As you may or may not have heard, someone has apologized to you recently. No, it isn’t that girl who hit you with her backpack in the slap-dash rush out of Wheeler on Friday afternoon. It isn’t even the guy who laughed uproariously at inappropriate moments while you were trying to watch a movie.  No, it was Sandy Barbour, Berkeley’s Director of Athletics.

Before you get excited, she isn’t apologizing for a soul-crushing Homecoming.  She’s actually apologizing for a more literal crushing—that of your body against a complete stranger’s at Memorial Stadium.  The letter of apology, addressed rather ambiguously to “Cal Football Fans,” laments the lack of crowd control at this past Saturday’s game.

In particular, Ms. Barbour states:

“An immediate review after the game found that almost half the crowd entered the stadium through just two gates – Gates 1 and 2 – near the north side of the stadium. The resulting bottleneck caused lines to back up, especially on the concourse level.”

In other words, there was an honest-to-God clusterf*ck.

But they’ll do better next time. At least, that’s what we tell ourselves as we clutch our Cal foam finger forlornly and rock back and forth, wailing softly. Everything will be better next time.

Image source: ian_ransley under Creative Commons
Cal Athletics to Examine Crowd Control [Cal Bears]

Every year, Homecoming leaves us with a taste of … disappointment … in our mouths, whether it be from football flops, midterm season or something else. But you can at least always count on a variety of campus events every Homecoming week to sweeten that taste (which is kind of like sour apples) just a little bit. So with that in mind, read below the jump for a somewhat-officialistical schedule of Homecoming to-do’s.

Tuesday

*Acts on Sproul from noon to 1 p.m. on Upper Sproul Plaza. Sounds pretty generic: “Come and watch your fellow student groups as they put on a showcase of their culture and talents.”
*UCRC Fashion Show at 7 p.m. in the Heller Lounge. Hmm, we’ve seen Cal fashion shows before and … well,  let’s just say they weren’t nearly as interesting as other shows.

Wednesday

*Acts on Sproul again. Same time, same place, same Bat channel.
*UCRC Colloquium at 8 p.m. in the Alumni House. We hope this is different from the 6 to 8 p.m. event scheduled at the Alumni House, at least on the Homecoming site. Because that one is invite-only, and we don’t like invite-only events … when we don’t get invited. Oh, poo.

Thursday

*Acts on Sproul. Again.
*Dance and Casino Night! 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. at the Alumni House. We’ve never been, but it sounds intriguing to say the least. Dress is semi-formal, Cal ID is required, admission is free, plus there’ll be a drawing for amazing prizes like katanas Kaplan courses. Oh wait, it was way cooler when we thought samurai swords were involved.

Friday

*UCRC Homecoming BBQ at 6 p.m. in Spieker Plaza.
*UCRC Homecoming Rally at Haas Pavilion, right after the BBQ at 8 p.m.
*Star Trek. Get excited.

Saturday

*1868 Cal Avenue Fair from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Memorial Glade. The official description: “a variety of student groups showcase the diversity of the Berkeley campus by providing guests with food, games, and entertainment before the homecoming football game.” Pray tell how does that showcase diversity, exactly?
*Free ice cream from Fenton’s, same time same place as the above. Mmmm.
*Football.

Image Source: minwoo under Creative Commons
Student Homecoming [Site]
Earlier: Homecoming: The Book: The Movie: The Blog Post

First, the Sushi Social at Alumni House on Tuesday. Boasting both sushi and socializing, but delivering neither. OK, so we got there 40 minutes late because we had class, but this was no excuse for the decimated trays and the awkward remnants of mingling that ensued. The fallout from a sushi war, the dismembered and indistinguishable remains of fish parts didn’t resemble even a distant relative of sushi and the five or so people in a cluster in the corner didn’t quite constitute socializing. It looked like everyone else had the same reaction to free eats: get in, feign interest, get sushi, get out.

The Dance and Casino night on Thursday, probably the largest (and most generous) of the Homecoming events kept it classy with endless platters of various breads and cheeses, but because of “funding issues,” only one iPod shuffle (come on, not even a full-sized iPod?) was given away, along with other prizes conveniently wrapped up in cellophane. We asked them what was inside but they claimed not to know, leaving us to wonder whether the prize was just the cellophane itself. After racking up almost $10,000 in faux dough and some glory at the Blackjack table, we were forced to stay the entire duration of the event in order to collect our prize at the drawing. Four hours later, we walked away iPod-less, despite putting over 10 grand in tickets all into the iPod drawing box. At least we got to spend some quality time reliving our high school days on the dance floor (ah, the days of the high school formal, how we don’t miss thee).

We should have known the Fenton’s ice cream giveaway on Friday, which promised “gallons and gallons of free ice cream” to be given away, was too good to be true. Picturing ourselves carrying away gallons of various flavors of ice cream and wondering how we’d refrigerate them, we were shocked find that the reward for waiting in the 20 or so minute line wrapping almost all the way to Doe library was a teensy plastic cup of ice cream, about the size of those sample cups at Yogurt Park. Apparently the gallons were to be distributed amongst a bazillion plastic cups. Right. Not willing to wait this long in line even for Space Mountain, we turned to the free coffee table nearby for consolation. Cup in hand, we were sternly told that the beverages were only for Alumni. Oh yeah, that’s why we have Homecoming.

Guess we’ll have to wait a few more years for that cup of coffee. And so concluded a less than impressive week of giveaways. We’re guessing the economy’s probably behind this somehow. Well, at least the old people, er, Alumni, had fun, we hope.

Image Source: Mc-Q under Creative Commons

Yep, it’s that special time of year that’s like every other special time of year—Homecoming is back! (Though we could have gone with midterm season.) Berkeley has a Homecoming you can take pride in: Unlike other campus festivities like Caltopia, you can get lots of free things during Homecoming.

And unlike Cal Day, there will be tons of lectures by Berkeley professors that will make even the most balanced jack of all trades feel inadequate. And unlike the Big Game, there will be a rally with mass, cultish chanting in an effort to magically secure a win for the upcoming football game.

To get you all in the spirit, the Clog decided to pick out a few events for which you should keep your eyes out:

Wednesday
Check out the Acacia House Fraternity Band from noon to 1 p.m. on Upper Sproul Plaza as they play only cover songs—no originals. The song lineup will include such goodies as Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and Boston’s “More Than A Feeling.”

Also check out Picnic Day on Memorial Glade from 11:00 a.m. to 1 p.m. The food lineup will include such goodies as downtown Oakland and Berkeley restaurant samples. Just remember—if you’re going to play Frisbee, don’t do it on the west side of the glade. It’s treacherous.

Thursday
Dance and Casino Night promises to be entertaining at the very least. Come dressed in your fanciest shmanciest suit or dress to dance or play Blackjack. Just don’t bleed out the corner of your eye or else the chiseled British man with the incomparable wit will take $100 million from your secret bank account.

Friday
Get some free Fenton’s ice cream at the Homecoming Headquarters Student Tent from noon to 1 p.m. We admit, originally we weren’t going to post this—until we remembered we have a midterm during that exact block of time. Oh well, we had some Fenton’s on Sunday anyway.

Later in the day will be the Rally Committee’s traditional pre-rally barbecue and rally. The barbecue, as it turns out, is free and so is the rally. But rallies hardly fill up an empty stomach … unless they’re some sort of, we don’t know, food rally. Do they even have those?

Saturday
Out of respect for completeness, we’ll urge you to go to the Homecoming football game, even though you probably already are planning on it. Kickoff is at 12:30 p.m. which means you should probably get there about 5 hours early.

The “Thanks to Berkeley …” PhotoBooth will be taking even more portraits from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. We hear participants even get candy as recompense. A stranger asking young people to be photographed in a covered booth in exchange for candy? You’d be foolish not to do it!

Sunday
Richard Goode, a pianist with the necessary flair to do justice to such classical greats as Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven and Bach, will be playing at Zellerbach Hall promptly at 3 p.m. Tickets are available from Cal Performances.

Image Source: minwoo under Creative Commons
Homecoming [Site]
Student Homecoming Week [Site]

Current Clogger Krista Lane also contributed to the issue, writing a column about what Homecoming means to her (or more like what it doesn’t mean).

If you missed the issue, you can still fetch one tomorrow at the Daily Cal office, located on the 6th floor of Eshleman Hall.

The Clog recommends poring through:
1. Krista’s column, hello!
2. In Good Company, a mishmash of bios of fictional Berkeley alumni
3. Coming Attractions, a smattering of to-do’s on the back

Not Your Typical Homecoming [Daily Cal]
In Good Company [Daily Cal]