WHAT ALL TROJANS SECRETLY BELIEVE BUT PUBLICLY DENY ------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------- Confessions of a true-blue-and-gold Bruin loverActual article from the Daily Trojan a few years back which has since been removed from their website: by Andrew Dalton, a student journalist at USC ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------I’ve got a secret. I’ve been living a lie. I’ve tried to make myself change, but I can’t. I’ve been trying to hide the truth from my friends, my family and my fellow students.But as bile is spewed around me, as the bonfires burn and the sleepy guards watch over Tommy Trojan, I just can’t hold it in anymore. I’ve got to come out of the closet.I don’t hate UCLA. In fact, I really like the place. In many ways I like it better than our own fine institution.There, I said it. I feel better already. Let me get a tissue, and we’ll go on. While cardinal and gold suit me just fine, I’ll admit, with my wintry complexion I prefer cool blue. It offsets my eyes.Consider the price of the two schools. In-state undergraduate tuition and fees at UCLA came to $4,225 for this academic year, according to the school’s financial aid office. USC’s tuition and mandatory fees came to $26, 954 for the year. That’s more than six times as much.While USC has outperformed UCLA in football for the past few years and will probably destroy it Saturday, and while academically USC has gained quite a bit of ground on its publicly funded rival, is USC six times better than UCLA in all these ways? Even the faithful of Troy can’t make such a claim.You, young Trojans, are getting ripped off. Or your parents are at least.Some of you are proud that this place costs so much. You think it’s proof of your social class.If you enjoy paying six times as much for an education that is slightly inferior to the cheaper one, congratulations. I just hope you’re not going to the business school.And those of you who have had to pay your own way as I have might be humming a different tune than “Fight On!†when you’re still paying off your student loans in 20 years.By the way, isn’t “Sons of Westwood,†a catchier romp than our belligerent fight song? And the UCLA band doesn’t show up on television wearing those embarrassing sunglasses, as though being in a marching band and wearing a fuzzy helmet weren’t any different from being a rockstar.And can the surgery-enhanced blondes that roam our campus really compare with the Pacific Rim beauties from UCLA? Maybe I’ve just got an Asian fetish, but I don’t think so.Consider also the political devotion of the two student bodies. A group of UCLA students went on a hunger strike a few years ago demanding a Chicano studies program. Now I’m not in love with the idea of a Chicano studies program, and certainly don’t think it’s worth starving yourself over, but you have to admire their sense of social responsibility. I tried to imagine such a thing happening at USC. What might our students go on a hunger strike for? Maybe for another Carl’s Jr. on campus, one that doesn’t close at 7 p.m. (A worthy cause, to be sure, but I think you get my point.)USC squanders the advantages it does have. Consider the two schools’ locales. USC is at least in the gritty center of Los Angeles, a true urban university, unlike the stuck-up West side that UCLA calls home.But USC students don’t appreciate their home. They go here in spite of, not because of, the neighborhood, and most would probably prefer spending a Friday night in Westwood with its vast entertainment possibilities and chain-restaurant dining options. USC students don’t play up their street credibility, they do the opposite.They sneer at Bruins for being poor public school kids. Many questions arise, I know, as you read all of this.Why am I going to USC? Well, it has a journalism school, the only real one in Los Angeles. Had the late Walter Annenberg left a zillion-dollar endowment to start such a school at UCLA, I would likely be writing this in the Daily Bruin, talking about the charms of USC.Who will I be rooting for on Saturday? Having spent a season close to these Trojans, to Pete Carroll, Norm Chow, Carson Palmer and Justin Fargas, I’ve grown a real affinity for them. They’re a memorable and likable bunch. And I’m nothing if not a fair-weather fan. I’ve never seen a bandwagon I couldn’t jump on.But for me, Saturday will just be a game between two of my favorite teams.I hope that my coming out today will give others courage to do the same. I know you’re out there, you who are at USC because it has a film school, or because your parents wouldn’t have it any different, or because you couldn’t get into UCLA. It’s OK. You don’t have to live a lie anymore. Take off that “F*CLA†T-shirt. We’ll start a support group and get through this together.Andrew Dalton