Big Game...Big Kick in the Balls

 Big Game...Big Kick in the Balls

    This is one of those tales that traces misguided good intentions by BC who set me up for a crash landing at the Coliseum. It was big game week in 1979 and I was buoyed by the fact I had been hired by LAPL to begin my library career that month. UCLA once again had a mediocre team but was showing some life by winning their last two games including a rout of Oregon up in Eugene. BC invited me to come down to the old venerable gridiron and watch the big game with the help of the UCLA ticket manager who provided me with a lost-seat location pass. The lost seat location pass was a scam that got you through the gate but did not provide you with an exact seat every time. To top off the deal BC gifted me a bright, baby-blue windbreaker with a bumper-sticker plastered on the back that said UCLA #1  What the fuck! I was always proud of my graduation from the school and was fanatical about the sports programs which at that time consisted mostly of John Wooden's great basketball teams. It was to be Wooden's last year and one of the early seasons for long-time head coach Terry Donahue who went on to distinguish himself after an up and down early career. At one point he beat the hated Trojans five straight times. However, in 1979 the USC team was very good, lead by Heisman Trophy winner Charles White and they were favorites to win. Yet, hope springs eternal as it does today when we expect a shellacking. So, I show my lost seat location and a helpful usher manages to just allow me to sit in a concrete camera well at mid-field where I self-consciously take a cross legged seat in the uncomfortable but good vantage point "seat.". I look around me at an absolute ocean of maroon and gold Trojan fanatics who had the taste of blood in their mouths and did not mind hurling insults at some guy flaunting his Bruin colors in the middle of a USC section. The Bruin quarterback was a rather obscure Rick Bashore who was trying to fill the shoes of All-American John Sciara who beat USC. Things did not go well for me or my team early as USC marched down and allowed  Charles White to walk in for the first touchdown. I hoped for some reaction from the offense but Bashore lofted an out pattern which the great Ronnie Lott picked off and raced in for the touchdown making it 14-0 before my hunk of concrete was warm. Charles White liked that enzone so much he reached it three more times in the second quarter on runs of 1, 26 and 2. As I sat in my chilled bunker amidst thousands of ecstatic Trojan fans it was 35-0 AT THE HALF. By this time my UCLA #1 jacket was folded into a ball and tucked under my arm. I did not go out and get a hot dog or sip a beer or chat with other fans but only hustled across Santa Barbara avenue to my VW and headed down the Harbor freeway to Club Virginia where TImo was slumped in front of our sad TV witnessing the 49-14 spanking.

                                                           Rick Bashore

                                                            

                                                                   Ronnie Lott