Russell Westbrook and Kevin Love were roommates in their one year at UCLA, and apparently, they went through the constant struggle of what temperature the thermostat should be set to. Obviously, this is a problem for a lot of college roommates, and athletes aren’t an exception to the rule.
From Love on The Players’ Tribune:
We were even competitive over the temperature of the room.
You know the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Vivica’s character is sick in bed and Larry keeps adjusting the thermostat? That was me and Russ.
Our thermostat battles would go something like this….
“Minimum 74,” he’d say.
I needed the room cold. Around 68 was perfect.
At night, Russ would jump up from bed and turn the dial way up — and then five minutes later I would sneak over and turn it back down.
One time I offered a compromise — “How ‘bout 71 degrees?”
“Seventy-three,” Russ replied. “Final offer.”
See what I mean? Dude is stubborn.
Can you imagine Westbrook and Love hopping out of bed at night and fighting over the thermostat? It’s a good thing that these were friendly wars, or they could’ve found themselves with bad teammate chemistry. That wasn’t the case, and Love added in the article that he and Westbrook were “like family.”
Russ and Love are still competitive, and recently Love made a large donation to UCLA, beating Westbrook’s record for largest donation. From the school’s website:
“The UCLA Athletic Department is pleased to announce a significant financial contribution from NBA All-Star Kevin Love to its Mo Ostin Basketball Center project – matching the largest donation by a former basketball student-athlete (Westbrook) in school history. In honor of his gift, UCLA’s basketball-specific strength and conditioning facility within the state-of-the-art new building will be known moving forward as The Kevin Love Strength and Conditioning Center.”
