Couldn't resist. . . here is the history on the phrase Bear Down:
Tell The Team To Bear Down
Many in the Old Pueblo have never seen the Cats play in any venue other than McKale Memorial Center, but once upon a time, Bear Down Gym was not only the team?s home, but one of the great sports venues in this part of the country.
Completed in 1926, the gym was first used for a b-ball game in 1927. ?At that time, it was the largest and best on-campus, basketball facility in probably the entire West,? Jon Alquist notes. ?Most of the larger arenas on the West Coast were municipal-type courts ? they weren?t on campus. None of the colleges that you think of now as having big facilities ? Stanford, Cal, UCLA, USC ? had anything comparable to Bear Down Gym. It was a showcase in the Western United States.?
The name of the facility, of course, is part of the U of A tradition of creating legends. John ?Button? Salmon, a football/baseball star with the Cats, was gravely injured in a car accident in October 1926. While dying in the hospital, he allegedly beseeched Pop McKale to ?tell the team to bear down.?
Though the story has been disputed over the years, no one can deny that this popular phrase, which was given even more authority when UA Band Director Jack Lee wrote the school fight song ?Bear Down Arizona? in 1952, is a rousing piece of athletic history.
Apologize if this is slightly off topic but it was part of a discussion in another thread of this forum
Tell The Team To Bear Down
Many in the Old Pueblo have never seen the Cats play in any venue other than McKale Memorial Center, but once upon a time, Bear Down Gym was not only the team?s home, but one of the great sports venues in this part of the country.
Completed in 1926, the gym was first used for a b-ball game in 1927. ?At that time, it was the largest and best on-campus, basketball facility in probably the entire West,? Jon Alquist notes. ?Most of the larger arenas on the West Coast were municipal-type courts ? they weren?t on campus. None of the colleges that you think of now as having big facilities ? Stanford, Cal, UCLA, USC ? had anything comparable to Bear Down Gym. It was a showcase in the Western United States.?
The name of the facility, of course, is part of the U of A tradition of creating legends. John ?Button? Salmon, a football/baseball star with the Cats, was gravely injured in a car accident in October 1926. While dying in the hospital, he allegedly beseeched Pop McKale to ?tell the team to bear down.?
Though the story has been disputed over the years, no one can deny that this popular phrase, which was given even more authority when UA Band Director Jack Lee wrote the school fight song ?Bear Down Arizona? in 1952, is a rousing piece of athletic history.
Apologize if this is slightly off topic but it was part of a discussion in another thread of this forum
