The storied history of the university and its neighbor, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, is long and colorful.

USC’s ties to Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum date back to the late 1890s, when William M. Bowen, an attorney and adjunct professor of law at USC, enlisted the support of George F. Bovard, then president of the USC Board of Trustees, in a crusade to clean up a seedy area of town known at the time as Agricultural Park.

The park originally opened in the 1870s as a showground for agricultural and horticultural fairs, but it soon fell into disrepair. The property was foreclosed in 1879. Although California’s newly formed Sixth District Agricultural Association redeemed the mortgage in 1880 – the year of USC’s founding – it was not long before political maneuvering put the parcel in the hands of private concessionaires, who turned it into an amusement center patronized by the city’s more unsavory characters.

Then one day in 1898 or 1899, Bowen decided to check up on truants from his Sunday school class. Much to his alarm, he discovered his students loitering around the saloons, gambling houses and other seamy establishments that prospered behind Agricultural Park’s high board fences. Outraged, he complained to Bovard that this “plague spot” was undoing the work they were trying to achieve in their classes, and he made up his mind to do something about it.

Joining together with Bovard and other civic leaders, Bowen garnered commitments from city, state and county officials to develop the land as a public educational, cultural and recreational center. Christened with water from the Owens River, Agricultural Park became Exposition Park in 1910. The State Exposition Building and the L.A. County Museum of History, Science and Art were dedicated on the site in 1913.

Bowen next resolved to erect a regional athletic stadium in the park. Once again Bovard, now USC president, extended his support. Even though the university had been making plans to construct its own facility, Bovard promised that the Trojan football team would play its home games in Exposition Park, thus guaranteeing income for the enterprise.

Architect John Parkinson, who created USC’s first campus master plan and designed Bovard Administration Building as well as most of the structures erected on the University Park campus during the 1920s, was selected to build the stadium. Construction began on December 21, 1921, and Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum – named in honor of those who died in World War I – was completed on May 1, 1923.

The Early Years, 1923-32
True to its word, USC made the Coliseum its football home. On October 6, 1923, the university’s freshman football team played the dedication game there, crushing Santa Ana High 30 to 0. Afterward, during the first varsity football game ever held at the new stadium, the Trojans scored another victory by trouncing Pomona College 23 to 7 before a crowd of nearly 13,000.

For several decades, USC also scheduled its track and field meets at the Coliseum. What’s more, because of the ever-increasing number of guests wishing to attend graduation ceremonies, USC held almost all of its baccalaureate and commencement exercises at the Coliseum from 1924 until 1948.

Even though the “ultra-modern” stadium had been designed to handle enormous crowds, by the late 1920s, it was already in need of expansion and repair. The earth fill having settled, much of the upper portion of the structure – which was built of wood – needed replacement. Likewise, there were no longer enough seats to accommodate the multitudes that thronged to watch the major Trojan football matches. The upcoming 1932 Olympic games, too, provided a powerful impetus for improvement.

Plans were drawn up to renovate walls, stairways, floors and other features, and to add new seats by constructing additional tiers. But progress stalled when conflicts arose among the city, county and state entities charged with maintaining the facility.

With no guarantee that improvements would be made, USC considered scheduling its “big games” for the 1930 football season away from home. Then-USC president Rufus B. von KleinSmid told the Los Angeles Times in June 1929:

“We are the largest users of the Coliseum. Its earning power strikes its peak through the University of Southern California football season.…

“Each season averages at least two games which overtax the present seating capacity and demonstrate, by the demand for tickets, that an enlargement of the seating capacity is needed as a service to the public. …

“The university feels that unless it has assurance of the proposed agreement being executed by the city, thus guaranteeing that construction will go forward as proposed, … the Coliseum would be unusable by the university the following season.”

After extended wrangling, a two-phase plan for reconstruction finally moved forward in 1930. By the time the Olympic games came to Los Angeles in 1932, the Coliseum’s wooden upper decks had been fitted with concrete and steel, and its seating capacity had been expanded from 75,000 to more than 100,000.

Collaborations of Olympic Proportions
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum – newly dubbed Olympic Stadium – served as the primary track and field venue and the site of opening and closing ceremonies for the 1932 Summer Olympics. In addition to some 25,000 new seats, the stadium had been outfitted with a new athletes’ tunnel and a new lighting system. The main entrance was embellished with Olympic rings and the Olympic cauldron torch, which is still lit during USC’s home football games.

Due in part to his familiarity with the stadium, Gwynn Wilson, athletic director at USC, was recruited to serve as associate manager of the Xth Olympiad. USC’s Willis O. Hunter and Arnold Eddy were in charge of supervising Exposition Park and the Coliseum during the games.

When Los Angeles won a second Olympics bid for 1984 – largely thanks to the efforts of USC alumnus and trustee John C. Argue – Gwynn Wilson was on hand again, named by Olympics general manager Peter V. Ueberroth as a member of his “kitchen cabinet.” It was agreed that the Coliseum would reprise its 1932 role of hosting track, field, and opening and closing events – becoming the only facility in the world to host two Olympiads.

In anticipation of the games, USC held its 1983 Homecoming at the stadium, welcoming 120 of the university’s 180 living Olympians for a gala dinner and fireworks display. When the games arrived, President Ronald Reagan took up office on the University Park campus before heading over to the Coliseum to officiate at opening ceremonies. USC served not only as the city’s largest Olympic Village, but also as the site of the swimming and diving competitions. Once again, the close relationship between the Coliseum and the university played a key role in the success of the games.

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. 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 marked 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.