According to Wikipedia, "UCLA 2007-08 Men's Basketball Team," Portland State is scheduled to play the UCLA Bruins Men's Basketball team Friday, November 9th (probably at 7 pm).
This is a game I would love to attend. For the Bruin faithful, it may not carry much significance other than being another pre-season game. For me, to see our own Vikings on the court of the legendary John Wooden would stand as a remarkable experience.
Owen Meredith Wilson, late past president of University of Oregon, remarked in the 1950s that the creation of Portland State College in 1955 had the power and potential to become, in Portland, another UCLA. He immediately sought out distorted protective legislature from Salem to benefit the University of Oregon and Oregon State College at the expense of Portland State College (Oregon State is relatively innocent).
Last year alone, that legislative virus, that distorted piece of legislature cost PSU $133 million in funding. UO and OSU received some $550 million each in state funds while PSU received a comparatively paltry $350 million. And PSU has the largest student body population in the state! Although hearlded as a great university leader, Owen Meredith Wilson is not considered favorably by myself nor those who are familiar with the beleaguered history of Portland State University, all attributable to his meddling influence.
Barring angry PSU student, faculty, and staff marches on Salem demanding the overturn of the outdated Wilson legislature, I recommend we travel down to Pauly Pavillion en masse to take in the Viks playing the Bruins. Take in also the greatness of the UCLA campus and imagine PSU sharing such kinds of greatness, though translated to Portland's fit and environment. Wilson, who will always be known as one of Portland State's proto-antagonists, inadvertently but clearly established a lucid identity link for Portland State---UCLA. I am surprised that he did not say the University of Washington or the University of California (which, imo, also stand as reliable identity links for Portland State). He probably said UCLA because he knew Oregonians would be kindly sympathetic to images of both the U-Dub and Cal; Oregonians tend not to cotton politically to inspired images involving southern California.
He told the legislature, "You are not going to turn that college in Portland into another UCLA." Well, maybe we should all go down there to the game at UCLA to see what all his fuss was about. And then maybe we should do our best to do exactly what instinct troubled him the most---to turn PSU into a great Northwest version of UCLA. The Cal and U-Dub influences will come naturally.
Go Vikings!
