UCLA vs. USC: My Favorite Bruins Victory over the Trojans

For a pitiful UCLA fan like myself, whose devotion to the Bruins dates back but a decade, there is only one moment into the cross-town rivalry with the semi-pros at USC that’s worth talking about—13-9.

That’s all I really need to say. Let loose those few digits from your lips in the presence of just about any sports fan in southern California, be they proponents of Powder Blue or Cardinal, and they’ll know exactly what you’re talking about. The reaction you get to reciting those numbers, of course, depends on your present company.

A Brief History of Animosity

Now, as far as college football rivalries are concerned, well, this isn’t really much of one, at least on the football field. Not that it hasn’t been competitive overall, but rather because it’s so streaky. The Trojans have won 11 of the last 12 meetings. The Bruins eight in a row before that.

The two tenants of football in Los Angeles mostly took turns hanging onto the Victory Bell for three- to five-year stretches at a time before that.

The Victory Bell itself, as a metaphor, perfectly encompasses why those of us who bleed blue and gold, painful as that often is, so greatly resent the spoiled children who take up residence in a gated community amidst a gentrified ghetto.

Not just in a “rich vs. poor" or “private vs. public “ sense, but more in how the former in each of those two likes to mess with the latter, just for fun, even if the antics are costly.

See, that trophy that these two foes fight over actually rightfully belongs to UCLA, regardless of who wins the game. It originated as a gift to the UCLA student body from the Alumni Association in 1939. For two years, cheerleaders would ring the bell at home games every time the Bruins scored.

You know, like when the Trojans’ marching band plays “Fight On," except not after every single play that may or may not be worth celebrating.

Apparently, USC’s students didn’t care much for UCLA celebrating much of anything, at least not while the two shared the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, before the Bruins moved to the Rose Bowl.

In 1994, six members of USC’s Trojan Knights—a sort of non-Greek fraternity that nowadays watches after Tommy Trojan in the lead-up to the game—disguised themselves as UCLA fans during the Bruins’ opening game of the season and “appropriated” (read: stole) the beloved Victory Bell.

That set off a prank war that persists to this day, from staining fountains and tracks to Bruins dropping blue-and-gold cow dung onto Tommy Trojan from a helicopter and Trojans dousing the Bruin Bear with red-and-yellow paint that cost the state $20,000 to clean up.

In the end, the costs come back to hurt us all, but what do the rich kids care?

After more than a year in hiding, the Victory Bell re-emerged, as did an agreement between representatives of both student bodies that it would serve as the trophy for the annual rivalry game.

So, essentially, what had been the rightful property of UCLA was stolen from them and returned to their ownership in some semblance only after extreme protestation. Who says civil disobedience began in the Bay Area?

More Ripping on USC

Speaking of which, California fans love to rip on Stanford for representing all that is wrong with America today—wealth perpetuating wealth on the backs of the poor, using public property for private gain, etc.

Even folks in the East Bay can admit that the average student in Palo Alto is actually smart, if not downright brilliant, and that most of them probably earned their way into the university on their own merits, without the direct influence of their parents’ money on the admissions process.

The same cannot (or will not, by yours truly, anyway) be said for USC. That is, while there are certainly plenty of bright minds patrolling the campus, there are many more who hardly needed to bother applying, either because daddy’s name is on a building on campus, or because daddy knows someone whose name is on a building on campus.

Or maybe just because Daddy has deep enough pockets to get the admissions officers to disregard lackluster report cards and mediocre SAT scores.

Getting into USC can be and often is about whom your family knows rather than what you did.

And that doesn’t even begin to describe USC’s rather perplexing mix of a fan base. There's the legions of arrogant alumni and trust fund babies that pack the Coliseum on Saturdays.

Then, there's USC’s conglomerate of devotees includes hordes of ex-Raiders fans who simply switched their colors of choice from Silver and Black to Cardinal and Gold when Al Davis moved the team back to Oakland in 1995.

As if dealing with pompous affiliates of the university weren’t maddening enough, those of us who sport the Blue and Gold with pride have to deal with the same rowdy, and at times violent, contingent that used to pack the “Black Hole” back when it was centered downtown.

At least their students and alums are bound to the university by more than just the escapades of the football team.

The Origins of Suffering  

But before I get too carried away with ripping USC, a school of which some of my friends are alums and that I certainly respect for its investments in many of its more notable academic programs, let me tell you about my love for UCLA and how that brought me to the Rose Bowl on December 2, 2006.

It all began (officially) on September 22 , 2001, when I visited the Rose Bowl with some kids from school as part of UCLA’s “I’m Going to College” program. We all watched with excitement as the No. 14 Bruins, at the time coached by Bob Toledo, hold down No. 21 Ohio State in Jim Tressel’s second game at the helm for the Buckeyes.

I heard the name “DeShaun Foster” shouted emphatically over the PA system 36 gajillion times, so, naturally, I adopted DeShaun Foster as my favorite football player.

I had never cared much for sports up to that point, even while living amidst the Shaq-Kobe dynasty in LA. From then on, I began paying attention, though admittedly still without much fervor.  It wasn’t until the following year, when the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA Finals in the spring and my dad took me to the UCLA-Oregon game that fall, that I really began to care.

By then, the Bruins were already on the decline. Foster had gone to the NFL to play for the Carolina Panthers and Toledo would get sacked after that season.

On a related note, the Lakers would soon crumble into chaos on account of Shaq’s bad toe and feud with Kobe Bryant, leaving me with a wasteland of sports.

But please, don’t cry for me .

I’ll admit, I almost ended up on the “Dark Side” of LA football that year. While UCLA was languishing in mediocrity, USC was on its way up. Pete Carroll had the Trojans headed back to the top of the Pac-10. Carson Palmer was a leading Heisman Trophy contender. Troy Polamalu had yet to star in his first Head and Shoulders commercial.

The squad as a whole had enough pro talent to compete with a low-level NFL team.

So after the Trojans walloped my Bruins, 52-21, I found myself wondering, “Was I rooting for the right team? Had I chosen poorly?” The confusion continued when USC beat No. 7 Notre Dame behind the woodshed the very next week to secure a spot in the Orange Bowl.

I found myself cheering for the Trojans that night, jubilant that they had picked apart the Fighting Irish and recaptured the Jeweled Shillelagh.

That is, until my dad heard and saw me celebrating. Now, my dad is hardly the demonstrative type. He’d never go out of his way to talk trash about teams or chastise me for no reason.

But when he caught me supporting USC, he wasted little time correcting my behavior. He didn’t say much, but he basically conveyed to me that “We don’t root for them.”

Bleeding Like a Bruin

And that was all he needed to say. From that day on, I no longer questioned my allegiance to the Blue and Gold, even as I watched them stumble through the first two years of the Karl Dorrell regime.

Then came 2005, the year that hope returned to Westwood. UCLA didn’t have a defense, but boy, could their offense put up points in a hurry thanks to Drew & Drew—Maurice Jones-Drew and Drew Olson.

Those Bruins made a habit out of falling behind early and coming back late, though that trend couldn’t keep them from carrying on the time-honored tradition of getting blown out by Arizona in Tucson, even with a 9-0 record going in.

At the time, the Trojans were still at the peak of their dynasty. They had the 2005 BCS title under their collective belt and Matt Leinart, the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, back as a senior to team up with Reggie Bush in between those grueling ballroom dancing classes.

They were undefeated, but UCLA was a not-too-shabby 9-1 going into the annual rivalry, so there was still a glimmer of hope for us to emerge victorious against the No. 1 team in the land.

That was the case until the Bruins took the field, anyway. From then on, USC whipped UCLA every which way—by Leinart and Bush on one end, by Brian Cushing and Rey Maualuga on the other, and by the fierce winds on both—to the tune of a 66-19 nail-in-the-coffin to the team’s hopes for a Rose Bowl berth.

At least the basketball team was good—a crutch refrain for us Baby Bears.

Dorrell looked to be on his way out the very next year. The team struggled to find an identity without the Drew’s around.

The quarterback situation turned out to be a toss-up between former high school All-American and BYU missionary Ben Olson and Pat Cowan, know better to most as Joe Cowan’s brother.

The defense had its moments, but on the whole, the Bruins were as unremarkable as they’d ever been on Dorrell’s watch.

They looked headed toward another 6-6 finish and a spot in some obscure, shamelessly corporate-sponsored bowl game (because there are bowl games that haven't yet been co-opted?).

There was no way this motley crew could’ve ever hoped to upend mighty USC, sitting pretty at No. 2 in the BCS and looking to play in its third consecutive national title game as a result. Sure, the Trojans were vulnerable, with John David Booty and C.J. Gable taking over for Leinart and Bush, respectively.

But for fatalistic Bruins fans like myself, who’d never seen Bob Toledo take down Tommy Trojan eight times in a row, the horrifying sensation of watching our favorite team get dismantled year after year had morphed into a hopeless numbness, an expectation of defeat—a natural defense mechanism for dealing with that sort of regular, catastrophic trauma.

Givin' It The Ol' College Try

Even so, UCLA still had a glimmer of hope, enough to draw me to the Rose Bowl for my first taste of the battle for the Victory Bell. I had two tickets on account of a package of games I’d purchased before the start of the season, so I figured, “What the hell?”

I was a senior in high school at the time, with my sights set firmly on spending my next four years in Westwood, and thought it best to support the team of which I would (hopefully) be more closely a part in a matter of months.

I invited along my good friend Will, who also works for the Bleacher Report nowadays, but at the time was less sure about a future at UCLA. His brother was still at Berkeley at the time, so, naturally, his collegiate leanings were more northern California than southern. I didn’t bring him along with the explicit goal to change his mind, but I’m sure the thought lingered.

We arrived at the Rose Bowl shortly before kickoff, loads of traffic delaying us on our sojourn. With the attendant crowd being as massive as it was, we were forced to park several miles away on the local golf course—a sacrilegious prospect to Will, himself an avid golfer.

After a long and trying trek, during which I was taunted time and again by Trojans fans for wearing my No. 10 UCLA jersey, we got to our seats, the Rose Bowl awash in a precarious clash of Cardinal and Powder Blue.

The air was a bit different than usual that night, a bit crisper than one might expect, even in early December. A sign, perhaps, that the result that night would be different, too.

I Just Couldn't Fight That Feelin' Anymore

It certainly seemed that way on the field. The Mighty Trojans, with all of their offensive talent, couldn’t seem to move the ball against DeWayne Walker’s defense. Booty was off, Gable wasn’t running amok. I’d become so accustomed to seeing players in Cardinal and gold galloping to 15- and 20-yard gains with such ease that this stagnation came as a sort of shock to my system.

For once, Uncle Pete’s arrogant attempts at fourth-down conversations weren’t working in his favor.

“Could it be?” everyone seemed to wonder all at once. A short touchdown sneak by Pat Cowan toward the end of the first quarter seemed to make it possible, maybe even probable.

Yet, those of us rooting for the home team were still nervous. We wouldn’t celebrate until the proverbial fat lady had sung, and even then we’d need to verify that she was crooning “Sons of Westwood” rather than “Conquest."

We all thought UCLA had been pinched in the second quarter. The Trojans sacked Cowan for a safety three minutes in and C.J. Gable capped a nearly six-minute drive with a quick trip to the end zone toward the end of the half to give USC a 9-7 advantage heading into the locker room.

A respectable and seemingly easy-to-overcome deficit, to be sure, but a deficit nonetheless, evoking thoughts of imminent failure once again.

And, of course, nothing can ever come easy for the Bruins in pursuit of the Victory Bell.

The third quarter was calm enough, giving way to several more thrilling punts by USC’s Greg Woidneck (an all-time great name in college football) and a field goal to put the Bruins up, 10-9.

A fumble by fullback Michael Pitre with two-and-a-half minutes left in the quarter had me feeling queasy once again, but the defense came to the rescue, forcing a second turnover on downs when Uncle Pete told his guys to go for it and CJ Gable could manage only a four-yard loss with two yards to go.

Emboldened by this turn of events, the Bruins promptly spent the next six minutes driving down the field, the student section cheering and “Eight-Clapping” louder than I’d ever thought possible. We all watched in amazement as Pat Cowan willed the team forward—by air, land and sea-change—to become the biggest UCLA football hero since DeShaun Foster (for me, at least).

But, in True Bruin fashion, they failed to punch it in, settling instead for another Justin Medlock field goal. I can’t imagine fans of a home team ever feeling so deflated, and the visitors so revitalized, by the scoring of three points in their favor.

What’s more, that left nearly nine minutes for the Trojans to seize control or for the Bruins to blow a tenuous four-point lead.

An Unfamiliar, If Entirely Welcome, Sensation

The Trojans couldn't do much with the ball after that. Neither could the Bruins, who saw Pat Cowan get annihilated by the thuggish Maualuga.

Those short drives landed the ball back in the hands of John David Booty with just under six minutes remaining and the collective nerves of the UCLA faithful tingling with the worst kind of anticipation.  

It looked like it would be over early, the Trojans forced into a third-and-14, but a 13-yard strike to Steve Smith followed by a successful quarterback sneak on Booty’s part gave USC and its half of the stadium new, unwelcome life.

Suddenly, Booty couldn’t miss and the folks in cardinal and gold couldn’t help but let fly with a lot of trash talk accompanied, of course, by the ubiquitous “V” for “Victory” as a visual aide.

My anger, though, was swamped by my overwhelming neuroses, by the silence of my chosen constituency as the Trojans edged into the red zone, and by the inevitability that Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian would wave their magic wands and, POOF!, Chris McFoy would be traipsing around in paydirt while John David Booty swung Tommy Trojan’s sword.

And then, third-and-four at the UCLA 19, a miracle. A tip by Eric McNeal, a catch by Eric McNeal—the pick by Eric McNeal, the most important football hero in UCLA history since Pat Cowan.

Oh, and the Rose Bowl erupted with a roar that could be heard from space, if not Old Town Pasadena. There were high-fives and hugs and screams and shouts from the long-suffering Bruins faithful, expressing the kind of joy that can only come from seven years of torture and humiliation at the hands of your chief rival.

For my own part, I probably broke a few wrists and busted a smattering of eardrums in celebration. Will and I could hardly believe it, nor could anyone else.

Especially the USC fans around us, whose taunts went suspiciously silent, their V’s flipped upside-down in a matter of moments.

That single moment reaffirmed that I’d made the right choice, that perhaps there’s value in suffering, because it makes the good times that much better and the really good times, like beating ‘SC, unforgettable.

A few quick rushes by Chris Markey, another perfect punt by Aaron Perez, an incomplete pass by Booty and it was official. Whatever joy was left from jumping up and down after The Pick was quickly emptied onto the turf at the Rose Bowl, literally, by the mass of humanity known as the UCLA student section, which was kitty corner to where Will and I sat.

The faint sting of pepper spray, from the Pasadena police attempting to keep the field clean of stormers, settled into my tired lungs, as if to remind us all of the sweet suffering that led up to that moment.

Once the excitement inside the stadium died down, Will and I began the long walk back to the car, though it certainly didn’t seem so long. I couldn’t help but flash my UCLA jersey with pride at all the dejected USC fans and the exultant Bruins streaming out of the Rose Bowl. The Victory Bell was ours once again, just in time for my arrival on campus as a student, and I couldn’t have been happier.

The ecstasy of the occasion faded, slowly but surely, first with the lengthy trek back to my old 1998 Mazda 626 and then with each passing moment of what turned out to be a two-and-a-half hour wait to get back on the road.

We listened to the fans calling into the local sports talk radio shows, some clumsily claiming that they’d seen “a dead Trojan horse on the freeway,” others clinging to the fact that UCLA had now beaten USC in nine of the last 17 meetings.

Keep The Faith

It all got a bit old after a while, though not old enough to keep me from basking in the glory of seeing my Bruins exalted in the sports section of the LA Times the next morning. “Ruined by Bruins,” it read across the top in big, bold print.

The list of story lines was endless—the prolonging of the Karl Dorrell era for at least one more year, the defensive genius of DeWayne Walker, the heroism of Pat Cowan and Eric McNeal. Bill Plaschke even went so far as to suggest that Los Angeles was a UCLA football town.

But, like anything good at UCLA, the elation of the moment wouldn’t last long. The Bruins would go on to get stomped by Florida State in the Emerald Bowl, post another 6-6 season, sack Karl Dorrell, and then bring in Rick Neuheisel as his replacement.

By that point, the ring of the Victory Bell had left Westwood Boulevard and returned to Figueroa Street, allowed by the shuffling in and out of coaches to dissipate into disappointment on the recruiting trail and, more importantly, on the football field. I was at UCLA, Will was at Cal, and our collegiate careers would come and go without either of us seeing our schools strike down the Trojans.

I still have that sports section from December 3. The folds are a bit sloppy and the pages a shade brown with age, but the words and the sentiments behind them still ring as true as ever.

For me and anyone else who was there to witness it first-hand, at least. Part of me wants to encase those sprawling pages of recycled paper in a picture frame, to remind myself that even my underdogs can win.

Then again, part of me doesn’t want to do that. Part of me would much rather throw that bunch of old news away, not out of spite for 13-9 and what it represents, but out of hope that it will happen again, that I will one day, sooner rather than later, see Powder Blue outshine Cardinal in the very same building.

Every year since, I tell myself, “It can happen, it will happen, I’ve seen it happen.” As bleak as things may seem now and as bad as they may get later, I still have and will always have faith in UCLA football.

And if I ever come close to losing it, I need only think back to those famous digits.