Tom Lasorda tries to pump up UCLA, but hey, the job isn’t easy

You know the old saying, it’s not over until the fat lady sings or Tom Lasorda gives up on you.

Well, with 12 minutes 29 seconds remaining on the Rose Bowl clock, Lasorda pronounced the UCLA football team goners and walked off the field.

If Lasorda can’t get a rise out of you, you’re dead.

The guy is 84. He makes the drive to the Bruins’ Pasadena hotel Saturday morning, gives them everything he has in a pep talk, rides the team bus to the Rose Bowl, makes the Bruin Walk through the crowd sweating in his Dodgers sweater, and did I mention he’s 84?

Three weeks ago, he’s in the hospital after having a pacemaker implanted. At the time, he finds himself watching the Bruins on TV playing Houston.

When he gets the chance to tell the Bruins what he thinks of their performance, he goes Kingman on them: “You guys were so bad, you couldn’t have tackled me.”

He tells the Bruins he didn’t come to talk to them to hear himself speak, so right away they know this is something out of the ordinary.

He tells them what they need to do to beat Texas, the same kind of spitting, crooked arthritic-finger-in-the-face inspirational spiel used to win a World Series and Olympic gold medal.

He tells the Bruins he’s 14-2 when speaking to football teams, admitting later, “I couldn’t remember what it was, but that sounded good,” and tells the players in language best left in a Pasadena hotel ballroom they better not ruin his record.

He smiles when he gets off the team bus, a few players around him chanting, “15-2, 15-2.”

As Coach Rick Neuheisel says later, “Sometimes old school is good for the soul.”

Someone tells Lasorda the Bruins are really pumped after hearing him speak, and when they win they will carry him off the field. Lasorda now has them thinking they can do the impossible.

He joins the players on the field for pregame warmups and someone wants him to pose for a picture surrounded by UCLA cheerleaders. He does not protest. He’s 84; he’s not dead.

When it comes time for the game to start, Lasorda stands in the Rose Bowl tunnel, fists in the air, yelling at the Bruins to go out there and whoop those guys from Texas. Then he joins UCLA on the sideline.

And the Bruins wilt.

The 84-year-old guy with the pacemaker is still clapping. No one on the UCLA sideline thinks of finding a chair for Lasorda, not surprising if you have seen UCLA play and noticed the lack of attention to detail.

His legs start to go, so when the team goes to the locker room for halftime, he grabs a seat on the bench. When the Bruins return, he slips next to quarterback Kevin Prince.

Prince had three passes intercepted in the first quarter, and Lasorda should have walked Jack Clark.

Lasorda tries to lift Prince’s spirits while Richard Brehaut is out on the field playing in his place. Lasorda hugs running back Johnathan Franklin, tells him to keep fighting, and then is back on his feet clapping for the Bruins.

He sincerely believes if given the chance to convince them they can walk on water, they will do so. Later, he’s genuinely shocked when UCLA drowns.

“I still thought there was a chance to come back,” he says.

What do you expect from someone who tells you, “They tell me I’ll need to get a new battery for my pacemaker every 10 years. My goal is to wear out two of them.”

When he finally does call it an afternoon at the Rose Bowl, the Bruins trailing 42-20, he leaves so he can get to Dodger Stadium. Maybe he’ll bump into Frank McCourt to make it the perfect day.

“I’m retiring from talking to football teams,” says Lasorda, who knows now how tough Neuheisel has it in getting UCLA to win.

“I just hope USC isn’t mad that I tried to help UCLA. Because I’m a Trojan all the way.”

And here I was worried about him.

t.j.simers@latimes.com