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Top: Past UCLA Alumni Association president James Thayer '48 and Chancellor Charles E. Young M.A. '57, Ph.D. '60 are among the celebrants at the Alumni Association's 50th anniversary party. The Association presented The Bruin to campus during the celebration on Sept. 30, 1984. Bottom: The UCLA fight song "Mighty Bruins" debuts with its Academy Award-winning composer Bill Conti conducting the UCLA Marching Band. Do you remember when The Bruin was dedicated and "Mighty Bruins" debuted? Contact us at UCLAHistoryProject@UCLAlumni.net or (310) 206-0383 to share your memories and photographs. |
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As the stoic guardian of Westwood Plaza – and by extension, UCLA – The Bruin is an institution, an iconic symbol of the university itself. It may seem like The Bruin has always watched over UCLA, but the statue is a relative newcomer to campus. The Bruin’s origins can be traced to the 50th Anniversary Committee organized by the UCLA Alumni Association to plan celebrations marking its first half-century. Chaired by Judy Postley ’45, the 16-member committee proposed to the Association’s board of directors a series of projects that would highlight UCLA’s impressive achievements. On Sept. 30, 1984, before a crowd of nearly 1,000 alumni celebrants, the Association unveiled two of its gifts to campus. The first was The Bruin, a tooth-baring bronze statue measuring 10-feet long, 6-feet tall, 3-feet across and weighing a little more than 2 tons, and billed at the time as the largest known bear sculpture in the United States. Costing $37,000 to cast and another $10,000 for artist Billy Fitzgerald, the ferocious grizzly was a departure for the UCLA Bruin, which usually had been depicted as a friendly, cartoonish figure. (The new “prowling Bruin” design, as it was known, inspired the Association’s logo, also adopted in 1984.) Academy Award-winning composer Bill Conti led the 250-member UCLA Marching Band in the rousing debut of the second gift: “Mighty Bruins,” a new fight song for UCLA. UCLA had long shared a fight song with UC Berkeley, but members of the 50th Anniversary Committee said they were tired of listening to the same song whenever there was a touchdown at a UCLA vs. UC Berkeley game. They decided it was time UCLA got a fight song of its own. The Association sponsored a contest soliciting lyrics from students and alumni with a $1,000 prize at stake. Conti agreed to write the music. In the end, he combined lyrics submitted by Barbara Lamb ’66 and Don Holley ’84, and set them to music. “Mighty Bruins” made its gridiron debut at the Oct. 6 game against Stanford, with Conti again conducting the UCLA Marching Band. |
