Need a Lift?

One advantage to being a Los Angeles Kings and Detroit Lions fan is that no one ever accuses me of being a bandwagon fan. It is possible that someone could try and accuse me of being a bandwagon UCLA fan, what with their recent basketball success and all. But if you have read this blog over the past year, you know that my allegiances run deep. Outside of people who actually went to UCLA, I think there are few people who love UCLA as much as I do. I pride myself on being a loyal fan, in good times and bad.

I say this because I have always been annoyed by bandwagon fans, especially the USC bandwagon fans. Part of the problem with USC bandwagon fans is that they are mostly former Los Angeles Raiders fans. We all know how bad Raiders fans are, so it should come as no surprise that they are not any better as USC fans. Go to a Trojans game at the Los Angeles Coliseum and you will see that most of the cars have Raiders decals on them. I can guarantee that those cars did not make the trip to the Coliseum during the John Robinson era. During the last few years of Robinson's tenure as head coach, and even during Pete Carroll's first season, USC had trouble filling the Coliseum to half its capacity. Now, two national championships later, the Coliseum is packed for every home game and I am left to deal with the traffic as I drive to the Rose Bowl to watch my Bruins.

But the lug nuts on the USC bandwagon are starting to come undone. With three straight weeks of unimpressive play, including an embarrassing lose to the lowly Stanford Cardinal, USC is starring a four, hopefully five, loss season square in the eyes. Now, I know USC has been hit with the injury bug this season, but I do not buy that as an excuse. This is a program that has had a top-five recruiting class each of the last five years, including the number one ranked class from 2004 to 2006 (it's true . . . see for yourself). That means USC's second and third string players would be starters at most other college programs. This team is deep; they have competitions at practice every Tuesday for players to earn their playing time for the upcoming week. I do not buy the injury excuse.

The Trojans have looked sad all year. They looked unimpressive in their week-one victory over Idaho and struggled to beat Washington and Arizona, two of the bottom teams in the Pac-10. There "marquee" win this season is over Nebraska, a team that, at 4-3 and coming off a pounding at the hands of Oklahoma State, is not as good as everyone originally thought. USC still has to travel to Eugene, to Berkeley, and to Tempe to play three of the top programs in the nation (Cal, Oregon, and Arizona State respectively). Plus, you never know what will happen when UCLA "comes to town" in December. Trojan fans just need to face the truth: USC has not been the same since offensive coordinator Norm Chow left in 2005. It was Chow, not Carroll, who was the mastermind of that unstoppable offense. And, if USC goes 6-4 or 5-5 (gotta love the Las Vegas Bowl), there is a very real possibility that Pete Carroll will say yes to one of those NFL offers that come his way every year.

So, what are all of those Trojan bandwagon fans going to do if . . . no . . . when the wheels fall off? Well, since I am a the bearer of bad news, I thought it is only appropriate that GameTime, TBD© help find those poor, lost souls a new bandwagon to jump on.

While perusing Rolling Stone's 2007 "Hot List," I discovered that table tennis (better known as ping pong) is making a comeback in the United States. [I enjoy a good game of table tennis, so this might not be a bad thing. In fact, just the other day I was playing some ping pong with my good friend Forrest and he said, "You know BAP, when I was in China on the All-American Ping Pong team, I just loved playing ping-pong with my Flex-o-lite ping pong paddle." He had an extra one on him and he gave it to me. Let me tell you that he was right, that paddle is amazing . . . but I digress] USA Table Tennis (or "USATT" for short) is hoping that the world's most effective marketing tool, sex, will help sell their sport. USATT is hoping that Serbian-born Chicago resident Biba Golic will help the sport gain some notoriety in the upcoming year. Ms. Golic certainly is easy on the eyes, and I know that is something most Raider/Trojan fans enjoy. What could be better for the sport of table tennis then having a bunch of drunk, overweight men with "I love Biba" painted across their chests showing up at every tournament? Although it seems like a match made in heaven to me, I am guessing that most of the bandwagoners would be looking for another football team to get behind, not table tennis.

Well, thankfully for them, we at GameTime, TBC© know just the team. By traveling only a few miles northeast of Los Angeles, they will be able to find best college football team in all of Southern California, the Occidental Tigers. Now, in the interest of full and fair disclosure, I am an Occidental alum . . . but the facts do not lie. The Tigers have won thirty-one straight regular season games, twenty-four straight conference games, and nineteen straight home games. They have been coached by Dale Widolff for the past 25 years, and his 151-87-3 career record ranks as one of the best career winning percentages in Division III history. They have won the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference ("SCIAC") title three years in-a-row, and four out of the last six years. The Tigers have made three straight Division III playoff appearances and Occidental is the only SCIAC school to register a playoff victory. The Tigers are 5-0 this year, 3-0 in league, and are ranked #17 in Division III (they were ranked as high as #6 in 2005). If they can get past Cal Lutheran on October 27th, they will likely run the table again and find themselves back in the playoffs.

If I were you, I would jump on that Tiger bandwagon now, before it gets too crowded. What's that you say? You don't know how to get to Eagle Rock? Don't worry, I do. Need a lift?