Fans’ Loss of Class Was Worst of USC’s Losses This Season

A Trojan football Saturday has always been something very special.

At USC, it seems like they’ve always had the most dashing sideline mascot (Traveler, not Jerry Buss), the biggest and baddest band, the cheeriest cheerleaders. Great fans, too, an enthusiastic and loyal following.

In short, USC football has always stood for class. There was a certain snobbishness involved, too, but it was always a classy snobbishness.

That was the old days. The new days are here. Last Saturday was a new day.

In the morning paper last Saturday, loyal fans raked the Trojan coach over the inky coals with letters to the sports editor.

” . . . It’s way past time to fire this incompetent who has brought us four years of unending humiliation,” one letter-writer wrote in a fairly typical blast at Coach Ted Tollner.

Now, anybody who was suffered four years of unending humiliation because the college football team he roots for has won only one Rose Bowl in that time, has a fairly low humiliation threshold.

“He (Tollner) stinks . . . ,” penned another cardinal and gold supporter.

And so on.

That’s nice. Sports fans writing their minds, venting their spleens, expressing their contempt and hatred for a coach and his team. That’s America.

But what about the opposing viewpoint, letters from the USC students, fans and alums who appreciated the bright spots in the Trojans’ 7-3 season and who weren’t yet ready to leap off bridges to end the unending humiliation? What happened to any USC rooters who might be a little embarrassed at the venomous public attacks on a college football coach and his team because they were only 7-3?

Well, few of those people wrote. As a matter of fact, the ratio was 35 to 1.

Later that day, minutes after the Trojans were beaten by Notre Dame in a thriller of a game, USC pride and poise took another beating. Tollner stood on the field with his senior ballplayers. He had a microphone and was preparing to introduce the players one by one to the USC fans for the traditional senior sendoff.

The fans booed. They booed some more. Finally, Tollner tossed aside the microphone and waved his seniors off the field. The sendoff became a boo-off.

It was a sad moment. Not because Teddy Tollner or his group of seniors might have had their feelings hurt. It was sad because it marked the ending of a tradition--Trojan class.

Maybe that tradition never really existed. Maybe that aura of class was only a figment of my imagination. Maybe USC always has been the University of Spoiled Children, and it took a few gridiron hard times to bring it out in public.

Many USC fans had mixed emotions Saturday. They were crushed by the loss to hated Notre Dame, yet cheered by the feeling that the loss would cement Tollner’s doom as Trojan coach.

That’s been the big game this season, guessing when Tollner would get his pink slip, or how many games the Trojans had to win to save his job. Athletic Director Mike McGee, no Tollner fan, has kept the game alive by not saying much. With a few words of praise or support, McGee could have diffused much of the speculation, diverted the attention of writers and fans and players back to the field. But maybe that would have been dishonest. Maybe McGee got his point across perfectly, that he’s not crazy about Tollner and the only way the guy could save his job would be by winning eight games, including one of the Big Two, and then kick someone’s butt somewhere on New Year’s Day.

Odds are at least even that when McGee and his associates get around to evaluating Tollner in another month or so (presumably they’ve first got to evaluate the badminton coach and field hockey coach), they’ll fire him.

They’ll cite Tollner’s 1-7 record against UCLA and Notre Dame and his failure to fully revive the Trojans’ old-time glory. They’ll primly thank Ted for keeping his desk neat and maybe even for running a program that stayed clean for four years, at a school where athletic scandals and probations were becoming fairly routine until Tollner arrived. They’ll probably forget to note that part of Tollner’s problems in rebuilding a dynasty was dealing with the effects of NCAA sanctions against the football program, sanctions he inherited.

Some media people will defend Tollner, point out that Terry Donahue, considered one of the best college coaches in the nation, was 5-6 in his fourth season at UCLA, and that Donahue lost to USC each of his first four years, including a 49-14 thumping his fourth season, and yet has bounced back nicely.

McGee will talk about how the USC people appreciate Tollner’s efforts and thank him for a job well done, but, well, the athletic department powers and the school president feel it’s time for a change, a new direction for USC football.

After last Saturday’s pregame and postgame festivities, who can deny that?