The Beginning Of USC

The University of Southern California (USC) Trojans,,, established in 1880, is the oldest independent teaching and research university in the West. Los Angeles was a rough frontier town in the 1870s when Judge Robert Maclay Widney and other spirited citizens dreamt of having a university in the region. 1879 Widney formed a board of trustees and secured a donation of 308 lots of land from three prominent members of the community Ozro W. Childs,personalized bobble heads,Panaracer Bike Tires Are A Marathon Ready Tire, a Protestant horticulturist; former California governor John G. Downey,personalized bobblehead, an Irish Catholic pharmacist and businessman; and Isaias W. Hellman,., a German Jewish banker and philanthropist. The gift provided land for a campus as well as a source of endowment, the seeds of financial support for the nascent institution and in 1880 USC opened its doors to 53 students and 10 faculty members.

USC has among the richest histories in college athletics. The Trojans are the men�s athletic teams while the women�s athletic teams are referred to as The Women of Troy. The Trojans have won 109 total team national championships, 89 of which are NCAA National Championships, 87 of which were won by men�s teams and 22 by the women�s . Trojan men athletes have won 296 individual NCAA titles, more than those from any other school in the nation and the Women of Troy have brought home another 51 individual NCAA crowns for a combined 347 individual NCAA championships.

USC has a reputation and long tradition of nurturing Olympic athletes. 375 Trojan athletes competed from the 1904 Summer Olympics through the 2004, taking home a record 112 gold medals, plus winning at least 1 gold in every summer Olympics since 1912, 64 silver and 58 bronze. There have been more Trojans in the Olympics than from any other university in the world. In fact,custom bobblehead, if USC were its own nation in the Olympics,customized bobbleheads, it would rank tied for 11th in the world in total gold medals earned. In the 2004 Athens games,personalized bobbleheads, USC sent 35 athletes and won 17 medals.

The Trojan football team won 11 national titles and as of 2007 was tied with Notre Dame and Ohio State for the most Heisman trophy winners with 7. From 1959 to 2008,customize bobblehead, the Trojans had won the conference championship 18 times and tied for the title on 6 other occasions. USC has the nation s fourth best bowl winning percentage (.643) among the 65 schools which have made at least 10 bowl appearances and its 30 Rose Bowl appearances is an all time best.

The Victory Bell is and 295 pound bell taken from the top of a locomotive and is the rivalry trophy in the USC UCLA cross town rivalry. The winner of the annual football contest keeps the bell for the next year,custom bobblehead, and paints it the school s color: cardinal red for USC, True Blue for UCLA. The bell was given to the UCLA student body in 1939 and initially the cheerleaders would ring it whenever the Bruins scored. However,personalized bobble heads, in UCLA s opening game in 1941, six USC Trojan Knights infiltrated the Bruin rooting section,customize bobblehead, assisted in loading the bell aboard a truck headed back to Westwood,custom bobbleheads, took the key to the truck, and escaped with the bell while UCLA s actual rooters went to find a replacement key. They hid the bell from UCLA for over a year. Tension between UCLA and USC students rose as each started to play even more elaborate and disruptive pranks on the other. The rivalry had gotten so bad that the USC President threatened to cancel it.