Victory Bell (UCLA-USC)
| First meeting | September 28, 1929 USC, 76–0 |
|---|---|
| Latest meeting | November 18, 2017 USC, 28–23 |
| Next meeting | November 17, 2018 |
| Trophy | Victory Bell (since 1942) |
| Statistics | |
| Meetings total | 87 |
| All-time series | USC leads, 47–31–7 (.594) (2 wins vacated) |
| Largest victory | USC, 76–0 (1929) |
| Longest win streak | UCLA, 8 (1991–1998) |
| Current win streak | USC, 3 (2015–present) |
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Locations of the two universities in
the Los Angeles metropolitan area |
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The Victory Bell is the trophy that is awarded to the winner of the UCLA–USC football rivalry game. The game is an American college football rivalry between the UCLA Bruins and USC Trojans, part of the overall UCLA–USC rivalry.
The Victory Bell is a 295-pound (134 kg) brass bell that originally rang atop a Southern Pacific railroad locomotive. It is currently mounted on a special wheeled carriage.
The bell was given to the UCLA student body in 1939 as a gift from the school's alumni association. Initially, the UCLA cheerleaders rang the bell after each Bruin point. However, during the opening game of UCLA's 1941 season (through 1981, both schools used the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for home games), six members of USC's Trojan Knights (who were also members of the SigEp fraternity) infiltrated the Bruin rooting section, assisted in loading the bell aboard a truck headed back to Westwood, took the key to the truck, and escaped with the bell while UCLA's actual handlers went to find a replacement key. The bell remained hidden from UCLA students for more than a year, first in SigEp’s basement, then in the Hollywood Hills, Santa Ana, and other locations. At one point, it was even concealed beneath a haystack. Bruin students tried to locate the bell, but to no avail. A picture of the bell appeared in a USC periodical. Tension between UCLA and USC students rose as each started to play even more elaborate and disruptive pranks on the other. When the conflict caused the USC president to threaten to cancel the rivalry, a compromise was met: on November 12, 1942, the student body presidents of both schools, in front of Tommy Trojan, signed the agreement that the bell would be the trophy for the game.
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