School spirit runs hot as students ignite couches
By Doug Ancey
Last Thursday night, the skies above Santa Clara were filled with the smoke of six burning couches.
It has become tradition for Santa Clara students to celebrate a win for the men's basketball team against Gonzaga by burning couches. The team has not won a home game against Gonzaga, however, in nine years.
According to Officer Ray Carreira of SCPD, Santa Clara Fire Department responded to six fire calls in regards to the couches being set ablaze.
"I saw one failed attempt on Bellomy Street by the ghetto, and two full burnings, one by the Lafayette apartments, and then one in the intersection of Lafayette and Bellomy Street," said senior Jenny Brown, "I have no idea who started them, but the atmosphere was definitely celebratory. It was like a huge inside joke within the Santa Clara community, as soon as a couch started to burn, there would immediately be a crowd around it."
According to Officer Carreira, no arrests were made that night, due in part to the large police resources SCPD devoted to the area to prevent things from getting too out of hand. "We get that people want to celebrate," explained officer Carreira, "but our message is that this type of celebration requires a lot of police resources. If you have that many resources devoted to a specific area, it definitely slows down the response time of 9-1-1 calls for others areas."
One of the larger couch fires took place on Market St. in front of Benson.
"We lit one [couch] up pretty soon after the game ended," said a Santa Clara senior who wishes to remain anonymous. "As we were walking back from the game we kept hearing that it was a tradition to burn a couch after we beat Gonzaga so we decided to do it. We got a couch from our friends' house on Alviso St. and me and three others dragged it into Market Street and lit it up. Within about three minutes there was a huge crowd on either side of the street jumping and chanting. I'm pretty sure there's a video of it on YouTube." A link to this video can be found on the Santa Clara University Facebook page.
Video footage of various other Santa Clara couch fires are also up on YouTube. In these videos, crowds are jumping up and down chanting "S-C-U," "GO BRONCOS!," and "BUCK THE ZAGS!" Amidst the flashing red and blue police lights, people shout out things like, "That's a Gonzaga couch!"
"This isn't the first time this type of celebrating has gone on," said Phil Beltran, director of campus safety. "Students have lit couches on fire in the past. We're usually not involved though, because everything is done off campus so it falls under SCPD's jurisdiction. I think the last time SCU students celebrated a win like this was nine years ago when we beat Gonzaga, and one time when we made it to the NCAA tournament and we upset Indiana."
Contact Doug Ancey at dancey@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4546.