Lazy UCLA Students Stop Guarding Their Bruin Bear During Rivalry Week, USC Students Paint It Trojan Colors

Ahead of this week’s UCLA-USC rivalry game, a well-known UCLA statue was vandalized with red and yellow paint, according to school police.

Sometime this week, vandals broke into a wooden box intended to protect the Bruin Bear, a focal point on campus, and spray-painted USC colors on the body and foundation of the statue, UCLA police lieutenant Kevin Kilgore said.

The Bruin Bear is one of a few landmarks on campus that received extra protection in the days leading up to the USC game. Across town, USC wraps Tommy Trojan, a statue and one of the school’s most famous landmarks, in duct tape before playing UCLA.

Earlier this week, USC athletic director Lynn Swann delivered cookies and hot chocolate to the USC students protecting their statues.

According to the Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student newspaper which first reported the vandalism, a similar incident of vandalism of the Bruin Bear in 2009 was determined to cost over $20,000 to repair.

At 2-8, apparently UCLA can’t play defense on or off the field. Look, everyone that’s ever attended a big-time university knows what rivalry week entails. Sure, you may participate in long standing traditions, or you may attend a gathering where the student body hydrates together, but everyone knows the #1 rule of that week is to protect your campus landmarks. When you have thousands of 18-22 year olds running around without any real authority figures policing them, they’re going to get into mischief. And during rivalry week, that mischief includes thinking of ways to mess with the enemy. But that’s okay. No one means any harm by it. As Omar once said, “It’s all in the game, yo.”

And since it’s all in the game, you need to fortify your campus landmarks during the week unless you want your precious bear statue to become cardinal and gold. But just like everything else in this world today, lazy millennials ruined it. Apparently UCLA used to guard this bear during rivalry week, but nowadays they decided it would be sufficient to simply put a wooden box around it and call it a day.

Yeah, that’s not going to work. “The Bruin Bear is Hibernating” is a cute touch. But cute gets you beat. A great rivalry prank war takes ingenuity for sure, but defending great rivalry pranks takes time and effort. That’s why Tommy Trojan is sitting over on the USC campus completely covered in duct tape so the UCLA students can’t paint him.

I mean, not only did they duct tape Tommy Trojan, they also have Tommy Cam, a 24/7 live feed coverage of the area surrounding the statue.

Well done, USC. You’ve certainly won the battle this week. And apparently you’ve been winning the battle for many years? This isn’t the first time they’ve gotten to the bear. In 2009, the Trojans got in there and gave him an initial coat of cardinal and gold.

And then in 2010, the USC students dyed three fountains on UCLA’s campus their school colors.

And in 2012, the Trojans defaced a UCLA sign on their campus.

What has UCLA done? Put a wooden box over their bear statue and sit in their safe spaces? Hammer the Trojans tomorrow!!