When Bob Chesney first took charge, the sight of Cardinal-and-Gold was a clear target, sparking a fiery determination in him.
During his initial press appearance, the UCLA coach emphatically pledged to elevate his team to become the premier football team in the area.
“I guarantee this will come to pass,” Chesney confidently asserted back in December, “and very soon indeed.”
Recently, however, Chesney has adopted a more tempered stance regarding USC. After the Trojans stirred the rivalry by erecting a billboard near Westwood—displaying an anonymous player giving a two-finger Victory Salute with the bold message “THE TIME IS: NOW”—Chesney remarked that he hadn’t noticed it and had no particular opinion on the matter.
“No,” he commented in the spring when questioned about the billboard located at Santa Monica and Sepulveda boulevards, “I don’t have any specific thoughts on it.”
That’s not the case when it comes to one new Bruin.
Tight end Josh Phifer, who followed Chesney from James Madison on this cross-country adventure, had a visceral reaction when informed of the billboard.
“Ugh,” Phifer said, getting into the rivalry spirit three months before the teams meet on Nov. 28 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. “I’ve got to go out there and get some black paint or something — [put] a X over it or something.”
That would be keeping in the spirit of rivalry revenge spanning back nearly a century.
MORE STORY: Kim Zolciak’s Son KJ Faces Sexual Battery Claims: Latest Police Report Details and Attorney’s Response
Perhaps the prank that sparked the biggest backlash was six USC fans taking UCLA’s “Victory Bell” — plucked from a Southern Pacific railroad locomotive and rung after every Bruins touchdown — after posing as UCLA fans and loading it into the back of a truck they drove off in.
A peace accord was later reached, awarding the bell to the winner of the annual rivalry game, though the high jinks persisted.
In 1957, USC students furtively distributed cards at the Coliseum in the UCLA student section that revealed a giant “SC” pattern when displayed during the game.
A year later, Trojans loyalists seized a delivery truck meant to distribute UCLA’s student paper and replaced it with fake editions bearing “Beat SC!!!” headlines that were passed out on campus.
In 1989, USC supporters unleashed 30,000 crickets, painted red and gold, in a UCLA library during exam week.
There have also been multiple assaults on the Tommy Trojan statue on USC’s campus and the Bruin Bear statue at UCLA, leading to around-the-clock protection in some years. Trojans fans even managed to infiltrate a protective box in 2018 to splash the bear in cardinal and gold paint.
And if anything happens to that USC billboard on the edge of Westwood?
Well, let’s just say there could be a person of interest in any inquiry.
“Obviously, I want to win that rivalry game, you know what I mean?” Phifer said. “I want to whoop them, and I know recent history hasn’t gone the best for UCLA, so I definitely want to go win that game.”