The first and last post about the UCLA-USC rivalry

First, I don't care. To use an incredibly tasteless football-related metaphor, I don't have a dog in this fight.

I went to a private school that wasn't USC, and, quite frankly, I took glee that we outranked the USC-like member of our consortium in national rankings of liberal arts colleges, even though we were a science and engineering school. I didn't even think about going to UCLA, though I got in. I was so certain I didn't even visit the campus, even though it was about 20 miles away.

BUT

I have to share an observation I made during a previous big UCLA-USC game.

A couple years ago, I was on a metrolink train heading toward Los Angeles, where, apparently, there was a big matchup. I couldn't tell you what sport.

I observed that the USC fans were on their smartphones or chatting casually with each other. Many were older, and were clearly not undergraduates. It's possible some weren't even alums, but I have no way of telling who is an alum and who is not. (Even the license plate border test might be flawed.)

The UCLA fans tended to be college-age, and were all studying textbooks. I peeked, and noticed that they were chemistry texts. They had their faces painted, etc., but apparently they had a test coming up.



Now, I'm not saying that UCLA students are more studious than the USC students. I didn't quite see what the USC fans were doing on their phones. Maybe they had already studied for the day.

I'm not saying that UCLA has a narrower fan base, confined to its students, while USC fans span the gamut of Southern Californian fauna. Presumably, those UCLA alums are doing something worthwhile to advance society, like working in hospitals, or public service, or becoming captains of industry.

I happen to know one Republican mayor of a Southern Californian city that, because of his connections, morphs from a stalwart conservative to the biggest supporter of a state-sponsored, left-leaning, Prop 30 tax gorging institution.

I'm also not saying that, to my knowledge, USC hasn't produced a titanic coaching legend like John Wooden, is overpriced, or exhibits the traits of defensiveness, arrogance, and hyperbole indicative of a significant inferiority complex vis a vis its cross-town rival and its East Coast competition.

I'm not saying anything, really. Just observing. :)