Before Losing to UCLA Became a Tradition

How long has it been since USC has beaten UCLA?

Just take a look at Don Gibson’s family portrait.

There are Hayden, 5 1/2, Kate, 2 1/2, and Sara, 6 months.

Marriage and three daughters have arrived since the day Gibson, captain of the last team to beat the Bruins, walked off the field at the Rose Bowl on Nov. 17, 1990, after a 45-42 shootout that was one of the most spectacular games in the 67-game history of the rivalry.

It has come to be known as the Todd Marinovich-Tommy Maddox game.

UCLA’s Maddox passed for 409 yards, Marinovich threw for 215, and together they helped put 42 points on the board in the fourth quarter as the lead went from USC to UCLA and back again when Marinovich connected with Johnnie Morton on a 23-yard touchdown pass with 16 seconds left to win it.

The forgotten view is the one from the other side of the ball.

“I just remember being really tired from pass-rushing the whole time,” said Gibson, a defensive lineman. “It was really exciting, an amazing game. Even on TV now, when they show the old SC-UCLA games, that’s one of the best.”

With 1:19 left, UCLA looked like the winner after the Bruins’ Kevin Smith had scored on a one-yard run.

“At that point, I just looked at the clock and said, ‘We still have a chance. We could still score again,’ ” said Gibson, who lives with his family in Orange and is finishing a 3 1/2-year training program to become a chiropractor. “I remember Todd was just on fire. You always think you have a chance, the way Todd was playing.”

The offensive show was something else. The defense?

“If they lost the tape, I wouldn’t mind it,” Gibson said with a laugh. “I mean, it was a great one to remember because we won, but to me, it would have been awesome if the score was 3-0. A win is a win. It doesn’t matter.”

Don’t the Trojans know it. Craig Gibson, Don’s younger brother, started at center on that 1990 team.

He wasn’t on a team that beat the Bruins in three more years as a starter--and he’s still trying, in his second season as a USC graduate assistant after a couple of seasons in the Canadian Football League.

“I still remember the actual play--a great pass by Todd, a great catch by Johnnie,” Craig said. “We need, as Trojans, to get that feeling back. Recapture the trophy, recapture this city and beat them.

“I’m sick of it. Seven years in a row. It makes me sick to my stomach. I can’t believe it. The streak--it puts me at a loss for words.”

At least the Gibsons know what it’s like to win.

Think of USC linebacker Darryl Knight, a redshirt freshman. He hasn’t been on a team that has beaten UCLA, and neither was his brother, Sammy, a Trojan linebacker and safety from 1993-96--although another brother, Ryan, a running back, was on teams that went 2-2 against UCLA from 1984-87.

USC Coach Paul Hackett was 4-1 against the Bruins in his five-year stint as an assistant from 1976-80, and now he’s about to run the UCLA-Notre Dame gantlet for the first time as head coach.

“It’s still incomprehensible to me that we’ve lost seven straight years. Just shocking,” Hackett said. “Nothing is more important than beating UCLA.”

Unless, of course, you haven’t beaten Notre Dame.

“People say it’s been a long time since we’ve beaten UCLA, and it has,” Don Gibson said. “If you’re playing on a team that beat ‘em, it’s not that big a deal. I was never there when we lost. But Notre Dame, we never beat. Now we’re on a roll against Notre Dame.”

He’ll be at the Rose Bowl on Saturday, and his two oldest daughters will be decked out in their USC song girl outfits.

“Their big thing is Traveler,” he admitted.

His big thing is the game.

“UCLA, it’s been their time,” he said. “Hopefully it ends Saturday.”