Friday, May 1, 1998
Standing the test of time
HISTORY: The biggest rivalry in
Los Angeles revisited
By Donald Morrison
Daily Bruin Staff
The year was 1967. The UCLA track and field team huddled with
head coach Jim Bush right before the start of the dual-meet against
USC in front of 25,000 people at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
on a Saturday afternoon.
A local sports writer boasted before the meet that the
undefeated Trojans would crush UCLA by 21 points and avenge their
loss to the Bruins the previous year. However, Bush said his Bruin
track club thought otherwise.
"I poked my head in and ran right back out," Bush said. "I said
‘I don’t want to get near these guys. They are ready to kill.’ We
were either going to choke up or kill USC."
The Bruins set the world record in the 440-yard relay, the first
event of the day, en route to beating USC by, coincidentally, 21
points, 83-62. The meet is now known all around the track and field
circle as the "Dual-meet of the Century."
"The whole team just went bananas," Bush said. "The whole team
came from everywhere and gathered around the finish line."
That meet was just one of the many great UCLA-USC dual-meets
over the past 64 years. The two programs have, arguably, the two
greatest programs in the history of the sport.
Together they have combined for 34 team outdoor track and field
national championships and have sent countless numbers of track
athletes to the Olympics.
The crosstown clash has also seen some of the greatest athletes
of all-time, such as baseball legend and the only UCLA four-sport
letterman, Jackie Robinson.
Also included in UCLA-USC past meets have been UCLA alumnus and
the 1960 Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon, Rafer Johnson,
1992 Olympic gold medalist Mike Marsh of UCLA and USC’s Quincy
Watts, the 1992 Olympic gold medalist in the 400-meters.
"Among other reasons that I picked UCLA was the fact that one
day I wanted to beat USC," said Johnson, one of the greatest
decathletes ever and father of current Bruin track star, Josh
Johnson. "On the varsity team, I never had the honor of being on
the winning side of the UCLA-USC track meet. In subsequent years
I’ve felt a little better about that."
In those subsequent years, the Bruins have won the last 19 meets
against the Trojans and have practically dominated every one of
those 19 meets. The closest meet during the Bruin winning streak
was 12 points, 83-71, in 1980.
UCLA’s largest win over the Trojans came in 1992 when the Bruins
smashed their rival by 84 points, 123-39. However, USC does lead
the series 38-26 as UCLA did not always take the winning path in
this intense rivalry.
USC dominated every meet between the two schools from 1934 to
1965, winning 33 in a row. USC won the first meet ever against UCLA
87-44 at the Coliseum and continued to roll over UCLA in years to
follow. The Trojans 120-11 annihilation of the Bruins in 1950 is
the meet’s most lop-sided win.
Then Jim Bush took over the UCLA track program. After Elvin
"Ducky" Drake retired, the late J.D. Morgan, former athletic
director at UCLA, hired Bush in 1965 to beat USC and then win a
national title.
Bush’s team lost in 1965 to the Trojans but defeated them 13
times in 18 years after that. UCLA first defeated USC with a score
of 86-59 in 1966 en route to a national title. At the time, UCLA
handed USC only its third dual-meet loss in school history.
The Bruins won seven of 10 meets from USC in the 1970s as they
began to become the prominent track program in the nation winning
four national titles in the decade as the USC program started to
falter.
UCLA started its current winning streak in 1978, 83-71. USC even
refused to meet UCLA one year. After losing to the Bruins 107-47 in
1981, USC didn’t compete against the Bruins in 1982 much to the
dismay of Bush.
"I was so mad at them," Bush said. "I just reminded them that
they beat us 33 straight years and UCLA never backed down."
Bush later went on to coach at Southern Cal from 1991 to 1994
but never beat UCLA.
Current head coach Bob Larsen is in his 14th season and has
never suffered a defeat to USC. He is 13-0 vs. the Trojans.
The first time that the women’s team met was in 1984 at Drake
Stadium. UCLA won an extremely close meet, 76-74. USC beat the
Bruins in 1986 by the narrow margin of 69-67. UCLA leads the
women’s series 11-3 and won last year 83-62.
UCLA’s head coach Jeanette Bolden has never lost to USC in her
four years as head coach but did have a scare in 1995 at Drake
Stadium.
UCLA trailed 70-69 heading into the last event of the day which
was the 1,600-meter relay. The Bruins needed to win and did to
prevail from meet with a 74-70 win.
"You are going to see individuals do something that they’ve
never done before," Bolden said, referring to the UCLA-USC meet.
"As coaches, we know that the athletes have potential and we are
just waiting on pins and needles for their potential to be known to
everyone else and that’s what happens at this meet."
This year marks the 21st time that the two schools will meet at
Drake Stadium. The facility first opened in 1969 and UCLA is 16-4
against USC at home. The two schools have met at the Coliseum, East
Los Angeles Community College and Berkeley.
The teams have met only twice at USC’s current track and field
home facility, Cromwell Field. The first was in 1995 where 1997
World Shot Put Champion and Olympian John Godina had his most
memorable moment in the rivalry.
"We went to USC for the first time," Godina said. "They brought
the band out and had the horse running around. It sold out and had
a great crowd. It was a great meet."
Godina won the shot put and set a UCLA-USC meet record in the
process with a mark of 71 feet, 3 1/2 inches.
The 1997 Pac-10 400-meter champion and one of the best sprinters
in the country, USC’s Jerome Davis, shared his memorable moment of
the rivalry which took place in 1996 at Drake Stadium. He found out
that the rivalry between the Bruins and the Trojans can be just as
intense in track as any other sport.
"I remember running the 4 x 100-meter relay and we (Davis and
UCLA anchor, Gentry Bradley) were coming up and they (UCLA) beat
us. Bradley turned around and pointed the baton at us," Davis said.
"I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know it was that
serious."
The rivalry can carry over off the track, as USC women’s track
coach Barbara Edmonson knows. She is a former Trojan and has a
daughter, Malika, who attends and runs track at USC. Her husband
Warren is a former Bruin track athlete.
She mentioned how her husband doesn’t let her forget when UCLA
beats USC in track. Edmonson did say that if the USC men’s or
women’s team wins, she will play the USC fight song in her house
all day and night.
The intensity and emotion that the athletes give in the UCLA-USC
track meet can’t be described – it’s always been a fierce battle.
Yet, one phrase said by Trojan discus thrower Gordon Hovey can sum
up the mind-frame of all the UCLA and USC athletes.
"It gets me fired up!"