We need this one badly. And when I say badly I don’t mean
it in a purely basketball sense. Sure, tonight’s game against
USC has implications for postseason positioning, and we definitely
need to stop this three-game slide, but the urgency to win runs
deeper.
We need to beat USC tonight for our pride.
In a rivalry that is most important on the level of
trash-talking to your friends in South Central, we may as well be
supporting Dennis Kucinich. At this point, UCLA-USC competition is
as much of a rivalry as Clippers-Lakers, France-United States, or
Ja Rule-50 Cent.
Because, like Ja Rule (and France, for that matter), we have
lost our street cred (yeah, that’s right, I’m down with
the rap). Case in point, at the USC-UCLA hockey game last Tuesday,
the USC fans taunted us with such witticisms as “just like
football” and some other classy derivatives I simply
can’t publish. And after mocking sapped the Trojan
fans’ seemingly limitless creativity, they resorted to more
primal instincts with the poignant, Shakespearean “UCLA
sucks.”
And really, what can we say in response?
Of course, we could bring up the fact that we are a superior
institution in a prime location with a higher quality student body.
However, for one, that might confuse them, as they may protest and
have their best looking coed strip. But these are the facts,
something we graciously ignore for the sake of our athletic
rivalry.
Facts like these also don’t hold up well in the court of
public opinion. It’s a strange social phenomenon, but a large
part of our school’s local prestige is determined by our
athletic accomplishments. SAT scores and national department
rankings don’t have the same populist appeal as national
championships or winning the football game.
As it stands, we haven’t yet won any national
championships this school year ““ USC has already won a
remarkable three titles in football, men’s water polo and
women’s volleyball. More importantly, we were embarrassed in
the football game. This brings me back to tonight’s game.
While we seemingly concede football to USC for the next decade,
this means we need basketball even more. Owning the Los Angeles
basketball crown is especially important because it’s our
traditional right. If we cede basketball like we have football, we
may as well be Cal Tech.
You see, I’m a third-year student, and well, I’ve
come to the sober realization that it is quite unlikely in my time
here I will be charging onto the Rose Bowl field, knocking over
‘SC’s band, and trampling Tommy Trojan.
Besides that memorable Billy Knight game freshman year, we
third-years have thus far lacked an opportunity to severely stick
it to USC, not to mention those second- and first-years who have
never realized such satisfaction. A part of my college experience
will go sadly unfulfilled if I don’t get another chance.
Thus, I want to crush USC tonight. Then I want to crush them
again at their place on Feb. 25. Then I want to crush them in New
Hampshire, and then South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and …
yaaaaaaagh!
I want them and their Lex Luthor of a coach to fulfill their
destiny of evil villains, like whom they so accurately look, talk
and act. I want the frustrations of the last few years to come to a
boil and the student body to rock Pauley Pavilion, loudly
proclaiming USC’s athletic shortcomings. I want to call my
friends at USC and play the roll of inglorious jerk for once.
Above all, next time I have to hear them chant “just like
football,” I want to be able to proudly retort, “Yeah,
well … just like basketball!” Yeah! That would shut them
up!
A win tonight against the Trojans would allow for another
comeback that would be entirely justifiable, to the point, and
present a juxtaposition of two words that, like a chord, represent
utter harmony among the cosmos:
“‘SC SUCKS!”
E-mail Peters at bpeters@media.ucla.edu.