Stanford axe stare down

rider730
Mon, 21 Nov 2011 09:42:13 +0000

full mix of majors in RC including chem eng, engineering, bio, and of course humanities

The axe was Stanfurd’s originally, but they used it in 1899 to chop up a dummy dressed as a Cal student during a game, after which we liberated it and fled a manhunt in SF to get it to our campus. It was stolen back and forth several times until a mere 78 years ago when it was agreed that the winner of each year’s big game would receive the axe for one year.

Stanfurd is staring just as intently on their side and have stolen it four times by various slimy and diabolical means.

In the beginning, there was the one university - the university of California - founded in 1868. In 1891 a second university arose when Leland Stanford turned his farm into a school named after his deceased child. In 1899 when the axe was first used and then captured by Cal, they were only 8 years old and facing the 31 year old UC.

Universities multiplied in our state since then - with our ag farm spun off to become Davis, our southern annex spun off to become UCLA, our med school spun off to become UCSF, eventually the full UC system arose to supplement the one University of California - Cal - at the beginning. Plus some unrelated schools like USC, Pomona etc