I just got home from my third weekender, where Trojan fans (students and alumni alike) head north to attend the away game when we play either Berkeley or Stanford. If you have been following USC football the past few years, you know that this game was extremely important to USC fans for a couple reasons. Obviously, we need wins to get to a national championship, but beyond that, Stanford stands out as the only PAC-12 school we haven’t beaten during Barkley’s (and my) time here. Three years in a row, we were treated to painful upsets and close calls, and this was supposed to be the year we took home a victory. Tragically, Stanford played a much better game and we lost. It was painful to say the least, and it definitely dampened the spirits of the thousands of Trojans in the Bay Area for the weekend.
My Associated Students of Biomedical Engineering co-president and I right before the game.
We might have lost the game, but this was still a fantastic weekend. Road trips are always fun (and a great excuse for In-N-Out)! I went up with my roommate and two of my other friends, and we met up with tons of other people once we got to Stanford (only about half of whom we were planning to meet up with- the rest were just great surprises!). The six hour drive was made more fun with ABBA singalongs and a rousing game of “Bury Your Cows,” a midwestern favorite!
My friend Alexa fighting on as we approach SF! You can technically see it in the background if you squint really well
When we got to the stadium, everyone was tailgating in the parking lot. Unfortunately, the people we were with didn’t have a grill, so our 16 ice cold hot dogs looked like they were going to have to be eaten that way. Then we remembered the Trojan family, walked up to some random alumni, and asked to use their grill! Not only did we get to grill our hotdogs, but we stayed and chatted for a bit and they shared the rest of their food too! The Trojan family is awesome!
Not all our friends were with us during cooking, so we threw 12 of the hot dogs back in the bun bag and walked around with what was possibly the most convenient pseudo-invention ever for 30 min looking for them.
After the game, we met up with some other friends for dinner at a great Italian place in downtown SF. It was really good, and reminded me of some of my dinners from Viterbi Overseas in Rome 😀
So, while it did hurt to lose the game, I still had a great weekend, and rest assured the Trojan Family is still going to Fight On!
