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THE ORIGIN OF THE "UCLA BRUIN"
Back in 1919 UCLA was known as the "Southern Branch" of the UCLA. The UCLA football team, playing
its first season, was then known as the "Cubs" owing to their younger relationship to the California Bears in Berkeley. In 1923, under new
coach Jimmie Cline, the football team adopted the name "Grizzlies" instead of Cubs. In 1925, Bill Spaulding came west from the University
of Minnesota to help upgrade the football program. In 1928, the Grizzlies joined the Pacific Coast Conference. However, there was a problem with
the nickname, since the University of Montana, also a member of the PCC at the time, had prior rights to the nickname "Grizzlies". UCLA,
which had changed its name from the Southern Branch in 1927, became the "Bruins" in 1928 and has been recognized as such ever since.
THE VICTORY BELL
The winner of the annual USC-UCLA football game is given the Victory Bell. The 295-pound bell originally hung atop
a Southern Pacific freight locomotive. It was given to UCLA in 1939 as a gift from the UCLA Alumni Association. For the next two seasons,
cheerleaders rang the bell after each Bruin point.
At the opening game of the 1941 UCLA football season, six members of a USC fraternity mixed in among the Bruin supporters and after the
game helped them load the Bell onto a waiting truck which was bound for Westwood. While the Bruin well-wishers were searching for the
missing keys to the truck, the Trojan supporters drove off with the bell. The bell remained hidden for more than a year in various
locations.
The controversy quieted somewhat until a picture of the bell was featured in a USC publication. This action re-ignited the rivalry,
as students from UCLA retaliated by painting the Tommy Trojan statue on the USC campus. Trojan students then acted by burning their
school's initials on several UCLA lawns. Police and school administrators had to be called to help quell the uprisings.
On Nov. 12, 1942, the bell was wheeled in front of Tommy Trojan and the student body presidents of both institutions signed an agreement
stating that thereafter the annual winner of the rivalry football game would keep possession of the bell for the next year. In that first
season on the gridiron following the pact, the Bruins, under the direction of coach Edwin Horrell, defeated the Trojans, 14-7, to mark
the first-ever Bruin win in the series. Later that season, the Bruin team went on to make its first ever post-season appearance in
the 1943 Rose Bowl game.
The 1954 Bruins:
Fifty-three years ago, UCLA fielded the finest football team in the school’s history. The 1954 Bruins compiled a perfect 9-0 record
and were voted National Champions by United Press International at the end of the season. Most of the key players from the 1953 Bruins, who were 8-2,
returned in 1954, led by legendary head coach Henry R. “Red” Sanders. During his nine seasons in Westwood, Sanders’ winning percentage was .773 and
he won three Pacifi c Coast Conference titles. The Bruins opened the 1954 season on Sept. 18 with a 67-0 victory over San Diego Navy at the
Coliseum. The point total was the highest in school history at the time. The following week, the Bruins improved to 2-0 with a 32-7 victory at Kansas.
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