Tag Archives: USC

USC Pre-Game Pole Kick

While going to a USC football game, it is tradition to kick the bottom of one of the poles on your way out of the entrance closest to Exposition Boulevard. There is both a light and flag pole that have wide bottoms as you go through the gates towards the coliseum. If you look at them on your way out you will both see and hear the effects of people kicking them as they go to cheer on the football team. It is said to be good luck for the team to kick either pole as you head to the game. At certain times in the season, the bottom guarding will actually break off from all of the kicking, but one of the poles will always be open. There are constant markings from the ware and tear on the pole and well as the ringing that follows the kick. If you do not kick the pole, many students believe the team will have bad luck and lose the game, or get injured. Informant was taught this by other individuals headed to the football games, and by noticing others kicking the pole as they went by.

Context – It is believed if you do not kick the pole, the team will have bad luck! It is unknown exactly what year or who started this tradition at the university but it is a widely accepted and practiced tradition, especially those who attended or currently attend USC. All kinds of people, from kids, adults, women, and men will do this as they head from campus to the coliseum for games.

Analysis – This is a common superstition practice at work. Many teams, schools, or even athletes have superstitious tendencies that help place the results of a game or wager on a “higher power.” This can be explained as a relaxer and a way to handle the stress of an upcoming event that a fan may have little to no control over.

Parkside IRC water refill station tale

This is an urban legend/tall tale from a friend living at Parkside IRC about the water refill stations on every floor.

Text

“So like, you know the water stations on every floor at IRC, right? Well, there’s this thing that happens every exam season where every time I try to fill my water the water comes out warm or hot. And I’ve talked to some people at IRC about it and apparently, it happens to them too. One person even says that the water tastes more metallic than usual during midterms. People say that like maybe there’s a ghost, you know, the Parkside ghost, that’s screwing with students when they’re at their most stressed time. Because there’s nothing worse than wanting a refreshing drink and getting lukewarm water instead.”

Context

“I live in IRC so I notice when things I’m used to aren’t what they are like usually. I get my water from the station every day (I don’t even use the Brita that I bought at the beginning of the year) so I definetely notice if there’s a change. Usually I don’t really care if the water’s different, but everyone is on edge during exams. I guess maybe because I’m so stressed this kind of event becomes ingrained in my memory and it feels extra worse.”

Interpretation

Exam season is a stressful time for everyone, especially for people like my informant because she is in pre-engineering and needs to get good grades in order to get into the program that she wants next year. Many of my informant’s friends are also in pre-engineering and computer science, which is known as one of the most stressful and difficult majors (there’s a common saying that CS majors don’t shower or go outside because they’re too busy in their rooms coding,) so they are also similarly suffering and undergoing great amounts of stress.

When people are stressed, it’s common that even the smallest incidents feel huge and insufferable. Their stress amplifies things that people can usually brush off. Likewise, getting lukewarm water when you wanted an ice-cold drink can feel like the world is ending when you’re already stressed about exams or essays.

When people feel like they’ve been unrightfully wronged and can’t find an explanation for it, they try to find a divine or supernatural reason for what happened. For instance, when a storm suddenly comes without warning, some people blame God’s anger. In this case, people created a ghost to blame for the disappointing water.

Don’t split the pole

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Language: English

Text:

A superstitious practice that dictates that when two people walking together encounter an obstacle (such a pole), they should stay together and maneuver around that obstacle on the same side, rather than passing by the obstacle on either side, as is often most convenient.

Context:

The informant first learned of this superstition while attending college at USC in Los Angeles.

Interpretation:

This superstition conveys a clear message that staying together is preferable while breaking apart is bad luck. The unsaid implication is that the bad luck generated from splitting a pole would be regarding the relationship between those two who split the pole. It seems as if this superstition functions as a sort of performative gesture, in which the performance of this action serves to makes something happen. For two people to stay together while walking around an obstacles bodes that they will stay together in their relationship when they encounter their own obstacles.

The Parkside Ghost

Informant is LO, a USC freshman from New York City, New York.

Text:

“The Parkside Ghost has never been taken seriously. It’s common knowledge but no one truly believes in it. Sometimes all the lights will go dark and you’re in the hallway, and the lights on the other side of the hallway will start flickering which is just scary especially when it’s late at night. Then you have other instances where the elevator doors open randomly, like when the elevator is there but no one ever walks in. There’s also The Stench. It kind of smells like sulfur, rotten eggs, and you smell it and then it goes away. It usually stays for five minutes and we’re all like ‘Oh, it’s the parkside ghost.’ There’s also no hot water, although recently there has been. All of those have happened to me, so there definitely could be a ghost, but I think they’re all circumstantial. I think it makes it more fun, personally I don’t believe it. Also because Parkside is pretty old, so there’s that idea.”

Context:

The University of Southern California was founded in 1880, and the Parkside residential buildings which informant LO references were built over the course of multiple years in the 2000s, making them at least 10 years old. The Parkside residential buildings include Parkside Arts and Humanities Residential College — a special living community for freshmen interested in the arts and humanities — Parkside International Residence College — a special living community targeted at first year students seeking an international experience — and Parkside Apartments — a living space designated primarily for juniors and seniors.

Analysis:

As USC is an institution with a nearly 150-year tradition, there are bound to be certain legends and folk narratives that form. This memorize reflects one consequence of an old school, which is the presence of old buildings. However, unlike other ghost stories — such as those from Estonia which tell of demons which steal property from Ülo Valk’s “Ghostly Possession and Real Estate: The Dead in Contemporary Estonian Folklore” — this ghost story lacks any reference to “unfinished business,” whether from a failed ritual or disappointed ancestors. Rather, as LO states, the goal is simply to make fun of the poor quality of an old building, and perhaps give some explanation to the unexplainable, as some ghost stories do.

Hole in the Fence

CONTEXT: PK is a student who previously attended USC. This is a “scary story” of an
unexplained occurrence that happened before he was a student. When he moved into the location at which it occurred, he was told this story by a previous resident. PK views this story as entirely true and a staple of USC folklore. He believes the origin of the story to be from about half a decade before he left and heard this story from a past housemate who lived with someone who lived in the house at the assumed time of the story.

TEXT:
Back in the days of yore… Well, long, long, long ago in the history of USC, where students have lived for many, many years in a dwelling on Orchard Avenue, there was a strange occurrence. Since the house abutted an apartment building to the back there was a tall – twelve-foot-tall – chain-linked fence between the two properties. One ancient guy, supposedly, legend says, cut a hole in the fence for easier egress in the event of a fire, or other emergency. And, as soon as the property manager found out, they came in and they called a construction company, and they closed up the hole with zip ties. And life went on as normal, and two weeks later, they received another call, the property manager, that there was another hole in the fence. And they started to talk to the house, like, “Are you guys cutting a hole in the fence? Like, what’s going on?” And
they denied it because at first, they didn’t know what he was talking about. And so, this time they came back in with chain link, and they put chain links together to hold the fence together, and they put another layer of fence over it – the old fence – to be doubly as thick. You know, life went on as normal, and continued, and nothing out of the ordinary until one day when the electrician came, they found another hole in the back of the fence. And so, this time the property manager had to know, and they said, “You know, this is ridiculous. We don’t have any evidence that you guys are cutting a hole in the back of the fence but if this is you, you have to stop it.” And so, this time they put a metal cage over the fence. They put bars all the way over the fence, a half inch thick, steel bars going all the way across. And they thought that they solved it, they thought, “There’s no way they’re going to cut through this. This is ridiculous.” Sure enough, two weeks later, again, just like clockwork, there was a huge hole cut in the bars. It was actually that this time they were bent as if some giant baboon had ripped apart the half
inch steel bars. So, the property manager was like, “this is ridiculous.” And so, they put in a camera. They were like “We’re going to catch whoever is doing this.” They put in the camera, they replaced the metal bars, and this time they poured a one-foot-wide section of concrete, for the entire 30-foot-long property line, ten feet tall. And two weeks later, just again, nothing on the camera, and there was a hole blasted through the concrete, as if by dynamite, and that hole is still there to this day. You know, the obvious thought was that it was done by the guy who originally cut the hole in the fence, but there were twelve people living in the house at the time and nobody ever reported hearing a sound that would go with breaking a whole huge hole through concrete. The story has just been passed down generation to generation.
I think IM, who lived there many years ago, whispered the story to me one night.

ANALYSIS: This story seems to have been told to both entertain a new resident, and maybe make him a little uneasy in a new environment. New places often hold secrets that a new resident may not know about, and this story, and the way in which it was told capitalize on that feeling of uncertainty. It is not a particularly scary story, but it follows the structure of a scary story or urban legend, providing an explanation for a visible part of the house (the hole in the concrete). The word choice, drawing attention to how long ago it was supposed to occur, the strength of the barriers, and the reference to a creature like a baboon, are all comical in this situation, though an ancient place with a strong, unseen creature, seems more like the set up to a scary story. No one has been able to confirm any part of this story, other than that the hole is there. The use of dialogue is interesting, in light of this, because it is the narrator’s own
interpretation of how that conversation would probably go.