It has been really nice that BC’s ‘biggest-wins-ever’ list got a much needed 2012 update!  The Mountie game this year was most memorable for the game, and the CCSF win was the most memorable for the big game atmosphere. 

The 2007 game with the Mounties – was a definite class A football game.  I’ve said before, it was a, “Who are those guys?” moment for the Renegade football program.  BC’s later to play for the Redskins receiver Brandon Banks (200 yards receiving in the game) said about the Mounties, “They just beat us up.”  Lots of injuries, the first of the Polamalu hair hanging out of the helmets, there was a new kid on the block.

The toughest loss ever (that you have mentioned before) was the 3 touchdown come from behind last second Taft Cougar win over BC in the Potato bowl.  I can’t remember the year, but that one hurt.

Go Gades!

Leroy Sledge – what a name for a running back. I can remember the TV announcer made fun of the Gade fans for booing when the refs would call for a TV commercial timeout… Seats in the endzone?  Wow!

Marcus had posted that a lady CCSF fan had turned to him at the game and said, “We get it, this is all you’ve got.”  I was struck by the fact that there was some truth in that statement, not as much today but definitely back in the 50’s when it all got started.  Television and sports TV was in its infancy, high school football (4  teams) was popular on Fridays and the only kids sport was junior baseball. We had the Bakersfield Bears (a AA Dodger’s farm club) during the summer and that was about the only other show in town.

When small town Bakersfield could see that big fancy stadium being built up on the hill (and yes you could see across Bako in those days) it created a lot of excitement.  The Renegades put up championship caliber teams and the fans filled the stadium to watch them play.  It was great family fun and thus started the BC tradition.  I don’t think that could be duplicated at the JC level in this day and age.

There has always been sentiment against Cal State Bakersfield having a football team because of what it might do to BC football.  If Cal State put up a college football program as good as the Fresno Bulldogs, it’s possible you might see Renegade football crowds the size of other JC teams from large metropolitan areas.

As Herb Benham, a local columnist writing about the BC-CCSF game put it, “If you had to pick a game, watching the 10-2 Gades lock in against the 10-1 Rams on a 59-degree-at-kickoff-day was an easy one.  There was a sense that the town was coming together over the team much like it had in the ‘60s and ‘70s before high school sports stole some of BC’s thunder.” 

True.  But what a day! GoGades!

Just some of the BIG losses and wins through the years

1923 Phoenix JC 75   BC 0

1927 Taft 56 BC 0

1927 San Mateo JC 55 BC

1971 L A Pierce 55 BC 7

1952 BC 63 Santa Monica 6

1953 BC 74 Santa Monica 2

1953 BC 57 Taft 6

1958 BC 64 L A Valley 8

1961 BC 50 Fullerton 0

1964 BC 55 Grossmont 6

1965 BC 60 Olympic JC (Wash) 0

1969 BC 51 El Camino 13

There are more Big wins and Losses, but I can tell your eyes are

glossing over with boredom, so I’ll stop.

History making game

BC plays an international team…..the University of Mexico.

Memorial Stadium, September 26, 1965 – BC34 Mexico 6

(AND NO . . .I wasn’t at the Phoenix/BC game)

Diablos:  Thanks for your comments.  We Gade fans are all a bit giddy right now.  It has been years since we have had this kind of success.  This makes all the more easy to see how great is the success that programs like Mt SAC and CCSF have had over the past decade.  Not that Gade fans are perfect, but I have never understood the hostility that a handful of the Mountie fans have toward their opponent's fans.  But as OBF put it, “A word to the wise, though, please, BC fans, don't make the same mistakes that the MSAC people did… ..."