This Game Has Liberal Amount of Off-the-Field Dirty Tricks

The week of the USC-UCLA game kindles memories, many of which are in the newly released book, “60 Years of USC-UCLA Football,” by Times staff writers Steve Springer and Michael Arkush. The book’s anecdotes range from the assaults on Tommy Trojan to the mystery of former coach Tommy Prothro’s briefcase. Even politics can’t escape the intense off-the-field rivalry.

Some excerpts:

“By 1973, Watergate had become a serious threat to the Nixon presidency. And as it turned out, there was a sizable contingent from USC who helped bring him down.

“Among the Trojan graduates: Ron Ziegler, Nixon’s press secretary; Dwight Chapin, the presidential appointments secretary; Donald Segretti, the all-purpose dirty tricks operator; Bart Porter, a former White House advance man who had received money from the famous slush fund, and Gordon Strachan, a political aide to H.R. Haldeman. The university was embarrassed. It couldn’t understand how some of its finest could break a nation’s trust.”

Game, UCLA: But UCLA had produced Haldeman, who became president of the Bruins’ alumni association. “One of the concerns,” said Robert Mannes, former Dean of Student Life at USC, “was that the people from SC who were involved (with Watergate) were on the second echelon, while the people from UCLA were on the first echelon.”

Trivia time: What was the first UCLA-USC football score?

Left, right: The political differences between UCLA and USC were summed up in this quote by a USC female student after Nixon defeated George McGovern in 1972: “During the election campaign, there were as many kids working at Nixon’s table as McGovern’s (at USC). But I have friends who go to UCLA and say there’s no way you’d find anybody at a Nixon table over there.”

Left, left: Race was a motivating factor in Jackie Robinson picking UCLA over USC, according to close friend Ray Bartlett: “We figured we’d get a break,” Bartlett said. “We felt if we played at USC, we’d probably sit on the bench because of racism.” Robinson played football for UCLA in 1939-40.

Add Robinson: Bartlett recalled this story of Robinson’s first season at UCLA: He and Robinson were eating with the team at a restaurant near Stanford, when the restaurant manager asked the black players to leave. Bartlett said the blacks got up and walked out, hurt and angered. There was silence in the room for a moment. Then, one by one, the other players stood and looked at each other. One player picked up a glass of water and slowly poured it over his food. Then another. When they had sufficiently destroyed their meal, the team marched out en masse.

Add USC: C.R. Roberts, an outstanding runner and one of two blacks who played for USC in 1955-56, claims in the book that Jon Arnett, a star runner who was white, was treated better because of his color, and was given more playing time. Roberts believed that Arnett, by carrying the ball deep in the opponents’ territory, got all the glory by scoring the points, while he took the pounding by carrying the ball when the Trojans had poor field position. So he retaliated: “The only way I could protest was to fumble the ball,” Roberts said.”

Back to the field: A prime target for pranks is Tommy Trojan, the large statue of the gladiator on the USC campus: “In the most creative assault on Tommy, a group of UCLA students once obtained a helicopter, loaded it with manure and dumped their load on the USC landmark statue.”

You’re fired: Former UCLA quarterback Gary Beban didn’t exactly have a storybook beginning: “He started out in a Pop Warner league at age 12. Sent in to replace an injured quarterback, Beban immediately went for the trick play, a flanker reverse. Bad move. It lost 15 yards and brought his coach down on him.

“ ‘Beban,’ the coach yelled, ‘did you call that play?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ Beban replied. ‘OK,’ said the coach, ‘you’re through.’ ”

Trivia answer: In 1929, USC won, 76-0.

Quotebook: Golfer Steve Pate, who graduated from UCLA in 1984: “One of the things we (his fraternity) did during UCLA-USC week was roast a pig the night before, then take the pig’s head and throw it on the USC bus. That was a yearly thing.”