What a year it has been. It struck me a few weeks ago while I was in Las Vegas for my fraternity’s formal that a year ago that day, I was making my decision about where to come to college. I took a moment to think about how far I have come since then and all the amazing things that have come out of my college decision. My highlight reel of freshman year clearly starts in one place. Football season. I wasn’t a football guy in high school and wasn’t expecting to get THAT into it at USC. But the first day that you wake up in the morning to a sea of Cardinal and Gold on the quad, there is not much you can do to stop from being swept up in the madness. The moment where I first came out of the tunnel in the Coliseum into the student section and saw the entire field sprawled out before me was magic. Hearing the band play the fight song and watching the football team run onto the field. Unforgettable. Watching us almost lose to the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Still awesome!
Football season at USC is just a unique experience. It brings me back to a story my dad told me when I committed to USC, about when he was at the University of Michigan. They watched USC football on TV, saw the Song Girls dancing and gazed at the fans cheering in the sun while they were trapped in the freezing cold. To those Michiganders, it looked like a dream. And in reality, it is. On Saturday’s, the dorms clear out, the alumni show up in force and the student body gets crazy. On those days, you see the dedication level of alumni, as thousands of them pour onto campus and into the Coliseum. It’s a multi-generational collection of Trojans connected by mutual experience.
I wasn’t the biggest sports fan in the world. Maybe that has changed a bit. But USC football is more than just a sports experience. It’s something that brings the campus, community and city against a common enemy, UCLA. It’s something for you to get excited about, even if sports aren’t your cup of tea. Just remember, Matt Barkley came back for one more year, just so that you Class of 2016ers could get to see him play.
