UCLA Officials: Undie Run Is Finished

After seven brief seasons of existence, UCLA's Undie Run, a nocturnal event in which students run through Westwood streets and onto campus in their underwear on Wednesdays of finals weeks, will be no more. Thank university administrators, who pulled the plug on the storied event a few days ago, probably because they couldn't figure a way to make money off it.

A story in the school's Daily Bruin reports that "Administrators have threatened to cancel the ritual for years now because of an increased number of accidents and vandalism. Tuesday night, Undergraduate Students Association Council members were notified of its termination."

Campus officials cited the three-headed monster often invoked to shut down fun in California: concerns for safety, security and, of course "liability." The run, whose route has changed several times, has drawn up to 10,000 spectators -- many of them unaffiliated with UCLA. The specter of all those non-students and non-alumni is another thing that alarms UCLA administrators, who apparently have never heard of football games.

With the campus in summer vacation mode, it's too soon to know if students will seek another, off-campus venue for the wildly popular event, or perhaps submit to a campus-sanctioned "safe and sane" version of the run -- possibly one in which a handful of students who have paid top dollar for the honor get to calmly walk in their skivvies from Bruin Plaza to Royce Quad and back. One thing they're unlikely to do is replace it with a streaking run.