Sport: The Fur Flew

Before the big game, a”goon squad” of 16 University of Southern California students stood guard for several weekends beside the statue of Tommy Trojan.* The attack came from another quarter. The enemy kidnaped U.S.C.’s mascot, a mongrel dog named George Tirebiter, and sheared him so that the letters U.C.L.A. stood out furrily on his back. Fearing further incidents of the kind that usually precedes U.S.C.-U.C.L.A. games, officials summoned campus big shots from both schools and threatened offenders with expulsion. There was an armed truce.

By kick-off time, the largest crowd of the 1947 collegiate season (102,050 people) had squeezed into Los Angeles Coliseum. All through the first quarter, U.S.C. and U.C.L.A. sparred cautiously like overtrained boxers. In the second period, unbeaten U.S.C. drew blood: Substitute Jim Powers threw a 32-yard touchdown pass to another substitute, Jack Kirby. Then the two lines fought a battle royal that was more vicious than spectacular. Just before the game’s end, U.C.L.A. drove all the way to U.S.C.’s four-yard line—and then lost the ball on an intercepted pass.

In nosing out U.C.L.A. 6-0, Southern California won the Pacific Coast Conference championship, and a ticket to the Rose Bowl to face unbeaten Michigan.

At New Haven, no titles were at stake (Penn leads the Ivy League, Princeton the Big Three). But the largest crowd in ten years (70,896) jammed into Yale Bowl to see football’s blue-bloodiest rivalry. The score: Yale 31, Harvard 21.

* The statue of a Trojan warrior, which stands before the Administration Building.