Everyone has a story. I have been thinking about this topic as I read and converse with so many fans of college football and our USC Trojans. I have kicked the tires on this article in hopes that it becomes a place where each of us can come and tell their stories about how it all started for you and where your journey went over time up to the present. I can’t believe it took me this long to launch this but here we are and Im hoping you all agree and come here often. Our blog is free. We will never charge for a visit and no subscription is necessary. This year thanks to a few brave soles and some great software coders we launched our first Game Day contest and over 60 fans played. Exciting first year. So here goes and I will start with my story on my USC Journey.
I was born in 1959 and back then times were simpler. Al Gore was growing up thinking about a place for people to connect and eventually invented the Internet as he tells it. But for me my father was a Trojan. He went to Roosevelt High School and played football and was a class President. So naturally his one and only son, me, was a Trojan. My Dad was offered a scholarship to SC and in his final season at Roosevelt he tore is rotator cuff and in those days that was it. Scholarship gone. You would think he would be bitter and stop supporting his beloved Trojans. Not on your life. Or mine.
My uncle went to UCLA and served in the US Air Force. Proud of him for that but not his decision to go to Westwood. We would go to games of the other side out of respect. One game we went to was UCLA vs Oregon. The great running back Moore (later Rashad) was playing and UCLA was killing them. My Bruin Uncle wanted to beat the traffic and said lets go in the 3rd quarter with the Bruins up by 20 or so. As we got to the care he turned on the radio with my Dad in the passenger seat and my cousin and I in the back. Bobby Moore decided he had seen enough and he and his Duck mates turned the 4th quarter into a sea of Bruin defenders on their backs. Oregon won that game and the ride home was both hilarious and scary as my father poked the Bruin and my uncle kept going faster on the freeway home to Northridge.
A family divided by USC and UCLA is not unusual and it gave us great memories over the years. As a kid I could never get enough information and touch with the Trojans. Always rolling them in the news and listening to every game I wasn’t at on the radio and TV when they aired. As I went through my early school years all I could think about was attending USC. I played Pop Warner and junior high at Hale Jr. High and then the family moved in the early 70’s to Pittsburgh. Those that follow the Steelers know that this was a special time to be living in the tri-state as the Steeler dominated the NFL and living their was special. Three Rivers Stadium was magical. Being a Trojan family when #88 showed up I was on cloud nine! My high school was Upper St. Clair, PA. A suburb of Pittsburgh off of Route 19. The schools initials are USC so you can see I could not be far from the Trojans even living in PA. Halfway through my Senior year we moved back to California and I graduated from Canyon HS in Anaheim Hills. Never knew a soul there so a biter sweet high school to college year. I could not get in to USC as my GPA was overage around 3.4 and it wasn’t good enough so a Titan I became.
My Trojans journey has been special as my Dad would take me to the morning breakfast sessions with the Long Beach Telegram sometimes and I still remember when in 1968 Coach McKay was asked by the Press whether he was working O.J. too much and he wouldn’t last the season. Coach as he would do was unshaken by the question. He stepped away from the mic and picked up a football on the table to his left. Tossed it in the air and calm said, “The balls not that heavy”…….
What’s your story? Have fun and add on to this and lets have a place for all Trojans to come and share their journey with the USC Trojans.
Fight On
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