Theirs is a ‘big game’ of a different stripe

Football season has arrived, and fans around Los Angeles are already gearing up for the USC-UCLA game Dec. 4.

But that’s not the only “big game” around, and its hardly the longest-running college series in Southern California. That distinction falls to the Occidental Tigers and the Pomona Sagehens, which first battled on the gridiron in 1895. The Trojans and the Bruins started competing against each other only in 1929.

The annual Occidental-Pomona contest is among the 10 oldest rivalries in the nation. On the West Coast, only two other match-ups boast a longer history: Stanford-UC Berkeley and Oregon-Oregon State, according to an Occidental spokesperson.

Today, the Pomona College football team — which merged with Pitzer College’s team in 1972 and is now the Pomona-Pitzer team — and Occidental compete for “the Drum,” which is inscribed with the scores of each annual game. This year they meet Oct. 16 on the Occidental campus in Eagle Rock.

How did these two small, liberal arts colleges become such long-standing foes?

Necessity.

Pomona began its football program in 1892; Occidental in 1894. Back then, there weren’t many college football teams around. Opponents were in such short supply that both schools played non-college squads. Pomona competed against San Bernardino High School and a town team from Redlands, while Occidental faced Los Angeles High School and a reform school in Whittier.

The Oxy Tigers beat Pomona decisively, 16-0, in their first game. It was Pomona’s only loss of the season as well as the college’s last game of the year, and it stung. “Football came in with a good deal of rush and a roar early in September,” reported the Metate, Pomona’s yearbook. “It went out lamb-like style after the defeat by Occidental in December.”

At least the game was “very clean,” unlike an earlier game Pomona played against Throop University (now Caltech). The Metate described the match as “an unsportsmanlike affair.” Both captains threatened to stop play, and Pomona ultimately quit after one of its touchdowns was disallowed.

Pomona and Occidental met again in 1900 and have played each other every season since, except for 1943 and 1944, when World War II intervened.

A healthy rivalry has developed over the years, along with some colorful traditions.

In the 1930s, Oxy students began the infamous Sagehen Burial. On the Monday after each victory over Pomona, the football team staged a mock funeral for a scrawny rubber chicken in the alumni chapel. Afterward, the players, dressed in black gowns, acted as pallbearers and led a procession to an on-campus gravesite where they buried the bird. The day was pronounced a school holiday, and no one had to attend class, according to Occidental’s archivist, Jean Paule. The tradition ended in the 1950s.

Meanwhile, over at Pomona, in Claremont, students lighted a bonfire the night before each game. As cheerleaders whipped the crowd into a frenzy, students burned a papier-mache Tiger. Bruce Prestwich, class of 1955 and a two-time All-Conference guard, can still recite the fireside chant:

We know why the Tiger’s afraid.

We’ll fulfill the promise we made.

That we will win and take from him

His Occidental Tiger skin.

Prestwich played ball for Pomona from 1951 to 1954, a period of rising fortune. “Freshman and sophomore year, Occidental pummeled and humiliated us,” he said. “It was a bitter defeat.” But Pomona reigned victorious over the next two years. The team — which was joined with players from neighboring Claremont Men’s College (now Claremont McKenna College) from 1946 to 1956 to form the Pomona-Claremont Sagehens — also won 12 games in a row, the longest winning streak in the school’s history.

Prestwich still has the ball from his last game with Oxy, when the Sagehens steamrolled the Tigers 27-7. He’s held onto it through seven moves. “I really treasure that ball,” he said.

The drum ritual began in 1941 when the alumni associations from both schools got together and decided they needed a symbolic object to present to the winning team.

To date, Oxy leads the series, 60-48-3, and has won the last six games. Last year, it erased a 10-point half-time deficit to win the game 44-30.

Occidental may also have the winning edge when it comes to its mascot. Pomona’s mascot, the Sagehen, which is a large ground-dwelling bird also known as the sage grouse, doesn’t exactly strike fear and dread into the opponent’s heart.

Yet the name does score big in the novelty category. There are many teams with a Tiger mascot but only one called the Sagehens, said Ben Belletto, sports information director for Pomona-Pitzer Athletics. He further noted that it’s a fitting mascot because the bird used to live in the area.

The school thought about changing the name some years back, according to Belletto, and let students weigh in on the matter. But administrators changed their mind when the top vote-getter turned out to be the student write-in choice, Flaming Owls of Death.

Come game time Oct. 16, students and alumni will be out in force rooting for their respective teams. And Prestwich will be among them. After all these years, “the rivalry is alive and well,” he said. “I’ll be there with my old classmates, trying to win one from the stands.”

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