84 Years of Gridiron History

While Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum has been home to many teams besides the Trojans over the years — including the UCLA Bruins (1933–81), the Los Angeles Rams (1946–79) and the Raiders (1982–94), among others — there have been 14 seasons (1923–25, 1995–2000 and 2002–06) when USC was its sole football tenant. USC also set the record for the highest attendance at any football game held at the Coliseum when 104,953 fans came to see the Trojans play Notre Dame in 1947.

This storied partnership, however, has not been without its rough spots, resulting in great part from the Coliseum’s complex management structure. As early as 1932, clashes arose around the question of a 10-year lease and preferential scheduling for USC, whose football contract provided most of the revenue received by the stadium at the time. With UCLA vehemently opposing USC’s contract proposal, Coliseum management divided on the matter, and Trojan alumni and fans up in arms about the possibility of losing their team’s historic football home, the Southern California Alumni Review ran an article presenting the university’s standpoint on the controversy. (To view of PDF file of the article, click here.) It would be a year before the question was resolved to the satisfaction of all parties.

Conflict erupted again in 1944, when the Coliseum Commission considered opening the stadium to professional football. This time, USC and UCLA joined forces in threatening to take their games to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Both universities eventually were persuaded to stay, and the Rams joined them as a Coliseum tenant in 1946. This arrangement continued for some three decades, until the Rams demanded that the facility be converted to a dedicated football stadium, with seating more ideally configured for watching football games. When it became evident that the remodeling would never take place, the Rams relocated to Anaheim in 1979.

In response to a plan to move the Raiders to the Coliseum in 1982, another heated debate broke out between the Coliseum Commission and its university tenants. In particular, USC and UCLA opposed the Raiders’ proposal to tear out existing seats and construct luxury suites, resulting in the removal of prime, between-the-goal-line spaces as well as a considerable net loss of seating overall. At the height of the dispute, UCLA opted to vacate the Coliseum and relocate to the Rose Bowl. For a while, USC, too, pondered a move to a new site, but again fought valiantly to retain its historic home.

Clashes notwithstanding, the 2007 season marks the 84th anniversary of USC football in Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Led by the Trojan band, generations of Trojan football aficionados have made the trek from Alumni Memorial Park to Exposition Park on game day — making sure to kick the base of a flagpole at the edge of campus on Exposition Boulevard to ensure good luck for the team.