Give Him a B! Well, Maybe Make It a B+

Before telling the tale of The World’s Oldest Living Cheerleader, I have a confession to make.

He used to make me want to scream.

Not with him. At him.

When that 57-year-old man jumped on that box on the Rose Bowl sidelines, dressed in that short-shorts UCLA cheerleader outfit, looking like something out of a “Saturday Night Live” skit, rattling the molars of those who just want to watch the stinking football game, he made me want to shout back.

C’mon, man, look at yourself!

Fast-forward to the middle of USC-UCLA week.

I am in a corner office of a tony Santa Monica financial services firm. Across the desk sits The World’s Oldest Living Cheerleader.

The whole town talking about how the Trojans will dominate, and Geoffrey Strand slips a UCLA band tape into a tiny stereo.

The whole town talking national-champion Trojans, and Strand smiles at the tiny blue bears propped up around the room.

“People say we only have a 100-1 chance on Saturday, but I’m telling you, we can pull it off,” he says, the sound of a fight song wafting over beeping computers and buzzing phones. “I’ve seen it in the eyes of the fans, I’ve seen it in the eyes of the players.”

Turns out, Geoffrey Strand has looked at himself.

He sees a buttoned-down senior financial advisor who has made an investment with his heart, and what’s wrong with that?

He sees a man who loves his school so much he has stood on sideline platforms for four hours every home football game for the last 29 years, and that’s a bad thing?

He sees an old-school guy who wants so desperately to support his old school that he still buys a ticket and parking pass to each of those games, essentially paying them to lead their cheers.

When Geoffrey Strand looks at himself, he sees a blue-blooded Bruin who will never stop believing, no matter how he looks.

Round up 45 kids who think like that, throw pads on them, let them loose in the Rose Bowl on Saturday, and who knows?

“No question, what I do is a little goofy,” Strand admits. “People are surprised I do it. They say it’s kind of quaint or odd. But that’s the passion we have at UCLA. It’s not contrived or marketed. It’s real.”

The World’s Oldest Living Cheerleader smiles over at the tiny stereo in this corner office, still blaring the Bruin fight song over all this Trojan buzz, and how can you scream at that?

*

First, the uniform.

Yeah, it’s 1970s-style -- short pants, short socks, baggy sweater -- impossibly goofy that becomes downright weird when worn with his trademark newsboy cap.

But did you know that on one of his sweaters is a splotch of Troy Aikman’s blood, the quarterback long ago hugging Strand with a wounded hand?

And that another one of his sweaters contains stretch marks from Gaston Green, who insisted that Strand put it back on during one hot September game?

“I wouldn’t wear that thing,” longtime Bruin fan Steve Darling says with a laugh. “But what he does with it is tremendous.”

Second, the cheers.

For nearly three decades, serving an official role as alumni cheerleader, they have begun with “I want every man, woman and child on your feet ...”

At this cry, some of the 20,000 fans whom he addresses leap. Others cringe.

But did you know that few of them ever boo the team, or throw things, or misbehave in unseemly ways that have become so common today?

Before the season, Strand asks them to raise their right hands and pledge to be good fans. Believe it or not, they do.

It all sounded real corny ... before that basketball game in Detroit.

“I was among those who were asked to turn UCLA into a family-friendly football environment ... to change the face of UCLA football,” Strand says.

That was back in 1976, Terry Donahue’s first season, the young coach approaching the graduated cheerleader and asking him to keep cheering for the alumni. Strand took it seriously, beginning an act that has changed little since.

“I remember seeing him and thinking, ‘Who is this guy?” recalls longtime fan Eric Troy Nicolaisen. “ ‘He’s obviously not in school anymore, yet he’s wearing that uniform? This guy is a pistol.’ ”

And that was in the late 1970s.

Strand’s cheers, occasionally angry during the USC game, have been only slightly altered, becoming totally clean after a memorable lecture.

“I was working a basketball game, and Coach Wooden called timeout and came over and said, very softly, ‘You do not need to swear,’ ” Strand says. “So I stopped.”

He has been married for 22 years, has two children in college, and the only thing that is different now is his fame. It has grown such that he is invited to work Bruin birthday parties and pep rallies, prompting him to show up five hours before each game to fulfill his commitments.

“Geoff is energetic, passionate, articulate, a throwback to providing old-school-style spirit,” says Scott Mitchell, director of marketing for UCLA athletics. “He clearly has an audience he appeals to.”

And, on Saturday, a section that will be quite the opposite.

The USC game is always Strand’s most difficult, as he has to walk past a huge USC group to reach Bruin fans on the other side of the field.

He once pulled a lawn dart out of the platform behind his feet at a USC game. He expects the usual insults, the same sort of thing Bruin fans yell at Traveler VII, only this old horse can understand them.

The World’s Oldest Living Cheerleader shrugs.

“It will be like running the gantlet, but who else is going to do this?” Geoffrey Strand says, and he’s got that right, Saturday’s loudest voice in a deep blue wilderness, outlandish and unsettling and perfect.

*

Bill Plaschke can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.