Big-Game Faces

Getting With the Program

Charles Franklin was a skinny kid with a high-pitched voice when he started selling programs at Memorial Coliseum in 1952. He was paid on commission, so he needed a way to get noticed among the older, more experienced hawkers.

Forty-nine years later, Franklin is as much a part of football Saturdays as the marching bands and cheerleaders. Fans who attend the USC-UCLA game today may not know him by name, but they probably recognize the sing-song pitch he developed as a teenager.

“Get yer SOU-venir PRO-gram.”

It’s pure 1950s shtick, a reedy aria from the days of Jon Arnett and Donn Moomaw. His act is as old as the vendor’s apron they gave him that first season, the one he still wears though it is ragged, with the faded inscription: “Viceroy Cigarettes ... Not too strong ... Not too light.”

For nearly five decades, Franklin has sold programs at every USC game. Also plenty of Ram, Raider and Bruin games when they played at the Coliseum.

“It gives me something to do,” he says. “I meet different people.”

Those who don’t know him stare as they walk past his stand at Tunnel 21. A young usher who checks tickets a few feet away says the constant carnival barking gets on his nerves “a little bit. I kind of get used to it.”

But for the loyal clientele, it is a siren song. They approach with money in hand, smiling, asking: “Did you save one for me?” Every sale is punctuated with a “Thank you very much.” It seems that once or twice each game, someone stops by to have a picture taken with the vendor they have known all these years.

The rest of the week, Franklin lives by himself in an apartment west of downtown. He works odd jobs in the garment district and devotes much of his time to a foundation that helps the homeless. Though his hands shake with the onset of Parkinson’s disease, he remains otherwise sturdy.

And, at 64, he has gained the wisdom to know that “people will buy more programs on the USC side of the stadium than on the UCLA side.” Over the course of this afternoon, he figures to sell 120 or so programs, which will net him only $15 or $20, but Franklin can’t imagine missing the game.

The cross-town rivalry brings back memories for a diehard USC fan. Pete Beathard in 1963. Gary Beban and Mike Garrett in ’65. Pat Haden in the 1970s.

“I enjoy it so much,” Franklin said. “I’m going to keep doing it.”