UCLA-USC Football Rivalry Pranks

The football sports rivalry between University of Southern California and the University of California Los Angeles has existed since 1919. In 1942, the rivalry only intensified with the introduction of the Victory Bell as a prize won each year by the victor of the long hotly contested annual UCLA-USC football game.

The Victory Bell

Originally, the Bell was solely owned by UCLA, given to the university in 1939. It only became controversial in 1941 when USC stole the Bell from the UCLA campus for the very first time.

During the opening game of the 1941 UCLA football season, six USC students stole UCLA's Victory Bell right out of their rooting section and loaded it onto a truck. They hid the Bell for over a year, first in a frat house basement, then at several private homes, and even under a haystack. The Victory Bell was returned in 1942 when a compromise was reached between the two schools. The Bell would become a prize awarded to the victor of the yearly UCLA-USC football game.

Of course, this didn't stop the school rivalries and pranks.

Tommy Trojan

Throughout the years, USC's statue of Tommy Trojan, the school mascot, had been often defaced during football season, courtesy of UCLA fans.

In 1953, UCLA students sawed off Tommy Trojan's sword-wielding arm and welded the arm back on, making it appear as if Tommy was stabbing himself in the back.

In 1958, however, a UCLA prank backfired when a group of students rented a helicopter with the full intent of dropping 500-pounds of manure on the much-defaced Tommy statue. Since it was football season, USC students guarded the statue nightly. Of course, they also made a nice target for the dung drop.

Unfortunately for the UCLA students, when the load of manure was dropped, most of it blew back into the helicopter's propellers, splattering the culprits in the process.

The Daily Bruin

Also in 1958, USC stole all of the stadium football game editions of The Daily Bruin, UCLA's student newspaper, and replaced all of them with fake Daily Bruin papers that were distributed throughout the stadium on game day. On the front page of the phony newspaper, UCLA's team coach was quoted as saying, "I can't see any hope for our team."

UCLA Finals Week

In 1989, students pulled off one of the last UCLA-USC classic pranks on the UCLA campus during finals week. USC students released about 20,000 crickets into UCLA's main Powell Library, then posted signs on the library wall that said, "Hope you enjoy studying, Bruins. USC beat UCLA!"

Sources:

"The 10 best college sports pranks", Chris Lesinski, Sports Illustrated

"Tradition's pranks see ebbing trend", Jennifer Case, Daily Bruin

"Pranks of the past, present", Rajan Meghani, Daily Bruin

"Acing the pranks", Roy Rivenburg, LA Times