<p>I'm asian myself and I'm a total hardcore UCLA football, basketball, and baseball fan. I'll watch the other sports too, but those 3 are my top. These are the major "American" sports, so that's probably why I like them so much too.</p>
<p>Anyways, whenever I go to a football game or basketball game, I see a bunch of white people, which is great, but there's never many asians. Every asian person I talk seems to be pretty "whatevers" about our football and basketball teams, and some even suggest we should cut the football program and invest in something academic (ugh...). Furthermore, I remember last spring when I was walking pass the Bruin bear when Coach Wooden just passed away, I saw a few asian girls walking by and I heard them say aloud "Whose John Wooden?" -_________-;;</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure they were UCLA students too as they had backpacks and everything and they didn't sound or dress like fobs or anything like that sort.</p>
<p>When I was planning a tailgate party for the game against Washington State, all of my asian friends looked me at and said, "Tailgating? Man that's such a WHITE thing. I would never do that."</p>
<p>So yeah. Why don't many asian people get into the major sports at UCLA? I don't know about blaming culture because most of my asian friends are 3rd or 4th generation, so they're pretty Americanized. I can understand if a 1st gen or 2nd gen doesn't like those type of sports and is into other sports popular in Asia like Badminton or something, but come on, I thought it was just wack when someone said football and tailgating was a "White thing." I guess I should never tailgate because I'm not white huh.</p>
<p>I can see the view that tailgating is a “white thing”, because it probably is a large majority of white people that do tailgate. I would assume it’s also partially because there are literally almost no asian football players (college or nfl) or asian basketball players (nba or college). </p>
<p>I’m not asian and I’m more apathetic towards our football and basketball teams because they’ve blown the last two years. Maybe for football if we had a decent or even mediocre QB who could throw I would be more interested, but right now the football team kind of seems like a joke.</p>
<p>it really just depend on the environment they grew up in i think, a lot of people simply never liked sports (especially the current generation that grew up with computer games) I grew up playing a lot of sports and i really took interested in it </p>
<p>parenting probably have a lot to do with it too, i don’t think i can recall a single asian parent that actually knows much about sports in general…</p>
<p>then again it really depends on individuals, example: i am asian, i know a lot of sports, especially the teams in interested in</p>
<p>and i would separate my friends into these categories regarding sports:
friends that don’t know anything and don’t care about sports (i had them asking me who kevin love is),
friends that would go to the football games for the atmosphere but don’t even know who kevin prince is
friends that i can talk to about things like how well the lakers are doing, whos better between kobe bryant and LBJ
and those that knows more in-depth concepts such scouting, drafting, salary cap, knows what a skipper is :p</p>
<p>but yeah i only met one or two friends that i can go in depth about things like draft tactics for their team, who they should sign and what not</p>
<p>id say most of my asian friends would fall into category 1 or 2 :(</p>
<p>Awe, I agree with your ranking hierarchy kick53rv3. Most of my friends also fall in category 1 and 2. Actually, most of my friends that go to games only go for the atmosphere as well, though they can at least know who Kevin Prince is, haha. Not so much anyone else (Akeem Ayers? Norm Chow? Ryan Taylor? Who are these people?)</p>
<p>I probably have a few friends who are like category 3 and like to talk about which teams are better and poll rankings and all, but they don’t attend football games because they think it takes up too much time on Saturdays (with the whole driving and traffic roundtrip).</p>
<p>Lastly, I think I only have ONE friend that is like category 4 and he’s the one I always talk football with. I’m like category 4. I swear I’m not lying to you when I tell you this, but when it was signing day, I popped open my laptop in lecture, opened microsoft word to record the lecture, and then minimized it and watched ESPN updates the entire time. I was streaming it live when I saw Owa and Dietrich Riley make their decisions. It was hard to not yell or anything lol. Yeah I guess I’m the oddball around my friends as I’m the only one who keeps up with recruiting, rankings, depth charts, etc. Same goes for professional teams (MLB, NBA, NFL) where I actually play fantasy =</p>
<p>Because asians care more about career goals (i.e financial success) and being a sports fanatic doesn’t really help in that regard. (generalization but statistically true)</p>
<p>Going to the Rose Bowl a few times is fun, but after the 3rd or 4th time, it gets tiring considering 1) it wastes an entire day 2) the ucla football doesn’t understand what offense is</p>
<p>I actually used to pay a lot more attention to college football and basketball recruiting, when I was in High School. Ironically, with Neuheisel now the coach it’s less interesting to follow because there are so many guys that aren’t making decisions and aren’t even on the radar until January/February. And in basketball it’s been less interesting since the 2008 class bombed and with UCLA having a harder time interesting top recruits.</p>
<p>But yeah, it’s hard to find people that know anything about sports.</p>
<p>We should have a group on aim or something for us more indepth fans to chat about sports, its quite interesting and broadens my knowledge on other teams, like my friend is a huge charger fan while im a pats fan, its quite helpful to get insight on teams you don’t really follow that much</p>
<p>I can tell you for sure it’s not the parenting. My daughter goes to UCLA and did not choose it for the sports and doesn’t care about it at all. On the other hand, my son loves to play and watch sports. ESPN is his middle name : )</p>
<p>We (not including my daughter) are even planning to go on campus to watch basketball game(s) when the season is on, even though we are 6 hours away. </p>
<p>Hopefully you will be able to find more Asian sports fans on campus soon…</p>
<p>I’m more interested in the scientific happenings in the news rather than sports…</p>
<p>I guess I don’t see the beauty of sports…all I seem to see are people smacking into each other and throwing a rather aerodynamically shaped ball.</p>
<p>Basketball and football require strategy … combining the elements of strategy and physical skills make it interesting for people to watch/play. Without the strategy component, these sports would just consist of fighting over a ball with no purpose (boring).</p>
<p>“I’m more interested in the scientific happenings in the news rather than sports…”</p>
<p>And this response by this user is the embodiment of exactly what I am talking about. I remember during orientation I was talking to a guy I had just met and he said to me, “Hey do you know what I read the other day? There was an article on Yahoo that was talking about how DNA and gene splicing can actually be used on the brain and allow the body to artificially create more stem cells, it’s quite fascinating.” (okay he said SOMETHING along the lines of that, but he did say that last part)</p>
<p>My reaction: …that’s cool…(Thinking: wow seriously? I thought UCLA was a balance between academics and a life.)</p>
<p>Well, not everyone has the same interests. Who’s to say that being interested in sports is “having a life” and being interested in scientific research isn’t? It largely depends on the person.</p>
<p>That being said, I have noticed the general trend you’re talking about with asians not being really into sports. I know a few who are really into it, but for the most part, my friends aren’t too interested.</p>
<p>@notaznguy I don’t know…I’m a second-gen Asian…parents were immigrants. Seems to be amongst most of my friends who are second-gen their parents have raised them to go for the steady jobs…the sciences/whatever seems to make a decent amount of money. </p>
<p>By meaning of raised I mean instead of going for sports extracurricular its extra hours at Chinese school (useful for the future and to keep in touch with culture) and ACI Institute or some other SAT-prep class. For the young ones its Chinese school + Kumon (prep lessons in basic math, English, etc.) </p>
<p>However, amongst the 3rd-and-beyond-generation of Asians or Asians who are ultra-Americanized and can’t seem to speak a word of their own language it would seem sports are more popular.</p>
<p>This is speaking from personal experience. Don’t be offended, I never intended that. </p>
<p>As for being White…it just seems that with my group of friends actions seen as Americanized/White such as (partying, getting drunk, banging women, general frat-boy parties) are unacceptable…its not…“Asian”/academically revolved, so to speak. Not to mention most, if not all, of our parents would disapprove. </p>
<p>I can also lump in military with athletics…but eh.</p>
<p>Enlighten me. I’m too used to watching Triumph of the Nerds.</p>
<p>I suppose you may be correct about the 2nd generations. Ideally the 3rd generations would be “fully Americanized” and would be more into sports.</p>
<p>However, for what it’s worth, I too am a 2nd generation Chinese guy whose parents are immigrants who was taught to focus on getting a good job and making money. I did not attend Chinese school, though I am forced to only speak Chinese at home with my parents. I also enrolled in SAT prep classes and played an instrument and all that. It’s probable parenting may have some contribution to it as my dad was a huge, huge Lakers fan and I too am a huge Lakers fan. Although this is arguable because my dad only liked NBA while I follow baseball (Angels fan) and college basketball and college football. Not so much NFL just because LA doesn’t have a team and I’m not really into hockey being from Southern California and all…</p>
<p>Reflecting on all of the games I’ve gone to, whether it’s college sports or professional, I don’t think you can really generalize like that. There are a huge number of asian professional baseball fans, mostly (it seems) Korean, but a pretty good mix. As for college sports, it seems to me that UCLA has a decidedly smaller Asian fan base than, say, Berkeley.</p>
<p>Not only, it seems to me, that the asian students come to the games, there’s a pretty strong almost rabid group of supporters. They join the sports clubs, such as Cal’s Rally Committee and get pretty heavily involved. There’s even a Chinese center on their basketball team, Max Zhang, Cal’s tallest basketball player ever.</p>