USC Football Experience

Hey all. We have been away all weekend. Our family experienced the USC vs. UCLA football "game of the year" up close and in person!

Our trip started on Friday night. We met our kids at my daughter's apartment and I had my belated birthday celebration at Claim Jumper. After having a great meal, my kids gave me a card and presents! My son gave me my favorite fragranced candles and my daughter bought me a few items from the Christian book store. She gave me the "Day of Fire" CD, a book called, "Darwin's Proof: The Triumph of Religion Over Science," and a car license plate frame that says, "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven by a God who is!" My daughter knows me so well!

My husband gave me a great gift. A GPS for my car! I will never get lost again! It came in quite handy for this trip, too. We stayed at the Marriott and later found out that was where the USC team stayed.

Everything went smoothly, at first. We all got up at 5:00 a.m., met our friends Pam and Tim in the lobby and followed them to the tailgate parking lot at the coliseum. After waiting in line for 45 minutes to get in, a patrol car abruptly pulled up and cut off the stream of traffic. The "passes only" sign went up and there was nothing we could do but drive on. Tim and Pam made it in, but we didn't. Now what do we do? We were totally unfamiliar with the area and didn't know where to find parking. After driving around for about 15 minutes and seeing "passes only" signs all over the place, we were grateful to find the USC parking garage. The bad news is that it was about a 2 mile walk to the coliseum! There we were, hauling our chairs, the few groceries we could manage to carry and the smaller of the two coolers we had brought for the tailgate party. It was 7:30 a.m. and the shuttle buses don't start operating until 9:00!

In addition to that, we didn't know which direction to go in order to get to the field. I thought, "Lord help us have the strength to carry all this stuff!" Moments later, a man with a USC hat in a small passenger vehicle with "parking management" designation all over it pulled up and got out. My husband asked him which way we should walk to get to the coliseum and the young man said the words that were music to our ears! "If you'd like to wait a few minutes while I post these signs, I'll give you a ride over there." Oh joy! Thank you Lord! We were so fortunate and so thankful to this man for offering us a ride and being willing to drive us to the tailgate area! We presumed that he was part owner of the parking complex because he thanked us for parking there.

We met up with Pam and Tim at their tailgate site and had a tasty breakfast. Pam and my son went over to the College Gameday broadcast. They met Pam's daughter and two of her friends there. After the broadcast, they came back to the tailgate party. My husband got into the USC spirit and bought a USC t-shirt, sweatshirt, hat for our son and scarf for our daughter. I was trying to remain neutral, although I did favor USC. The reason was because UCLA is Pam's alma mater while her husband Tim and daughter Katie graduated from USC. Poor Pam. She certainly was visibly outnumbered in her light blue UCLA jacket and hat amidst a sea of USC red and gold!

The USC team spirit is fanatical! And, the rivalry between the USC Trojans and the UCLA Bruins runs deep! Some of the sayings on the t-shirts were hysterical! Many are too vulgar to post here though! (Good thing the "hate crimes" police weren't on campus! heh heh...) I guess I could tell you about one t-shirt that I spotted while, of all places, on line for the porta-potties. It's a little gross and mean...but not as bad as many others I had seen. It was a picture of a person wearing a USC shirt sitting on a toilet. The caption read, "A Bruin is born." I just had to laugh! The people in line must have thought I was nuts...standing in line, alone, at the porta-pottie site laughing. There were hundreds of stuffed animal "Bruins" bears hanging on ropes and suspended on sticks being dragged in the dirt and stomped on. I know...it's all in fun. But I wouldn't stomp on any bears for the sake of my friend Pam's alma mater! There were gangs of fans with faces painted blue running through the USC tailgate spots shouting fighting words for their team. That's when the Bruin stuffed bears got the most abuse!

It was amazing. People really do it up big time at these tailgate parties. EVERYTHING seems to have the USC designation on them. The chairs, the tablecloths, the clothing, red and gold body paint etc. Some even had T.V.s set up to watch the game! Maybe they didn't have tickets to get in.

We walked over and had lunch at the Dr. Pepper tailgate party. The food was really good and we chatted with some of my husband's co-workers and their families. They had a football target throwing area and of course all the men went over to try to toss the footballs through the small hole in the Dr. Pepper balloon bottle target. My son did great! Because he is a college baseball pitcher, he has a very accurate arm. I just never knew he could also throw a football so well!

We entered the stadium at 12:30 and had to part ways with Pam and Tim. Their season ticket seats were located in section 17 and we were several rows up over to the right in section 16. We spotted them and waved every so often. We sat in the Dr. Pepper seats that we had gained through our winning bid at a charity auction. It felt good to know that the money spent went to the Boys and Girls Club of San Diego.

We watched as the sparce crowd filled to capacity (@92,000!) by gametime. Shortly before the kick-off, a group of 15 10-yr.-old boys sat in the seats directly in front of us. They were so excited! I'm sure that they were sponsored by an organization. With ticket prices going at $1,000 each outside the stadium, these boys must have realized the privilege of attending THIS game. At one point, one of the chaperones asked my daughter if she would go along with a plan he devised to celebrate the birthday of one of the boys. He previously had told the boy that he would "find a girlfriend for him" at the game. So, my daughter put her acting skills to work. She stood up, waved and smiled at the boy who was seated about ten seats down from her. She even kissed her hand and blew a few kisses his way! The boy turned as red as his USC t-shirt! It was too cute. Later, the same chaparone brought 3 other teen girls over by his seat (they were in an aisle row). This 10 yr. old was now surrounded by beauty! And boy, could these kids eat! They had soda, hotdogs, frozen lemonade, huge bags of popcorn. What a thrill that day must have been for them!

We had some UCLA fans near our seats. I kinda got the feeling that this game would end up being a blow-out for USC when one of the UCLA fans cheered because USC didn't score on their first possession of the ball! Just before halftime, Pam stood up and transferred her UCLA hat for her husband's USC hat and flashed the typical USC "V for victory" sign. She's such a good sport. Even though her beloved alma mater was being crushed, she still shows loyalty to the Trojans!

If you saw the game or read the paper the next day, you know that the final score was 66-19! We left at the end of the third quarter when the score was 59-3. It worked out perfect, too. We immediately boarded the shuttle bus, got in our car and headed back to the hotel without incurring any gridlock! We listened to the remainder of the game on the radio and watched the news broadcast of the end of the game in our room. I thought it was so cute when running back Reggie Bush stood on the field at the end of the game and became the conductor of the Trojan band! Such school spirit was a pleasure to behold! There is nothing equal to the college football experience!

My daughter told us at dinner that night that it was the best time she has ever had at a sporting event. Now she wants to transfer to USC! Oy vey!! When we finished dinner and walked through the lobby of the hotel, she spotted USC quarterback Matt Leniert giving autographs near the check-in area. I told her, "now is your chance to meet him!" Her reply, "Mom, you're so lame." Ha!

After such a long, exciting day we were all exhausted and grateful that we stayed another night at the hotel and didn't have to make the long trek back home. And, you know what they say about college kids not getting enough sleep? Must be true because they both slept 12 hours! We ended up having brunch at Mimi's Cafe. Our fun and exciting mini-vacation trip was over. Back to school for the kids, back home for us. Such fun!