TWO TICKETS TO PARADISE

Can we buy 1000 posters, just to stand there for an hour while they sign them??

Got your (front row center) tickets yet?  Instead of getting blitzed in the parking lot before the ASU game, come meet the Cheerleaders in the Student Store, for a Natural High that will last through the whole game

Yeah, yeah, we know what you’re thinking:  “Why can’t we do both?”  Okay, sure — We aren’t advocating alcohol or drugs, but, yeah, you could do have a full-on “tailgate” session in Lot 8 first;  Just make sure to allow time to drop by the UCLA Book Store, well before the game starts.  The heart-warming feeling of euphoria that you get will have less to do with the parking structure intoxicants, and much more to do with the genuine kindness, friendliness, and “breathtaking-ness” of these girls.

Why not come in and personally have social intercourse with the girls that you have virtually watched come of age here over the last four years?  As we have stressed before, they are NOT stuck-up phonies, like you might expect when dealing with girls this good-looking (or with mediocre-looking trojans);  The Bruin Girls are down-to-earth students who truly appreciate the support that they have been receiving since starting this new tradition.  Their smiles are sincere, and as soon as you are there for two minutes, you can see that.

Now is the best time to go, as the tradition is still new, so the lines haven’t become a problem yet.  At worst so far, the wait has been just a couple of minutes, and the view while you wait makes the time go by so fast you don’t even realize that you have waited at all.  We expect the word-of-mouth, along with another Final Four run, to make these events more and more popular, so this Thursday night is your best bet for some quality face time.  And speaking of quality faces, if you use your own camera to take photos, make sure to use your flash, or prepare to live with really dark results that will just kill you, because they would have been SO GOOD with a flash.

And just so you know, we have no vested interest in these gatherings, or the posters that they sell.  We aren’t involved in any way.  We just have had a couple of chances to talk with the girls, and are more and more impressed with each occasion.  If you don’t believe us, come down and talk to them.  You will be impressed too, and we’re just talking about personalities.  As far as their sheer, eye-popping beauty, well, you already know about that.  It’s the quality of their personalities that we can’t capture in  photographs.

So come on down, buy a $6 poster (if you WANT, it’s NOT MANDATORY) and be prepared to agree with this entire article.   Here are a couple of shots from the last pre-game mini-event.  They are similar to previously-posted shots, but are new, and slightly different from the others (that’s for the people who “collect” all the photos onto their hard drive).

Then after those photos are some photos of legendary Bruin Gymnastics Coach Valerie Kondos-Field.  Someone claiming to be her Brother (and we believe him, or we wouldn’t have spent the last 6 hours working on this project) is now a poster on the UCLA Internet Message Board Bruinzone, so we wanted to share with him (and with her?) some of our best shots of her from over the last few years.  It’s hard to get good shots at Gymnastics Meets, because they don’t allow flash photography, and because the arena lighting is woefully low.  But we still found 29 semi-decent pics, of which the Top 5 are presented below.  We hope that she is not made to feel uncomfortable by these shots, which are meant as a TRIBUTE to one of the Finest Coaches in Sports History, with the Banners to prove it.

And one last note, speaking of banners:  Congratulations to Kevin Love, who won his THIRD Pac-10 Player of the Week Award, after his dominating performance on the road in Oregon.

That guy may never wash his hand again.

This shot won’t win any Lighting awards, but these girls still “light us up”

The Bobby Knight approach is not needed too often in Gymnastics

She has a Wooden-like contentment, even right before the Meet

Sometimes, they need a little coaxing to get back on the beam

“Did I approve those pigtails?  I thought today was Ponytail Day.”

Extremely VALuable Words from the Wise

Comments

3 responses to “TWO TICKETS TO PARADISE”

  1. John Avatar
    John

    Who is the other girl on the dance team pictured in the second and third photos with the dark hair? Is she half asian too? She’s just as gorgeous as the other girls.

  2. JP Avatar
    JP

    That girl is actually Elise. And yes, she’s gorgeous, just like the rest of them are!

  3. t-h Avatar

    Thanks JP. We are really, really sorry for the prior misidentification. This is EXACTLY why we avoid using names — because we screw ’em up too often!