Long-Time Trojans Fan Can Again Cheer ‘Fight On’

Even before moving to Los Angeles, I liked USC football.

It had Heisman Trophy winners, a legendary coach whose wise-cracking comments kept reporters laughing and who drank “see throughs” at booster cocktail parties, games played in sunshine in November and, of course, fielded the Song Girls with their pleated skirts and white sweaters with “USC” across the front.

The tailgate parties were always good and the going to the games were great fun. Being at the Coliseum during the Pete Carroll era was a real “happening.”

But when Carroll left, things changed, and not just because the electric atmosphere of the games had faded. I suddenly found myself  been forced to root against the Trojans.  Hope that they would lose. Hope, in fact, that they would not just lose, but look pathetic in doing it.

That’s because they had hired Lane – I call him Lame – Kiffin as their coach.

But in rooting against the Trojans, I was actually rooting FOR the Trojans. Because Kiffin was no good for the team or the program. He was hardly worthy of the honor of being USC’s head football coach.

It was difficult to be around USC friends watching games because while they were cheering, I was actually secretly rooting for the other team. If the Trojans actually made a good play or scored a touchdown – something that thankfully did not happen too often – I would have to give an obligatory “yeah.” But it was most definitely muted.

When the Trojans fumbled, threw an INT (or better yet, a pick six!), or played the kind of matador defense that allowed two teams in the past year to score 62 points on them, then I would have to really curb my enthusiasm.

I would not wear my cool Beach Cities Trojan Club t-shirt – the one with Tommy Trojan carry a surfboard under his arm – because I did not want it to be perceived that I supported Kiffin in any way, shape or manner.

Perhaps I should be a bit more neighborly – after all, we both live in Manhattan Beach, a tiny town surrounded by large Los Angeles – but Lame is simply unlikeable. He’s cocky and arrogant with no reason to be; other having a hot wife, he’s not accomplished anything.

But what irks me the most is that he’s a liar. He’ll look the media in the face and tell them something didn’t happen when in fact it did happen. He’s also disrespectful, feeling press conferences are beneath him and dissing the Sun Bowl and his opponent – which went out on the field  to whip him – by showing up late to a luncheon.

Oh, and he’s also immature and childish.

But now, that’s all behind us and I can again yell “Fight On!”

Cheers!