Yell Leader Splits Pants Before Season Opener

September 12, 1981. I’m a sophomore at USC, warming up in the end zone of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum before the season opener, Tennessee vs. USC, my first-ever football game as a USC yell leader.

Although I had been a yell leader for the basketball team during freshman year, football at the University of Southern California was something different altogether. This was the biggest stage, the school’s raison d’etre, so it seemed at times. For goodness sake, this was Marcus Allen’s Heisman Trophy year!

Black Boy Bowled Over by Bowl Season

It wouldn't be college football bowl season on the Blocks without a nostalgic look back at a certain black college cheerleader who cheered his heart out for both USC and UCLA in three January 1st bowl games in the early 1980s. Ah, those college daze.

One month into his freshman year, the young black boy became a USC yell leader. Some time later, he would be a USC Yell Leader with a Love Hangover at the Fiesta Bowl.

Then the young man had the audacity to transfer to their crosstown rival. Yep, the Bruins. Find out why, and see how he, who is me, became a UCLA Cheerleader Sacked by the Rose Bowl. It's college bowling like you never imagined, now and forever on Randy Boyd's Blocks.

When the USC Sigma Chi's Called Me Nigger

I'd been dreaming of living in California since age 14. That's when I convinced myself the Golden State was a great escape from my abusive family and lonely life in Indianapolis.

My escape plan was simple: Graduate from high school in June of 1980; enroll at the University of Southern California in September of 1980.

My first memorable moment as a college freshman: being called nigger the week before school starts by bros from the all-white, all-mighty Sigma Chi fraternity.

"I should have cried in front of them and let them see the tears of a hurt black boy."

My Sigma Chi welcome took place on a night when a handful of us new black students were walking home after a social function. As we passed the frat house on an otherwise quiet Greek row, a head peeked through the Sigma Chi curtains.

“Oh, niggers,” said a Sigma Chi, as if disappointed we weren't a group of white sorority girls or white fraternity boys. His comment was followed by the sound of brothers laughing.

Welcome to California, nigger.

Us niggers were way outnumbered on the all-white, Dixie-flagged-waving, USC Greek row, and there were more female niggers than male niggers among us, so us niggers got out of there quickly and quietly like the smart niggers we were.

"What do I do now? I can't just go back home. It's not even the first week of school yet."

Later that night, I had to find somewhere to be alone. I borrowed another student's bike, rode to the LA Memorial Coliseum and broke down in tears while looking at the lit field below me, thinking: What do I do now? I can't just go back home. It's not even the first week of school yet.

With the Coliseum as my witness, I vowed then and there to escape my new jail and this all-white-private-fraternity-party school ASAP. It was already time to dream up a new and better dream.

In the meantime, I was even more determined to get my college boy on, as planned. That meant: becoming a USC yell leader (no doubt in my mind), keep looking for my dream buddy, and continuing being a great inmate, er, student, then, eventually, get the f*%k out of the University of Spoiled Children who say things like, “oh, niggers.”

"I still cry for the 18-year-old boy who had to hear 'oh, niggers' coming from the Sigma Chi house."

In retrospect, I should have gone to the Dean and (the school paper) the day after the incident, and told them both how much it hurt, hearing the Sigma Chi's call me nigger.

I should have cried in front of them and let them see the tears of a hurt black boy who had put all his hopes and dreams into USC, only to have those dreams shattered in one casual blow when, the week before freshman year starts, he's welcomed with “oh, niggers” coming from one of the richest, all-white fraternities on the all-white fraternity row (one or two token niggers excepted, oh.)

But kids generally don't speak up, let alone reveal how hurt they feel. As an adult, I can admit that I still cry for the 18-year-old boy who had to hear “oh, niggers” coming from the Sigma Chi house.

"USC was my chance to escape my angry black family and meet the white boy of my dreams."

I can also admit that, because I grew up the youngest in a house full of violent and abusive black boys and black men, my adolescent heart longed for white boys and white men, the kind who hugged people and rescued people, as seen on TV and in the movies.

As such, my escape to California and USC was my chance to escape my angry black family and meet the white boy of my dreams, who would naturally come complete with his white friends and family.

I know I'm not the only abused black boy who's dreamt up this dream. It's what some black boys do. It's how we adapt to the harsh circumstances around us. It's still a part of me, and at age 18, it was the stuff of my California dreams. Can you say, surf's up!

"Why are there no blacks in the white fraternities?"

A month before college, while still at home in Indy, I received advanced warning of the rough racial seas ahead. It came in the form of a large booklet about the USC fraternity system. Every fraternity was on display, many with photos featuring all its members (in front of the house itself).

"Why are there no blacks in the white fraternities, and vice-versa for the few black frats, who don't seem to have actual houses?" I asked a friend named Kelvin, a senior at Ball State. He explained how all fraternities and sororities were segregated, not legally so much as, de facto.

"There are some one or two exceptions now and then," said Kelvin, himself a member of a popular, all-white house.

This unexpected education before my enrollment in a "big-time school with a good basketball or football team and a great party life" was daunting, to say the least. But it was August. I was already on the launchpad, the engines were revving, the mission, four years in the works, was about to blast off, and I couldn't let a little booklet stop the California Express now!

"I wish I had bared witness to my pain, then carried on with my college dreams."

And so a few weeks later, at the end of the summer of 1980, the little black boy turned high school graduate turned young man took off for college and his California dreams. A one-way ticket. Indianapolis to LAX.

Days after landing, I hear "oh, niggers" coming from the USC Sigma Chi house, home of the most beautiful of the beautiful white people that dominate the landscape. And the school. Welcome to California, nigger.
Back then, I wish I had bared witness to my pain, then carried on with my college dreams: wild parties, dorm hi-jinks, homecoming floats, football games. And beer! I went to college for the college life. And to meet my husband. Oh, yeah, and get a degree.

But that degree would not be earned at USC.

“Oh, niggers” ruined USC for me. From that night on, the Trojans were a bust. While I was there, I gave it the old college try, lol, but I was determined not to live the rest of my life saying, I graduated from USC.
Which is exactly why I transferred to, became a cheerleader at, and graduated from UCLA in 1985. Go Bruins!

Are All Male Cheerleaders Gay?

"At some point in time, at least 110% of the population will question your sexuality based on the fact that you once were and always will be: a male cheerleader.”

—from Walt Loves the Bearcat

Having been a male cheerleader for four of my five years in college (at two major universities, USC and UCLA), experience tells me: the question burning in every red-blooded sports fan sitting upon high is ... are all male cheerleaders gay?

I'm reminded of a young male cheerleader who missed a big event to help his girlfriend, who was getting an abortion.

Does it really matter whether or not all male cheerleaders are gay?

See cheerleading from a different point of view in the blocks labeled Cheer Up, now and forever at Randy Boyd's Blocks.

Summer of One-Eighty

The events of the summer of 1980 happened like a blurry dream in my 18-year-old mind. The star of that dream was a young black man whose fate changed dramatically in the span of a few hot months, all while the entire world obsessed over Who Shot JR?

I began the summer as a shiny new high school graduate in Indianapolis, Indiana. I ended the summer as a USC freshman in Los Angeles. One month later, I was a USC yell leader. WTF? lol

In the interim, I held three summer jobs in Indy, one cleaning a parking lot, one cleaning an office building, and one working at the state headquarters of the Republican Party.

That's right. I got paid to call Republican donors and ask for more campaign dollars. If the democrats had been hiring, and had put an ad in the paper, and my mom had seen it, perhaps I'd be saying I spent two summers working for the donkeys.

And yes, even more shocking: I admit it. I played the Village People's "Ready for the 80's" on the 8-track in my car throughout senior year. An even bigger hit for me, though, was their classic, "Go West." Duh!

From Hoosier boy to LA man in the span of a few hot months. Then, before America found out who shot JR, I was a USC yell leader.

And to think I had never taken one step in the state of California until a week before college. WTF?

USC or UCLA: Who Throws a Better Party?

Waaaaay back in 1985, I graduated from college, capping off a four-year college cheerleading career spent cheering at USC, then UCLA for two years apiece.

Cheering for both the Trojans and the Bruins gave me a unique insight into the psyches of these crosstown rivals. Take the parties thrown by their athletic supporters.

USC alumni functions tend to be full of people who are dressed up, not down. Postures are erect. Cocktails are plentiful. At UCLA gatherings, folks are more casually dressed, laid back, less lawn-tennis-like, more liveliness, more music, more beer!

Make no mistake, both schools know how to party in the name of school spirit. It's just that one school has a little more fun doing it. More beer!

Find out what it was like, being the big black cheerleader in the blocks labeled Cheer Up, now and forever at Randy Boyd's Blocks.

Best Night, Worst Night

This time 25 years ago, I was a newly-minted college graduate and member of the UCLA Class of 1985. Carol Burnett was the guest speaker at our graduation and when the ceremony was over, my time in college was up.

And what a time it was. Five years at two schools, two at USC, three at UCLA, four years of college cheerleading, a couple of years in a mostly white fraternity, a few all-nighters, a few drunken nights and a lot of memories.

Perhaps no memory is greater than one emotion-packed night that happened in February of '85, senior year. It was a night that epitomized my college experience: great moments in the public spotlight, challenging moments in my private life.

The evening started with the Greatest USC-UCLA Basketball Game Ever, a four-overtime donnybrook. The Bruins lost, but that hurt far less than what came next: the Worst Night in a Black College Boy's Life.

Twenty-five years later, the college boy is all grown up and I'm happy to announce: he's a better man for having made it thought that night.

College Daze: 25 Years Later

This time 25 years ago, I graduated from UCLA with a BA in Sociology. This time 30 years ago, I graduated from North Central High School in Indianapolis, Indiana. So how did this native Hoosier end up on the west coast?

I had been planning my escape from Indiana since age 14. That was about the time I'd seen enough of Three's Company, Charlie's Angels and ChiPs to know California was the golden kingdom where anyone's dreams can come true, even mine.

I only applied to four colleges, UCLA and USC (because only a major university with good sports teams would do); San Diego State (my west coast backup); and Wisconsin because they sent me their application and there was no application fee. I thought that was nice of them, so I applied to be a Badger if my California dreams fell through.

"First memorable moment: Being called nigger."

No way was I gonna stick around Hoosierville. Growing up as a young black man who refused to be somebody else's stereotype in a state that still held on to Klannish ideas was not an easy challenge in 1960s and 70s Indianapolis. I was gonna split, it was simply a matter of where.

Nigger Still Smiling

“Black boy feels like shit his whole life, so he makes up a dream world where people like and accept him. But he’s still not convinced they like him for him, so he imagines living his whole life in somebody else’s headspace.

All anyone really sees of the poor bastard is the manufactured mascot head he wears at all times, cool Bear/Joe Bruin, the black boy nobody could hate too much, especially with that goofy grin plastered on his face. I mean, what white man would ever hang a nigger with a smile like Joe Bruin?”

—from Walt Loves the Bearcat

Once upon a time, there was a little black boy, who was me, who doubted his worth.

Compared to all the other boys and girls around him, the boy felt worth less, like a black fag. Then the boy fell ill and the illness foretold of scary things to come from the scariest of new worlds: the land of a i d s, that mysterious new beast in the whispers of the dark of the early 1980s ...

The boy, who was a college boy and a college cheerleader, felt like a black fag bound for AIDS, and began to dream of a whole other life, a life where he was HIV-negative, carefree and partners with the love of his life, the quarterback to his cheerleader, of course. Duh! Black male cheerleaders have dreams, too. lol

So the boy, who would be HIV-positive, dreamed of a whole other life where he and his QB buddy tested HIV-negative, and went on to become the “Mr. and Mr. Jackie Robinson of Professional Sports History.” A great love story worthy of an heroic epic. Walt, the quarterback, loves his cheerleader, the Bearcat. A dream come true for a black boy who likes to dream, and write stories about those dreams.

But a curious thing happened on the way to My Whole Other HIV-Negative Life. That version of me took on a life of its own, so to speak. That guy--that HIV-negative, quarterback-loving, famous screenwriter black guy--that fictional character, well, he became his own man: Bear Coleman.

And Bear Coleman kept shouting to my author brain: Hey, writer man, hey, brain! Hey, you! I also have a dream!

And the writer man took note.

Bear's dream: the boy, who would be HIV-negative, dreams of a whole other life where he tests HIV-positive and he and his QB buddy never met! Can he survive as a single man living with AIDS in the modern world?

But a curious thing happened on the way to My Whole Other HIV-Positive Life. Bear Coleman, my dream boy, couldn't escape feeling worth less compared to all the other boys and girls, either! He, too, felt like a black cheer fag who doesn't deserve happy endings, even though he's got his quarterback!

My job as the writer man: merge my dreams and these two characters together into one seamless story about love, football and some very potent daydreams. And create some happy endings, for goodness sake!

Once upon a time, there was a little black boy, who was me, whose world was rocked by a little virus that would change his life forever. To survive, he had to dream of better dreams. One of them is my fourth novel, Walt Loves the Bearcat.


Walt Loves the Bearcat
by Randy Boyd

A Lambda Literary Finalist
Best Romance

Available wherever books are sold

Get Walt Loves the Bearcat at amazon.com

More about Walt Loves the Bearcat


"A madcap whirl, Walt Loves the Bearcat is first and forever a love story, one written with a roller-coaster brio and a magical intensity that demand and deserve the reader’s perseverance."
SF Bay Times (Read full review).

"Warm-spirited ... resonates with soulful queries into the nature of love and life." Bay Area Reporter (Read full review).

How I Became a Male Cheerleader

I began 1980 as a high school senior in Indianapolis, Indiana, and ended the year as a freshman yell leader at USC in Los Angeles.

Prior to college, I had no previous cheerleading experience and had never stepped foot in California, not even for a campus visit.

In September, I became a USC student. In October, I became a USC yell leader, a position I held for two years before transferring and graduating from UCLA, where I was also a cheerleader for two years.

So how does a black kid from the Midwest with zero prior experience become a cheerleader for two crosstown rivals during one college career?

"From that day forward, I studied cheerleaders like a Jedi knight in training."

How was I able to try out for college cheerleading a total of five times and make it five times?

How was I fortunate enough to cheer for Marcus Allen of USC during his 1981 Heisman Trophy season, and Reggie Miller of UCLA during his 1985 NIT Championship run?

If only they knew why ... lol

In college, I never told anyone that, since age seven, I had been a student of cheerleading. They didn't know my sister taught me cheerleading one fateful day in my childhood, a day that transformed me into ... a cheerleader for life.

From that day forward, I studied cheerleaders like a Jedi knight in training. I practiced their moves, dissected their actions, became a commentator and a connoisseur, all while growing up in a male-dominated family whose lives revolved around sports.

Cheerleading became as much a part of my life as sports. At home, usually in private, I practiced what I studied. My imaginary sidelines became a refuge from the very cruel realities of my environment.

In college, I never spoke of those cruel realities. In part, because the job of a cheerleader is to only represent the best of yourself, your school, your world. And since, I was a cheerleader from month two of college, I was all about living out the role of my lifetime, a role for which I had been prepping for since age seven, unbeknownst to anyone in college.

Because I discovered I was more “state-school material,” I eventually transferred to UCLA, where it was only natural to continue doing what I do, so I became, duh!, a UCLA cheerleader.

As for loyalty, I grew up in Indiana, so I'll always be a Hoosier at heart. But when it comes to Trojans vs. Bruins. Let's just say I root for the school for which I was better suited, and that served me better.

Go Bruins!

Black Teen's Tough Choice: Play Sports or Be a Fag

"I grew up in a sports family, so I had my sports dreams. I played the big three--basketball and football, from little league to junior high, baseball just in little league.

Then in my late teens, I dabbled in soccer and tennis. But I never got that much joy from actually playing sports. There was always something in the way, my body, my mind ... I was six-four, 215, when I was six.

One time, I was at an alumni function as a cheerleader and this UCLA recruiting coach told the audience that it was all about getting guys with prototype bodies like mine. I always had the form, just none of the grace. When you’re a kid, that means they stick you underneath the basket in basketball and on the line in football

"It was all looking like a train wreck with me as the only victim."

Call it what you want, but I never wanted to be on the court or the field and not have a legitimate turn in the spotlight. I was not born to block for somebody else. Or to attack somebody on defense.

I was born to carry the ball, maybe not literally, but I was born to be ... center stage, at least for part of the time, in the game of life. I warred with my coaches over it, especially in football.

I finally gave up trying to fit into the ‘team’ concept in junior high, coincidentally around the time I was getting a major jones for this very tall, hot blond guy trying out for the 9th grade basketball team.

The coach had envisioned us as twin towers. Between the blond kid and my exploding feelings for guys in general, it was all looking like a train wreck in the locker room with me as the only victim.

Instead of risking my life as I knew it, I quit basketball. Forever. I joined this peer tutoring program where I got paid helping other kids do their homework. I had served my official notice to the world--my basketball family included--that I was no longer a jock-in-training.

I got out of sports because I was scared of everyone finding out I was starting to become a fag"

—from Walt Loves the Bearcat
by Randy Boyd
A Lambda Literary Award Finalist for Best Romance

"Warm-spirited ... resonates with soulful queries into the nature of love and life." Bay Area Reporter

Black Yell Leader Tells Big White Lie

"It's my parents' anniversary. I'm flying back home to Indiana for the weekend.”

That was my excuse for getting out of the upcoming road trip: USC @ Oregon State. Football season, 1981. The yell leaders were at practice, getting a secondhand reprimand from our yell captain because our yell coach was upset.

None of the yell leaders had stepped up to fill the vacant slot for the road rip. For some reason, no one was eager to travel to an easy win at a win-challenged school in a remote location (where just two yell leaders--the captain and the chosen one—would cheer in a hostile environment with no band, little fan support and perhaps most importantly, no song girls).

"So that explains all that hostility, that resentment."

Longtime USC Yell Coach Lindley Bothwell thought the lack of volunteers showed a lack of commitment and had let it be known: somebody had better man up or else.

“What about you, Boyd?” asked the other yell leaders after they themselves had excused their way out of the trip. I was the last option because two weeks earlier, I had been “chosen” to cheer at the USC @ Indiana game (same two-man deal).

I had been “chosen” for the Indiana road trip because I was from Indianapolis and cheering for USC at ole IU was like my very own personal homecoming. We stayed at the Indianapolis Hyatt and ate at my mom's house. At the game, IU's student section was full of kids who had been my classmates two years earlier at Indianapolis North Central High School.

A good chunk of my 1980 graduating class (circa 1,000 students) had gone to IU for college. In 1981, a good chunk of them saw me cheering at the USC vs. Indiana football game in Bloomington, Indiana.

Perhaps it was those festive mini-reunions with my former classmates that fostered such good spirits between the Hoosier cheering section and the two USC yell leaders. At one point, the females in the IU band's flag corps kidnapped us both and carried us to the student section.

"The same guys who constantly made 'black' jokes surprised me by standing up for me."

SC won the game 21-0 and the road trip was one of my all-time college cheerleading highlights, which was exactly why I now was the last candidate for the vacant spot on the Oregon State trip. I had already gotten mine.

Moreover, I had only “gotten mine” because some of the other yell leaders had lobbied for me to go on the Indiana road trip, seeing as how it was my homecoming. To my astonishment, the same guys who constantly made “black” jokes surprised me by standing up for me. If only I had remembered that before telling a big white lie.

“What about you, Boyd?” asked the other yell leaders, desperate for somebody to volunteer for the Oregon State trip.

“It's my parents' anniversary,” I said hastily. “I'm flying back home for the weekend. Sorry, already have the reservations, been planning it for weeks.”

In truth, there was no anniversary. My parents split up around junior high. I lied because I was tired and needed the rest, not another road trip.

Eventually, another yell leader caved in, went on the trip and saved all our asses, allowing us to finish out the football season as unfired SC yell leaders. The Trojans went 9-2 in the regular season, highlighted by Marcus Allen's Heisman Trophy and John Mazer's great comeback win in the Oklahoma @ SC game.

A late season loss at Washington dashed SC's Rose Bowl hopes, then the Trojans' George Achica block UCLA's last-second field goal attempt and knocked the Bruins out of the Rose Bowl. New Year's Day, the Trojans lost to defending national champs Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl, where I was USC yell leader with a love hangover.

Some time later, after my SC yell career was over, I learned that some of the squad had been angry with me for going on the Indiana road trip with the full knowledge that I was returning to Indianapolis a few weeks later for my parents' anniversary.

Upon further reveal, my lie had sealed my fate, unbeknownst to me.

So that explains all that hostility, that resentment, that distance, thought my newly-informed self, reflecting on a year's worth of ill-will.

My fellow yell leaders thought they had stood up for me for no reason, since I was apparently a rich kid who could jet back to Indiana at will. In reality, we were anything but rich. But I lied, not even realizing how much I had poisoned my world.

By the time I found out, it was too late. The school year was over. My next stop was UCLA. If only I had been honest, my USC yell leading experience might have turned out quite differently.

If only I had remembered that before telling a big white lie.

The Worst Night in a Black College Boy's Life

“I confessed to one of [my roommates] that I was--I don’t even know the word I used--but we both understood it as gay. Or he probably understood it as queer, since he was from the South.

“Anyway, I told him I was queer and in love with him--again, in whatever inarticulate words my 23-year-old mind used. He moved out the next day, breaking my very adolescent heart and leaving me without a good friend and a roommate.

"The beloved roomie had ratted me out as a fag."

“It all happened toward the end of February. The basketball team was in a heated battle for a berth in the NCAA. After I got home from cheering at the greatest USC-UCLA basketball game ever, the apartment was eerily quiet. Next thing I know, I’m sitting at the kitchen table and reading this very long and angry letter on yellow legal paper.

“The note was from the other roommate, the one I hadn’t been in love with. He wasn’t even a student, just a Hawaiian guy on some Christian missionary-type voyage. Our apartment had been his temporary harbor.

“Turns out, the beloved roomie--who had already moved out--had ratted me out as a fag, so the evangelical roommate moved out while I was at the basketball game, leaving me a vitriolic note telling me all the reasons I was going to hell.

“Life became a blur. I had literally days to come up with all the rent, and before that, coming up with my third was already a monthly challenge. From the moment I read that letter until I graduated a few months later, I went into survival mode.

“My landlords were an understanding elderly couple. They gave me a few extra days to pay the rent and I recruited two strangers who each needed a mattress on the floor--same arrangement, different cast. This time, I kept my mouth shut and concentrated on surviving until graduation.

“The UCLA basketball team’s NIT title run was a godsend, a place to live the last of my boyhood dreams. After the climax of the hoop season, the faculty advisor wanted us to cheer at some volleyball games. I didn’t even bother responding.

“My work was done. I’d given two major universities my life and times and my heart and soul for five years, all while searching for one other male student who thought like me, felt like me, and was compatible enough to be my buddy-for-life.

“The closest I ever got was a guy at USC who once told me he was gay when he was drunk, then later told me he had no recollection of that disclosure when he was sober; and a guy at UCLA who was from the South and thought so much of me that he moved out the day after I told him I was in love with him and very confused about it all.

“I don’t blame him, mind you. He did what he had to do to move on, and eventually, so did I. I spent my last months of college making sure I passed my classes so I could get out of there and never, ever have to look back."

—from Walt Loves the Bearcat
by Randy Boyd
A Lambda Literary Award Finalist for Best Romance

"Warm-spirited ... resonates with soulful queries into the nature of love and life." Bay Area Reporter

The Greatest USC-UCLA Basketball Game Ever

"Both SC and UCLA were doing well enough to be talking March Madness on February 28, 1985, when they met at Pauley Pavilion, UCLA’s historic gym.

In the match-up earlier in the month, SC beat UCLA by a point in two overtimes. This time, they slugged it out in four overtimes before UCLA missed a couple of free throws and lost.

I’ve been to countless basketball games in my life, as a fan, as a player and as a cheerleader, but that was the greatest basketball game I’d ever experienced.

The arena was packed--both bands, both cheerleading squads. Everyone stood for hours, leaning in so intensely, the gym felt like one of those high school barns you see in the movie Hoosiers. And I was right there, knowing it was my last USC-UCLA battle of any kind as a participant.

Even though we lost, it never mattered. I had just witnessed the collective energy of two universities move through my soul, starting with the 13,000 people in the joint that night. Moments like that were why I chose a big-time school. Times like that were why I had been a cheerleader."

—from Walt Loves the Bearcat
by Randy Boyd
A Lambda Literary Award Finalist for Best Romance

"Warm-spirited ... resonates with soulful queries into the nature of love and life." Bay Area Reporter

Black Boy Bowled Over by Bowl Season

It wouldn't be college football bowl season on the Blocks without a nostalgic look back at a certain black college cheerleader who cheered his heart out for both USC and UCLA in three bowl games in the early 1980s. Ah, those college daze.

One month into his freshman year, the young black boy became a USC yell leader. Some time later, he would be a USC Yell Leader with a Love Hangover at the Fiesta Bowl.

Then the young man had the audacity to transfer to their crosstown rival. Yep, the Bruins. Find out why, and see how he, who is me, became a UCLA Cheerleader Sacked by the Rose Bowl. It's college bowling like you never imagined, now and forever on Randy Boyd's Blocks.

Nigger with a Smile Like Joe Bruin

“Black boy feels like shit his whole life, so he makes up a dream world where people like and accept him. But he’s still not convinced they like him for him, so he imagines living his whole life in somebody else’s headspace.

All anyone really sees of the poor bastard is the manufactured mascot head he wears at all times, cool Bear/Joe Bruin, the black boy nobody could hate too much, especially with that goofy grin plastered on his face. I mean, what white man would ever hang a nigger with a smile like Joe Bruin?”

—from Walt Loves the Bearcat

Once upon a time, there was a little black boy, who was me, who doubted his worth. Compared to all the other boys and girls around him, the boy felt worth less, like a black fag. Then the boy fell ill and the illness foretold of scary things to come from the scariest of new worlds: the land of a i d s, that mysterious new beast in the whispers of the dark of the early 1980s ...

The boy, who was a college boy and a college cheerleader, felt like a black fag bound for AIDS, and began to dream of a whole other life, a life where he was HIV-negative, carefree and partners with the love of his life, the quarterback to his cheerleader, of course. Duh! Black male cheerleaders have dreams, too. lol

So the boy, who would be HIV-positive, dreamed of a whole other life where he and his QB buddy tested HIV-negative, and went on to become the “Mr. and Mr. Jackie Robinson of Professional Sports History.” A great love story worthy of an heroic epic. Walt, the quarterback, loves his cheerleader, the Bearcat. A dream come true for a black boy who likes to dream, and write stories about those dreams.

But a curious thing happened on the way to My Whole Other HIV-Negative Life. That version of me took on a life of its own, so to speak. That guy--that HIV-negative, quarterback-loving, famous screenwriter black guy--that fictional character, well, he became his own man: Bear Coleman.

And Bear Coleman kept shouting to my author brain: Hey, writer man, hey, brain! Hey, you! I also have a dream!

And the writer man took note.

Bear's dream: the boy, who would be HIV-negative, dreams of a whole other life where he tests HIV-positive and he and his QB buddy never met! Can he survive as a single man living with AIDS in the modern world?

But a curious thing happened on the way to My Whole Other HIV-Positive Life. Bear Coleman, my dream boy, couldn't escape feeling worth less compared to all the other boys and girls, either! He, too, felt like a black cheer fag who doesn't deserve happy endings, even though he's got his quarterback!

My job as the writer man: merge my dreams and these two characters together into one seamless story about love, football and some very potent daydreams. And create some happy endings, for goodness sake!

Once upon a time, there was a little black boy, who was me, whose world was rocked by a little virus that would change his life forever. To survive, he had to dream of better dreams. One of them is my fourth novel, Walt Loves the Bearcat.


Walt Loves the Bearcat
by Randy Boyd

A Lambda Literary Finalist
Best Romance

Available wherever books are sold

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"A madcap whirl, Walt Loves the Bearcat is first and forever a love story, one written with a roller-coaster brio and a magical intensity that demand and deserve the reader’s perseverance."
SF Bay Times (Read full review).

"Warm-spirited ... resonates with soulful queries into the nature of love and life." Bay Area Reporter (Read full review).