Standing the test of time

Published: Friday, May 1, 1998

Friday, May 1, 1998

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!"