken glass.) The California Rally Committee publicly presents a very good copy of the Axe in an attempt to get the thieves to return the real Axe. The Axe is found in the car of Stanford team captain Norm Manoogian a few hours before the Big Game.
1950s Cal's Deutsch Hall begins its annual "Stanford Goalpost Hunt" tradition. This story shall unfortunately remain incomplete until we can obtain accounts from Deutsch Alums.
1960 Residents of Smyth Hall arange a "Redskin Funeral" with effigies of Prince Lightfoot (the Stanford mascot) and 'Cactus Jack' Curtice, the Stanford coach. The funeral procession is led by a black hearse, followed by two or three dozen cars with their lights on. A 'police escort' (students on Vespas in ROTC uniforms) stops cross traffic for the procession all the way up to the Big "C". The effigies are then buried with individual grave markers.
Early 1960'sThree Cal fans dress as Stanford students and infiltrate the Stanfurd rooting section. At halftime they cut down the STANFORD banner and run across the back of the endzone, chased by the Stanford cheerleaders and some band members. The bandits make it across the field and throw the banner into the Cal rooting section, where it is 'rolled up' to the top.
For many years, Stanford held their bonfire rally in the dried-up bed of Lake Lagunitas. Full of water in the springtime, the lake dries up in the fall, partly due to a dam upstream. One year some Cal students manage to open the dam, releasing the water downstream and flooding out the bonfire.
1960s Stanford students awake one morning to find large, blue footprints scaling up the outside of Hoover Tower. When Stanford officials order that the prints "must come down immediately," their wish comes true when -- two days later -- the large, blue footprints descend the other side of the tower.
Cal students use large quantities of rock salt to burn a "C" into the lawn on the Stanford Quad. The nighttime lawn sprinklers melt the salt, which leaches into the soil, leaving a gold "C" on the lawn for weeks. (Stanford has to dig up the entire lawn and bring in new topsoil and sod.
1961 Stanford engineering students assault the Big "C" in broad daylight. Using jack hammers and brute force, they turn it into a red "S".
The Monday of Big Game week, the Daily Californian is published on pink newsprint. Members of the Rally Committee and the Cal Band collect 12,000 copies of the "ghastly pink" issue, take them to the Berkeley dump, and deposit them in a puddle of very gooey mud. Although the Daily Cal complains of the financial loss, the campus agrees with the statement of one Cal Band member: "I don't mind 'yellow journalism,' but pink is too much."
1962 The Friday morning of Big Game week, Stanford steals all of the Daily Californians and replaces them with a mock version praising Stanford's football team. Inside, in four-inch block letters, is printed "BEAT CAL." The original Daily Cals are deposited on the Chancellor's lawn.
1964 The Treaty of Castle Lanes: In the winter after its debut, the California Victory Cannon is stolen by Stanford students. Cal students then steal the STANFORD banner, 17,000 stunt cards, and a 400 pound bronze bell from the old tower behind the Stanford Memorial Chapel. Stanford retaliates by taking Cal's cards and the ASUC banner. Members of the California Rally Committee meet with Stanford students at Castle Lanes in Alameda to negotiate and draft a treaty. As a sign of good faith, Rally Committee brings the 17,000 stunt cards in a truck. During the treaty negotiations, Stanford students surround the truck and tear-gas it. The truck driver promptly puts on his gas mask and, despite looking down the business end of a .45, rams one of the cars blocking his way. He escapes only to be later arrested by the police, who then make sure that everything is settled between the two schools. As a result, all items are returned to their respective owners -- except that Cal gets to keep all of Stanford's blue-and-gold cards.
1967 John Wellborn manages to steal the Axe from Stanford without damaging its display case and without triggering the alarm. The trophy then appears in several photographs, including one with a University of California Centenial banner and one atop the Oakland Tribune building. The Axe is returned just before the start of the Big Game, but Stanford has to return it a few hours later when Cal wins the game.
1973 Ming's Incident: Three Stanford fraternity members telephone Cal football coach Mike White and request that the Axe appear at the Northern California Football Writers Association luncheon at Ming's Chinese Restaurant in Palo Alto during Big Game Week. After receiving a notice, Rally Committee members confirm the request with Mike White's secretary. Disguised as Cal football players, the Stanfordites wait outside Ming's. After a quick scuffle they snatch the Axe from the three Rally Commers.
1970s Stanford students perform their last card stunt. (Alumni of Stanford's Card Stunts Committee claim the year was 1971, others claim a later year.) The cards are stored in an unsecure location on the Stanford campus.
1975 Following years of probation the Cal football team has a chance to go to the Rose Bowl. The Friday before the Big Game, all the Daily Californians are replaced by a bogus edition with the headline, "NCAA NIXES CAL ROSE BOWL BID; Bears Placed Back on Probation." The paper describes an unknown NCAA investigation that turned up irregularities and claims that Cal's star running back Chuck Muncie has been ruled ineligible to play. The Daily Cal staff confiscate the bogus issue, but enough copies circulate to start a buzz.
Following the Stanford bonfire at Lake Lagunita several drunken youths throw rocks and bottles at police and firefighters.
During the Big Game members of the Stanford Band remove the Axe head from its plaque. Following the Cal victory they give the Axe head to John Larrisou '77. Larissou is alleged to have held the blade high over his head while dashing across the field to the Cal side and yelling, "I'VE GOT THE AXE! I'VE GOT THE AXE!!!"
1977 Cal bandsmen Jay Huxman '76 and Jamie Rawson '77 carve a replica of the Axe in meticulous detail. During halftime of the Cal-Stanford basketball game, Huxman and Dan Blick '77 run across the Maples Pavillion court waving the "Axe" and taunting the Stanford fans. Several Stanford students give chase but to no avail. Shortly thereafter the getaway car carrying the "Axe" is stopped for speeding, but the police let the students go when they show that the object is a fake. Nevertheless the San Francisco Examiner reports the next day that a band of Cal "desperados" had swiped the Axe. In appreciation of the successful hoax, the Stanford Band sends the Cal Band a case of champagne.
All of Stanford's stunt cards (except for one blue-and-gold card) mysteriously disappear. (They are simply loaded onto a truck and carted away.)
A "Go Bears" banner is hung from the top of Hoover Tower; a photo of it later appears in the Oakland Tribune.
1978 UC Rally Committee is still trying to figure out who generously donated the stack of stunt cards before the previous year's Big Game. (One card stunt at the Big Game reads, "Hey Stanford ... these are YOUR cards!")
1979 Stanford limits the list of pre-game festivities to "singing, bowling, and... a record-breaking bunny hop." The rumba line is cancelled due to "potential security problems."
After the Big Game rally a large banner is hung over the Bay Bridge tunnel entrance on Yerba Buena Island. It reads, "GO BEARS! BEAT STANFORD!"
1982 On the hill overlooking South San Francisco, the C-A-L in the white concrete
SOUTH
SAN FRANCISCO
THE INDUSTRIAL CITY
sign turns blue and gold.
On the Wednesday following The Play, Cal students are shocked when the Daily Californian has the headline, "NCAA awards Big Game to Stanford." The Stanford Daily has printed up several thousand bogus editions of the Daily Californian. By sheer luck the hoax is aided by a four-hour delay in the distribution of the real Daily Californian. In the end the Daily Cal gains by collecting the copies of the bogus newspapers and selling them for a dollar each.
1983 Two weeks before Big Game Stanford paints red "S"s at various campus locations.
Mysteriously the Cal Band doesn't arrive at the Big Game until the start of the second quarter. (Someone had cancelled the buses that were supposed to take the Band to Palo Alto.)
1984 On April Fool's Day two members of the Cal Acacia house put a Mickey Mouse face and hands on the south clockface of the Campanile. Both students are captured by the police.
Members of a Cal fraternity release blue-and-gold dyed mice into a Stanford library. On the morning of the Big Game, two Stanford students hang a large banner -- painted with a tree and an "S" -- from the Campanile. The banner is burned at the 1985 Big Game Bonfire Rally.
1985 Following the previous year's Big Game, Stanford did not put the Axe in its display case in Tressider Union. Ken Raust '81 and Tim Sheridan '84 stage a hoax that the Axe has been stolen. In March various newspapers and living groups receive letters apparently signed by Stanford Athletic Director Andy Geiger. Stating that the Axe has been stolen, the letters ask for cooperation in returning the trophy. Local newspapers receive bogus ransom notes from the "Friends of Oski," announcing the theft of the Axe and demanding as a condition of its return that Stanford change its nickname to "Trees." A reporter from the San Francisco Examiner exposes the hoax.
The palm trees all along Stanford's Palm Drive are painted to spell out C-A-L-I-F-O-R-N-I-A. During the Big Game a large balloon, decorated to resemble a sheep, flies over the stadium. On one side of the sheep appears the message, Ram ewe Cal; on the other side is its name -- Lambo. Eventually it falls into the Stanford student section and is destroyed.
1986 During the summer the six-foot tall stuffed Kodiak Bear disappears from its display case in the ASUC Student Union. No one claims the theft.
1987 The UC Rally Committee receives a ransom note from the ASUC Bear's Stanford kidnappers. The note refers to the Bear as "Oskie" and demands a list of signatures in order for the Bear to be returned. The list includes the president of Stanford, the chancellor of Berkeley, one of the UC Regents, one thousand Cal students, several Cal football players... "and some real athletes," Lawrence Berkeley -- or one of his descendents, and the president of Round Table Pizza. Rally Committee chairman Wendy Withers '89 sends a reply letter refusing to comply with the demands.
About twenty Cal students plaster authentic-looking LSJU Engineering "Out of Order" signs on the doors of bathroom stalls in various buildings on the Stanford campus.
1988 Another ransom note making similar ridiculous demands is sent to the Rally Committee; this letter is ignored. The Monday following the Big Game the Bear is found chained to the concrete fountain near Embarcadero Center in San Francisco, wearing a Stanford shirt. The shirt is replaced with a Cal shirt and the Bear is brought back to Cal as part of a noon-time rally and parade.
The Stanford band uses a remote control car with a smoke bomb to disrupt the Cal Band's pregame show. After a Cal bandsman smashes the rear of the car, it lies on the 30 yard line, still smoking. Another Cal bandsman inadvertantly kicks the car upright, and the smoking vehicle resumes its route around the field.
1989 At the annual UC Davis Picnic Day, the Stanford Tree costume is stolen and ends up in the hands of the Berkeley chapter of Lambda Chi Alpha. The Tree is burned at the Big Game Bonfire Rally.
An airplane drops hundreds of little flyers over the Stanford campus. The flyers read, "Oski says 'F--- Stanfurd!'"
1990 Members of a Cal fraternity discover the Stanford Tree lying outside the Stanford Band Shak and steal the costume. They now display the tree on their roof during every Big Game Week.
An airplane drops anti-Cal flyers over parts of the Cal campus, south Berkeley, and north Oakland.
1991 The spelling on most of the Stanford freeway exit signs on highways 101 and 280 is 'corrected' to read "Stanfurd."
1992 One thousand letters are posted around the Stanford campus announcing that Stanford's bonfire rally has been cancelled. The letters appear to be on official letterhead bearing the signature of Stanford President Donald Kennedy. The hoax has been organized by a group named BUST (which stands for "Burn the Ugly Stanford Tree".) The letters are so convincing that the San Francisco Examiner prints a bonfire cancellation story. After acknowledging the successful prank, Kennedy announces that the rally will be held at midnight.
The Tree costume is stolen from the Stanford Band Shak. However nothing is made of it by Stanford, and the Tree again ends up at the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity.
1994 A STANFORD banner brought to the Friday Big Game luncheon in San Jose somehow ends up at Cal's Bonfire Rally that evening. The UC Rally Committee returns it to Stanford the next day.
1995 Again a STANFORD banner brought to the Friday Big Game luncheon in San Jose ends up at the Bonfire Rally. As before, the Rally Committee returns it to Stanford the next day.
1996 Stink bombs are set off during Cal's bonfire rally. The posts supporting the Cannon platform are vandalized and a small section of wood is removed, rendering the platform useless.
1997 Cal student Ted Kelly figures out how to hack into the referee's microphone system at Stanford Stadium. During the season he purchases some radio equipment and then tests it at Stanford home games. At the Big Game Kelly's planning comes to fruition when the referee is about to call a second-half foul. The entire stadium hears the call: "Penalty for unsportsmanlike arrogance ... Stanford sucks!"
1998 One month before the Big Game a group of Cal students steals the Tree costume. Calling themselves the "Phoenix Five", the group insists that it was liberating the mascot from its life in the Band Shak, where it was found in a corner rocking back and forth in a fetal position. They release a video of the blindfolded Tree dancing around while the other four kidnappers demand a ransom. The next day a letter is sent, 'signed' by the Tree, declaring his happiness over his new freedom and that he no longer wants to be on the Farm. Nevertheless Stanford demands the return of the Tree, as the mascot's grandmother had made the costume. The Phoenix Five returns the Tree to Stanford after Chancellor Robert Berdahl promises immunity from criminal prosecution.
1999 A week before the Big Game a group of Cal students 'corrects' the spelling on several Stanford freeway exit signs.
2003 The Stanford Tree costume is stolen while the Cal and Stanford bands are performing in a rally at Pier 39 in San Francisco. While the thieves send a ransom note demanding $300 for the return of the Tree, the Cal Band manager sends an email advising students to return the costume or face legal action. The Tree is returned to the Stanford Band, which shreds the costume in a wood chopper during the Big Game.
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