Trojans-Bruins Match Not the Only Game in Town

Much of Los Angeles might have focused Saturday on the war in Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco--the annual football showdown between UCLA and USC.

But step into any sports bar, such as Yankee Doodles or Teasers in Santa Monica, and college football’s day of great rivalries was playing itself out in many other guises.

That meant dozens of Michigan Wolverine fans drowning their sorrows because of finally losing to Ohio State, after a seven-year win streak. It meant Florida State fans nodding and laughing in appreciation as their fierce rivalry with Florida broke out in a brawl before the opening kickoff. It meant frustrated Berkeley fans searching vainly for a TV, any TV, on which to watch the Big Game against hated Stanford.

Mostly, though, Saturday was a chance to exchange beer-soaked memories of big games past and to continue traditions and reunite with friends.

Even in a barroom thousands of miles from the action, there can be courage. There can be men like Jeff Long, a 52-year-old hospital administrator from Colorado Springs, who waded into a sea of Michigan supporters at Teasers on the Third Street Promenade wearing his Ohio State Buckeye T-shirt.

“Spiritually, I am always there,” said Long, who came west on business. “I live in Colorado and I love it. I only miss Ohio on six Saturdays a year.”

Long reminisced about parties at the Varsity Club, before and after the game. He recalled long and usually winning hours spent inside the stadium affectionately known as “the Horseshoe.”

And, as Ohio State continued to pummel Michigan on Saturday, he recalled another great victory, 30 years ago. In that game, legendary coach and curmudgeon Woody Hayes ran up the score on the Wolverines, even ordering a two-point conversion with little time left.

Asked why he went for two points against an already beaten opponent, Hayes replied: “Because I couldn’t go for three.” Long giggled at the memory.

So did a Michigan fan, just down the promenade at Yankee Doodles.

“Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. That was a good one by Woody,” said Derek Lipscombe, a onetime law student at Michigan. “But the next year was Bo’s first year. Ohio State was ranked No. 1 coming in and Bo [Schembechler, Michigan’s equally fiery coach] and Michigan won it. Now that was sweet!”

Outside, on the Third Street Promenade, strollers and early Christmas shoppers enjoyed a spectacular Southern California winter day. A grade school boy did a passable Michael Jackson imitation and an old man played a violin with a plastic Pepsi bottle instead of a bow.

But inside the two bars, at least half a dozen games blared on big- and small-screen televisions.

John McGlothlin, a University of California graduate, recalled his first Big Game, sitting on the wooded “Tightwad Hill” overlooking Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium, where a ticket is not required.

He brought a backpack and a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor. “Those were good times,” McGlothlin said. “I wish I could be back there now.”

But McGlothlin, now a law student at UCLA, apparently was not going to get a taste of Saturday’s Big Game. The sports bars could not pick up the broadcast, which was being fed only to the San Francisco Bay Area.

“This is going to be tragic,” McGlothlin said ruefully. “Hopeless.”

But with almost 55 screens to pick from, most fans weren’t disappointed.

About 150 members of the Michigan Club of Los Angeles at Teasers were doing their best to conjure up dear old Ann Arbor.

U of M banners hung out front. Shouts of “Go Blue” rang from the crowd and a lone trombonist gamely played choruses of “Hail to the Victors” during the day’s few bright moments.

Before driving to the bar with the multiple television screens, Ben Padnos, 24, and friends prepared by playing an audiotape, “Fire Up for the Game.”

“I know, I know--major geek factor,” said Padnos, who works for the Internet service Yahoo. “I have a problem, I guess, but I love it.

“It’s fun watching it with a group,” he said. “I miss the crisp fall air, being in the stadium with 105,000 screaming fans. Just talking about it gives me goose bumps.”

It’s not a feeling exclusive to Ann Arbor, of course.

Kelly Kilgore recalled walking from a University of Kentucky fraternity to home games, dressed liked the rest of the Greek men in jacket and tie.

“It was the only thing going,” said Kilgore, now a racehorse owner, as he watched his alma mater play Tennessee. “It was just very, very social.”

At another table, a Florida State graduate explained that he had no intention of missing his school’s showdown with Florida just because of a business trip.

The man, who gave his name only as Roger, said that in Tallahassee, people have been partying and dressing in the garnet and gold for at least a week.

“It’s hard to describe how big it is back there, the emotion, the rivalry,” said Roger. “At home there is not much else. When there isn’t football, there is recruiting for football. Our whole year is building toward this one week.”

As the two teams took the field, a fistfight broke out between waves of Gator and Seminole players. Roger just chuckled and shook his head, announcing to a friend: “This is going to be a blood bath.”

Meanwhile, Ohio State’s 31-16 victory had been sealed and the televisions tuned to other games.

But a group of young Michigan grads was trying to salvage something from the searing loss, just a year after their team won a share of the national championship. The twentysomethings began bouncing quarters off their table, in a classic drinking game.

“We are regressing because of the loss,” explained Christopher Cortez, a 1996 Michigan alum. “A loss. Like Freud said, it’s the castration complex. So we are just turning the clock back.”

Cortez acknowledged that the game won’t truly be over for him for a few more days, after he returns to his job where he works with a Buckeye.

“I know just how it will go. It will be a slow, painful process,” he said. “It will begin something like this. He’ll say, ‘So . . . did you see the game on Saturday?’ ”