Thursday, November 21, 1996
For those who just started paying attention to the USC-UCLA
rivalry in the past few years, one may be under the assumption that
UCLA has completely dominated the series. In fact, the Bruins have
dominated recently, but that is a far cry from how the rivalry
started.
In fact, initially, the USC-UCLA game was considered anything
but a rivalry. When the two schools first clashed in 1929, USC
treated the match with the Bruins solely as a tune-up for the
regular season.
Before the first game had even occurred, the Trojans had been
playing football for over 40 seasons and had won the national
championship the season before. UCLA, on the other hand, was just
trying to get its feet on the ground. The university had been in
existence for less than a decade and had yet to move to the
permanent Westwood campus.
According to "60 Years of USC-UCLA Football" by Steve Springer
and Michael Arkbush, USC was an established power. UCLA was simply
"a twig off the Berkeley campus" in USC’s eyes. There was no reason
to play each other at this point in time, at least in from UCLA’s
perspective. But, the Trojans believed otherwise, and at that point
in time, they were the school with the influence.
In 1929, USC’s graduate manager Gwynn Wilson convinced his
counterpart at UCLA, Steve Cunningham, to commence the rivaly
immediately.
The Result? Trojans 76, Bruins 0.
And the Trojans actually took it easy on the boys from
Westwood.USC played most of the second half with second and
third-stringers, yet still gained 712 rushing yards, compared to
the Bruins’ 99. Only 35,000 fans showed up for that first game of
the rivalry that would soon attract the attention of an entire
city.
According to 60 years of USC-UCLA Football, then-UCLA
quarterback Cliff Simpson, the Bruins were not even in the same
league as USC.
"I think we had eight or ten people on our whole team who could
have made their squad," he said.
Another blowout loss followed the next year for the Bruins. UCLA
fell to the Trojans 52-0.
After two seasons, USC had outscored the Bruins 118-0. What a
rivalry!
And just like that it was over. In 1931, a debate ensued as to
who would be the host team at the Coliseum the following season.
Stubbornness prevailed, and the annual game was cancelled for the
next few seasons. The two schools wouldn’t play each other again
until 1936.
In late 1935, Bill Ackerman of UCLA met with USC athletic
director Willis Hunter and it was agreed upon that the series would
resume the following season, with USC as the host institution.
In 1936, the Bruins miraculously tied the Trojans 7-7, and one
of sports’ greatest rivalries was born.
Not one year since has passed without the intra-city rivals
meeting in and stopping the city in its tracks for one day every
year in mid-November. It has developed from merely an exhibition
game into a contest that some involved consider bigger than the
Super Bowl.
Not bad for a twig.