Logic 31

At the end of my less than stellar UCLA academic career, I needed to pass Logic 31 to finish school and not come back to LA for a new quarter in the fall. It was a seemingly simple task. L31 was a lower division class, filled with younger kids who were not Logic majors. I was fairly bright, a senior, and only about 10% of the class failed lower division liberal arts classes. Moreover, in four years of school to that point, I had failed exactly one class. Let's just say the "not pass" had happened in a manner so spectacular that the results could not have been deliberately replicated. So, failing Logic 31 and not being able to leave school was the furthest thing from my mind.

There were complications, though. My friend Joe talked me into transferring to L31 to fill a requirement we both needed to graduate. We started in an upper division Stats class that would have fit the bill, but left when a group of students in the 20 person class laughed and asked what we were doing there. We walked out before the German TA who taught the class showed up. The Stats class, for all its perceived difficulty and faults, met at 2:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It had final quarter senior appeal.

In contrast, L31 this was a MWF8 class, the likes of which I'd never before fathomed scheduling. Since every weekend at UCLA started on Thursday, Joe and I took it as given that we would attend no Friday classes. We would instead buy cute but studious A-Chi-O Julie C. coffee every Monday and Wednesday in exchange for Friday note taking. Unfortunately, most of my weekends at the time started on Monday, and I didn't make any 8 am classes, let alone those on Friday. Joe bought a lot of coffee that quarter. UCLA, for all its virtues, was not exactly an attendance requiring campus environment.

We soon learned logic was not a class you could BS your way through, which is to say it was outside my major. Tests consisted of 3-4 proofs, requiring 30-50 steps, and there was no partial credit. You either executed a proof correctly, or you got a zero for the problem. My first quiz yielded a zero. My second was not much better. With a week left to go in the quarter, I was practicing my $5000 speech to my parents about how I had to go back to LA for three months to finish school with no real plan for lodging. To take one class. Not good times.

Tomorrow the Cats face their Logic 31. Vandy is reeling. We are playing for the choicest rewards our budding program ever gets. The game is at home, on national television. Our crowd may be more sparse than usual, but at 8pm with all this on the line, it will be oiled and loud. VANDY LOST TO DUKE AT HOME TWO WEEKS AGO. Kentucky has finally shown some signs of life on offense, and with Randall Cobb at the helm should be able to move the ball and put points on the scoreboard.

In short, this should be a chip shot. But when a chip shot comes with a host of ramifications, it becomes much more than a chip shot. This is Logic 31, a small but thorny obstacle that has ruinous potential.

Strangely, these teams were in the exact same position a year ago when the game was played in Nashville. The Cats had six wins and were trying to improve their lot. Vandy was looking for a bowl eligibility attaining win. (You may have heard Vandy is 0-17 in such games since 1982). The game was ugly, physical, and chippy. We won, but having been there, I concede the game could have gone either way. Tomorrow will be nothing less. Yes, Vandy has lost four in a row. But Bobby Johnson isn't coaching a bunch of preppies who are going to concede this game. This will be a nasty, scrappy team. This team has beaten Auburn and South Carolina at home, and Ole Miss on Oxford. Lets face it, Vandy has three wins better than any one of ours.

In the beginning of the year, I counted Vandy as a win and hoped that we could split what I thought were the 4 "tossup" games. Now we've gone 3/4 on the tossups (Go Cats), and I want gravy. Despite its early season success, Vandy is who we thought they were. Lets get after it.

By the way, I passed Logic 31 with a hook plus and did not have to sleep in my car the following quarter (the long story is amusing). I have to think the Cats can do the same.

We'll be in the KET lot tomorrow. Starting early to stay warm. Go Cats!