And you can't mention the USC Trojans without mentioning their cross-town rival, the UCLA Bruins. The rivalry runs pretty deep around LA. Football fans, basketball fans, hipsters picking out scarf colors, douchey guys at bars... they all belong to either the "SC" camp, or the "LA" camp. The majority of my coworkers are USC alumni, and several of my friends from high school went to UCLA (bestie Barbara actually works there) so I have been exposed to both sides, and, though neutral in my own personal preference, have my own prejudices about what type of people cheer on each team. Which obviously makes the idea of watching an LA collegiate rivalry sports game - and the people watching that goes along with it - all that more exciting.
The rivalry game this year was hosted by USC at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where the 1984 Olympics were hosted. When UCLA hosts, they play at the Rose Bowl. That would have been pretty cool too. Barbara was able to get us UCLA student tickets for half the price of tickets from the USC box office, so as a thank you for saving us $100, we dressed up in Bruin Blue and made our way to the Coliseum.
As we got close to the Coliseum, we began to see more and more red shirts, and more and more police officers and caution cones. Always a good sign when heading into downtown LA. We had planned to just park at the Coliseum and like noobs didn't really explore other options, but when we saw that stadium parking was SIXTY DOLLARS (I swear, only in this city) we had to readjust our plan, and fast. We ended up parking at a slightly shady strip mall (complete with a Metro PCS... only in strip malls) and paying off the security guard not to tow our car.
As we made our way from the strip mall to the stadium, we walked past the entire stadium parking lot. There was some Grade-A tailgating going on. Well, it looked Grade-A to me, but being a Dodgers fan and attending a dry college have severely limited my tailgating experience. There was music blaring and meat barbequing and beer being spilled all over the place by people that, to me, looked too young to be drinking. Does this mean I'm getting old? Probably. We ended up walking behind a group of UCLA students, because we all know that there is strength in numbers and some of those USC fans looked pretty big and intimidating. Luckily my borrowed UCLA hoodie and Ronny's polo shirt helped us blend in perfectly with the other college students.
Also like noobs we assumed that this really was a professional sporting event and that we could buy drinks once we got inside the gates. However, little did I know (this being my first college football game) that they don't serve beer. What the heck!? Where are we, Cal Poly?! Seriously. So poor Ronny and I had to prepare ourselves to deal with screaming college kids acting ridiculous, while completely sober. Ugh. (Sidenote: lesson learned).
Ronny had warned me in advance that the game would be a blowout, but I really didn't understand how serious he was. Within the first 45 seconds, the Trojans had scored. Cue the Trojan mascot complete with mohawk helmet on the live white horse to gallop around the stadium as 90,000 people lost their minds and did that dumb little "fight on" hand motion. The other 10,000 people were the UCLA students in my section, chanting obscenities and saying "Just wait! We'll get them soon!"
Cut to the half-time mark, when the score is USC 29, UCLA 0. Trojan fans, still 90,000 strong, were still waving their arms chanting "fight on" or whatever, but those once confident UCLA fans were now deflated and hanging all 10,000 of their heads in their hands. Not even a marching band rendition of "Moves like Jagger" by Maroon5 (complete with some sweet band dance moves) could cheer these kids up.
Ronny and I took it as our cue to exit, and get out of the stadium before the paid-off security guard decided to tow my car. If nothing else, we HAD to escape the girl behind us, a rouge USC fan in the UCLA section, who was screaming her head (and our ears) off. It was a blood-curdling, shivers-down-my-spine scream that still haunts my dreams. As we were walking back to the strip mall, I felt like we took a wrong turn. What had been crazy busy full of people, and honking cars, and music and drinking was now completely deserted. The only sign hinting at what had been was the insane amount of trash. I'm surprised I didn't see a little Wall-E roving around making a skyscraper out of all the plastic cups, kep taps, potato chip bags, napkins, and other general filth. Ew.
When we got home my brother so graciously gloated to me that the final score was USC 50, UCLA 0. I don't really understand why he's an SC fan but that's neither here nor there. And regardless of how obnoxious the fans were (on both sides) I walked away from the game completely envious of the fact that these schools have a venue like this to display their school spirit. And apparently this is small-time compared to schools in the South. It was something so foreign to me, but overall was a lot of fun. It made me feel like I was a college student again (hoodie and all!) and I just wish that my alma mater had something that cool that I could follow for the rest of my life. I guess I will have to settle with watching Cal Poly's one famous football player, Ramses Barden, make 7-yard catches for the NY Giants.
Oh, and I am still convinced that the majority of USC Trojans fans have NO idea where Troy is. Just saying.
Our view of the red sea from the blue corner
Some sweet marching band action
Go... Football!
go football!
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