Trojan Bandwagon Is Missing One Fan Today

I remember the wonderful times I had as a Trojan fan, when I could go anywhere without fear of rich people cursing me, or threatening to cancel their newspaper subscription.

I recall how easy it was to mix with the Trojan tailgate mob, needing only $75 to buy a USC Aloha shirt and hold a beer in both hands to look that goofy.

I joined everyone else and laughed at the Notre Dame daughter and the Notre Dame sports editor, because you don’t have to be a Trojan honk to do that.

I wore a USC baseball cap to play in the Mighty Ducks’ charity golf tournament, and all day long when people saw me they yelled, “Fight On!” which was a nice change from “Fore!”

Yes, I found people treated me differently as a die-hard Trojan fan, probably because no one from UCLA wants to admit where they went to school these days.

Those were the days, all right, all 26 of them, but I wonder now, if I really wanted to be miserable, then I’d probably make a date not to miss a single Charger game.

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AS YOU can see, I have a difficult decision to make now that USC’s football team is nothing special. To understand my dilemma, I would urge you normal people out there to call a Trojan fan this morning, and ask, “How’s your weekend going?”

If you have an ex-husband who went to USC, I’m sure you’ve already beaten me to it.

Now if you’re going to hitch your emotions to a football team, and I remind you what life is like in San Diego every Monday, then triple-overtime losses to teams with losing records are going to make you no fun to be around. I mean, just imagine thousands and thousands of people today with Mike Garrett’s disposition.

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I KNOW at the very least I owe an apology to the good folks at Northern Illinois for even mentioning the Huskies and the fumbling-bumbling Trojans in the same sentence.

Maybe USC will use the excuse it was looking past Cal in anticipation of a BCS meeting with NIU. I’m sure the Trojans will come up with something, but the Huskies are 4-0 with wins over Maryland, Alabama and a 24-16 victory over Iowa State on Saturday, and if life was fair, their top 20 ranking would be flip-flopped with the Trojans.

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TO BE a Trojan fan, or not? It’s not the kind of question one would like to ponder while sitting in the UCLA press box, but there wasn’t much else going on in the Rose Bowl on Saturday with the Bruins playing the Aztecs from San Diego State.

They have a rule here you can’t cheer in the press box, which ordinarily doesn’t come into play because UCLA hardly ever scores touchdowns, but try watching a nerve-tingling overtime contest on TV with the Trojans’ BCS fate probably hanging in the balance, and doing so in silence.

You know how difficult it had to be on me not to cheer for the Trojans.

I will say this. When Cal finally won the game, I heard officials from UCLA cackling with joy, but since there is no rule in the UCLA press box that prevents cackling, no one was reprimanded.

I thought for a second of maybe dumping the Trojans and becoming a Bruin fan for a while, but I want to make it clear I thought of that for no more than a second. It was 3-3 after two quarters ... two quarters of football that had the feel of a Dodger game.

The Bruins played four quarters here a couple of weeks ago and scored two field goals. They now have three in the Rose Bowl in six quarters of play. This is boring. They had to shoot fireworks off at halftime to keep the crowd from leaving.

UCLA won the soccer game, but after spending an evening with the Bruins, they’ve convinced me it’s not so bad being a Trojan fan.

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JASON REID is a fine writer, and a great reporter covering the Dodgers for The Times. But I wonder if the length of the season and the horror of covering the Choking Dogs day in and day out has gotten to him as he went Edgar Allan Poe on us with this chilling sentence in Saturday’s newspaper: “[General manager Dan] Evans has begun focusing on the future since the team was eliminated from playoff contention....”

How could Evans possibly top the additions of Tyler Houston, Daryle Ward, Ron Coomer, Fred McGriff, Todd Hundley, Mike Trombley, Terry Mulholland, James Baldwin, Jeromy Burnitz, Robin Ventura and Rickety Henderson? Take a break, Dan. Dodger fans deserve that.

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SO EVANS announces before Friday night’s game that the Micro Manager and his staff will be brought back next year, and then the players respond by losing, 10-1, to the Giants. Who says a manager doesn’t win and lose games for a team.

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ERIC GAGNE will not break or tie the save record, and you can blame it on Ross Porter. The Dodgers had a 1-0 lead in Game 1 on Saturday, and Ross told everyone Gagne could move closer to the save record so long as the Dodgers didn’t score three runs in the ninth. Jinx! The team that couldn’t hit all season put four more runs on the scoreboard, wiping out the Gagne save opportunity.

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GO CUBS!

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YOU DON’T know Russell Quinn, but I’m told he had a medical struggle a while back. I’m also told he’s an Iowa grad and a big Dodger fan. Strike one, strike two. I just hope he’s not a big fan of Page Two.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Paul Spinner:

“My son, a USC grad, is married to a NIU grad. He spoke to someone at NIU last year about trying to play a game between the two schools (with Sept. 11, 2004 being open for both teams) in Soldier Field. NIU seemed very receptive.”

That was before NIU decided to upgrade its strength of schedule.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com.