USC Football When You Hate Football

by Alexis M Peters ‘20

I stood in the Coliseum, the crowd bellowing their support for the Trojan football team all around me. I clapped my hands. This would be fun. This would be fun. I had snagged a spot in the front row, which meant I couldn’t really see everything that happened on the field, but I got to wave to my mom when the Fox camera guy came up to film us. The girl standing next to me kept shaking her pom-pom in my face, so I couldn’t be sure Mom even saw my whole face. Maybe just a peek.

The game began, and the excitement of the crowd electrified as spirals of colorful lights shot into the sky. Huh. I didn’t know they started every game with fireworks. I wonder what happens if we lose, I thought to myself. This was my very first USC football game, so there were a bunch of traditions that were very confusing. The lighting of the torch? I was so lost as everyone’s fingers circled around the stadium, following a poor animation of a fireball. But I guess it was cool that the animation turned into a real fire at the end. I struggled through most of the songs and chants. Don’t even get me started on the SoCal spellout. How do I always end up three letters behind?

I somehow managed to get the “Charge” chant, even though my understanding of a first down was still quite fuzzy. The people standing next to me grabbed me unexpectedly to bob back and forth to the music with our arms wrapped around each other. The camaraderie of it all was fun. We chatted and laughed and danced to the marching band. And it was nice. For about 10 minutes.

Something that is important to note about football culture: Football time is very different from regular people time. The clock says there are only 15 minutes in the quarter but don’t fall for it. Fifteen minutes in football time equals one hour of regular people time. ONE HOUR. And when you’re in the student section, you don’t get to sit down. You’re standing THE. WHOLE. GAME. My back was on fire by halftime. I was so happy to finally sit down. So happy, that I ignored my growling stomach, so instead of going to get food, I enjoyed putting my feet up.

Okay, I just have to say it. Football is really boring. It’s one of those kinds of sports where for a good amount of the time, nothing is happening. I mean sure there’s a bit of tackling, but seriously? Yawn. Half the time, the players don’t get very far ‘til they’re slammed into the ground. And I’m sorry, but even the songs got old. They were fun to dance to at first, but I got sick of them right around the time that my feet were hurting so badly I wanted to cut them off.

You see, there are three key things that happen at a game when you don’t like football:

There’s no such thing as a bad game.

I once heard someone complaining that there weren’t any good home games this season. Me? Every game is just a game. Doesn’t matter who we’re playing, I’m still going to be bored as heck.

Halftime is the most interesting part of the whole event

Seriously, when the band started playing their Pixar set!! I was jamming.

You don’t even notice the touchdowns because you were daydreaming about something else

I would turn around and everyone would be cheering, (or booing if the Buffs had scored) and I would have no idea why. I had to look at the jumbotron instant replay to understand what was going on. I honestly watched the Song Girls more than the game. I mean, those ladies can MOVE.

I thought I knew what I was getting into. I thought I could handle it. Everyone loves football so darn much that I thought I could trick myself into loving it, but all I wanted that entire game was to take a shower and lie down. Also, what kind of CAPITALIST MELARKEY are these commercial breaks? People come to a live event and they still have to wait around for the commercials to end?? (I mean I see how much money can be made here, because people go bananas over football, but come on.)

It was the fourth quarter and the Trojans were up by quite a bit. We were totally going to win. Oops. Oh no, another penalty on us? What a shame, I thought. But the chorus around me was much more vicious. “What the [expletive] ref?” “BOO!!” People were shouting and cursing at the ref for throwing a flag. But we were up by a lot. Like 2 whole touchdowns a lot. I watched a guy get out of his seat and stomp around, still screaming his disapproval at the field. He was legitimately throwing a tantrum. I fought to not roll my eyes. He does know that we will survive even if we don’t win, right?

And despite the multitude of penalties against us, we still won. Yay! But instead of reveling in our victory, the band started playing and we ended with the chant with, “Beat the Utes!” While silly old me was still saying, “Beat the Buffs!” On to the next. 

You’d think if I hated football so much then I’d just stop torturing myself. Even at my previous university, I grumbled through every game. But transferring to USC, attending a football game just felt like a rite of passage.

The only thing that would make the football games more enjoyable is push-ups. We did them all the time at my previous university’s football games: Throwing people up and down after a touchdown according to how many points we had. I’ve seen some people do it, but we should bring it back. It’s the only thing that might keep me coming to football games.

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