Listen up Trojans…

Listen up Trojans…

Firing head coach is not going to help USC defeat Bruins

By Yoni Tamler

Daily Bruin Columnist

Memo to the University of Southern California:

So, tonight it’s your turn to host the men’s basketball
cross-town grudge match. Pardon me, "grudge match" is something of
a misnomer. What I meant to say was "disgrace."

The UCLA Bruins did it to you back in January, and they will do
it in front of your crimson crybabies tonight. It’s only fitting
that the arena you call home is also the stomping grounds of
another Los Angeles winning tradition: the Clippers.

But for once, just to make things interesting, do you think you
could give UCLA a run for its money? Just once?

That entails showing up, something you could not manage to do on
Jan. 24. To jog your memory:

The Bruins dominated from tip-off. They owned you. They abused
you. They had you at their beck-and-call, treating you like an
indentured servant. Completely, utterly, and totally took you to
school. (Incidentally, "school" refers to education, as in
learning. I apologize for taking for granted your comprehension of
the term).

UCLA had a freshman that wouldn’t let your shots get four feet
off the ground. And who on the team didn’t show you up by dunking
in your face at one point or another?

For your shameless fans, it was an ugly game at best. For Bruin
fans, it was amusing, to say the least.

Did your star forward, Jaha Wilson, sincerely think that his
team could afford to lose him to a juvenile scuffle? Perhaps he had
the keen foresight to know that the his team’s chances of coming
back (and dare I say, winning) the ball game were below freezing –
then, or until eternity.

The Bruins were hitting from everywhere. When they weren’t
juking you on the perimeter or posting up with Chamberlain-ease,
they were swishing outside jumpers as if the basket were an
ocean.

That was then. That is also now.

You call yourself a team, when in reality, you are nothing but a
band of truant misfits who skip road games or quit the team in the
middle of the season, run by a despotic buffoon who terminated your
head coach for no other reason than that he could not do the
impossible: make your team win.

You lack leadership, unity, and any semblance of cohesion. Your
cheerleaders, on the other hand …

What is this nagging nuisance about UCLA that it has to emerge
on top in every contest? I mean, you go out and fool the world that
you have a football team, and then the Bruins crash your
illegitimate party for the fifth straight time (and counting). Must
the NCAA create several new sports to make the situation equitable,
to give you a fair chance of beating UCLA in one of them?

But no. You insist on trying. Your dreams rest on that faint
glimmer of probability that one day you will be able to look up at
the scoreboard and see your Trojans ahead at the end of
regulation.

As futile as it is, you continue to compete in the NCAA in quest
of that theoretical fantasy of beating the Bruins. Tonight you will
bring out your sorry bunch of
I-was-awesome-in-high-school-but-now-I-get-tooled-on-a-regular-basis
players.

And, just like always, you’ll get blown out in a lucid display
of True Trojan Incompetence.

Just remember to show up this time.

Love,

A nonpartisan sports fan.

Must the NCAA create several new sports … to give you a fair
chance of beating UCLA in one of them?

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