Cal’s Card Stunts Make ESPN List of Top College Football Traditions

With college football’s regular season starting today (August 23) at various sites, including Ireland, ESPN posted a story on Saturday listing its top 36 game-day traditions, and one Cal tradition was among the 36.

Cal was one of four schools listed under the heading of “That’s Dedication,” and it spotlighted “Card Stunts, Cal.”

You have seen various forms of card stunts at a wide variety of events in stadium over the years, but the practice was invented at Cal.

For every home game, each seat in the Cal student section is given a variety of cards, which are held up by all the people in the section at a certain time to form a huge message or picture. It’s a nice tradition that is more than 100 years old that, of course, started with a Cal game against Stanford.

But last season it led to Cal getting penalized, one of the few times that people in the stands cost the home team some yardage. Not surprisingly this occurred during a night game.

Here is what ESPN said about the tradition:

Card stunts, Cal. Here is a bit of college football trivia. Cal students invented card stunts, the practice of handing out cards to a crowd to create a massive design, for The Big Game against Stanford in 1914. The practice continues today, directed by a rally committee that sets up the stunts and sorts cards to give to students for every home game. The cards drew national attention, and the ire of coach Justin Wilcox, last season during the game against San Diego State, when students kept throwing them onto the field. Officials whistled Cal for two 15-yard penalties as a result. Wilcox then took the mic of the referee and scolded fans, telling them to knock it off. – Adelson

The students were warned several times about throwing the cards onto the field, but finally officials had had enough and hit Cal with 30 yards in penalties. Unfortunately, the penalized card-throwing took place during a TV commercial, so only those attending the game saw it.

By the way, Cal won that game against San Diego State 31-10.

There is some debate about the debut of the Cal card stunts. While ESPN suggests it began with the 1914 Big Game, the Cal website says the first Cal stunts were performed in 1910 during a Cal-Stanford rugby match when football had been dropped for several years. The first two images produced by the 1910 card section were the Stanford Axe and a Big C.

When football returned, the card stunts came with it, so perhaps ESPN was focused on when the card-stunts tradition hit college football.

Here is how the card stunts look in quieter, daytime games:

Cal opens its 2025 season with a night game on Saturday, August 30, at Oregon State, so the Cal card stunts won't be on display until the home opener on September 6 against Texas Southern.

Cal students cannot take credit for the Great Rose Bowl Hoax, pulled off by Cal Tech students. (Oh those mathematical minds.).

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