The Jetpacker

One of the fun ways to experience a new destination is to attend a local sporting event.  That’s not hard to find in a city like L.A.

Los Angeles is a sports town.  Along with Orange County, L.A.’s quieter, calmer, more conservative, and hence more boring neighbor, this metropolis of almost 16 million people has 2 baseball teams, 2 basketball teams and 2 hockey teams to root for…

But no football team.

The Raiders and Rams defected long ago and took their losing records with them (which is a good thing in a city where sports failures incite riots).  To fill the football void, fans became more passionate about the two major universities in L.A.: USC and UCLA.

These two teams have a storied rivalry that spans 80 years, trumping the moderate rivalry between the Angels and Dodgers, the lesser rivalry between the Ducks and Kings, and the practically nonexistent rivalry between the Lakers and Clippers (a competition so one-sided it can’t even be considered a rivalry).

After winning back-to-back national titles in 2003 and 2004, USC effectively became L.A.’s version of a pro football team, drawing just as many if not more fans than the Raiders and Rams did by molding star players like Reggie Bush.  This influx of fans (or bandwagoners as some locals call ‘em) also drew the ire of diehard UCLA fans.  And since then, the rivalry has heated up even more.

Now, the showdown between USC and UCLA is the sports event to see in Southern California.  This once-a-year battle ignites electricity that permeates the city.  You can’t drive the street without seeing a car brandished with a USC sticker dragging a stuffed animal bear on the ground.  You can’t watch the news without hearing about the latest prank pulled by UCLA students on the USC campus.

USC vs. UCLA is definitely the biggest sports rivalry in L.A.  And last night the rivalry was renewed again at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum.

Jackie had never been to a football game, and I had only been to one, a Rams game so long ago I can’t remember anything about it (maybe they lost so bad I tried to block it from my memory).  We were excited to see the game, but we were just as thrilled to visit the Coliseum for the first time.

The Coliseum is both a California Historical Landmark and a National Historic Landmark, and it’s the only stadium in the world to host the Olympic Games twice, in 1932 and 1984.

The peristyle is one of the most recognizable symbols not only in L.A., but in sports.  Along the peristyle is the famous Court of Honor, a string of over 50 plaques dedicated to “outstanding persons or events, athletic or otherwise, that have had a definite impact upon the history, glory, and growth of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.”

But the coolest thing, in our opinion, was touching a block of stone from the actual Coliseum in Rome and another slab of stone taken from the original Olympic stadium in Athens.

The stadium isn’t as old as those ancient stones (it was completed in 1923), but it is just as epic.  Officially the Coliseum seats 93,607, but it’s not uncommon to pack in over 100,000 for these cross-town rivalry games.  That’s about as many people as Dodger Stadium and Angel Stadium combined.

Despite the constant threat of raging wildfires, the Olympic flame is lit during the fourth quarter.

Unfortunately, this particular game wasn’t epic.  The back and forth banter quickly devolved into moans of boredom when it was clear that both teams weren’t igniting the offensive fireworks.  I’m not sure if the defense of both teams was great or if the offense sucked, but either way there wasn’t much to cheer about until the last two minutes when USC scored two quick touchdowns to win 28-7.  By that time, most of the people who spent more time texting than watching the game had emptied out of the stadium so they could fish out their cars and beat the nightmarish traffic.

After the game, we had to traverse mountains of trash and broken bottles back to our parking lot.  Rip-off artists charge as much as $80 to park around the Coliseum, but we found a dark parking lot run by some shady looking guys holding hand-painted “$25 parking” signs about a mile away.  Hey, if it was good enough for the people in the BMWs already parked there, it’s good enough for us.

The only thing that wasn’t good enough for us was the heart attack-inducing hotdogs wrapped in bacon and smothered with oil-coated peppers being sold by street vendors outside the stadium.  The smell was like drugs for my nose, but the lack of customers was a red flag.  It’s a long way home and the risk of my bowels becoming embroiled in a war that it will inevitably lose was too dangerous.

–USC dominates the all-time series record 44 wins, 28 loses and 7 ties.

–Watching the game from row 80 made me painfully aware why USC rejected me as an applicant… I fell for every fake play.  I watched the guy running the play-fake more than I watched the player actually carrying the ball.  Clearly my observational skills aren’t up to USC standards.  Eh, who am I kidding?  My SAT scores were so low, it made me wonder if I got docked 400 points for spelling my name wrong.