LOS ANGELES — Dr. Arthur Bartner, USC’s longtime marching band director, was in his first year at the school when he received an invitation to mix the pageantry with football.

Marv Goux, an assistant coach, asked Bartner to bring the 80 or so members of the band into the basement level of the Physical Education building, which housed the team’s locker room. Bartner said sure.

It was on a Friday before the Trojans’ first home game of the 1970 season. They met after the coaches and players finished their walk-through on the nearby Bovard Field, the end of a week of practice.

Quarter Back Sam Darnold raises his hands during a pep rally. USC’s jock rally is one of the football program’s lesser known traditions and one of its longest, having started in the 60s. The gist is the band and song girls greet the players right after their Friday afternoon walk through for a brief 10-15 min. rally. The band plays a couple songs. A player and a coach usually give some sort of pep talk. It is distinctly collegiate. Los Angeles, CA 9/15/2017 (Photo by John McCoy, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

USC’s jock rally is one of the football program’s lesser known traditions and one of its longest, having started in the 60s. The gist is the band and song girls greet the players right after their Friday afternoon walk through for a brief 10-15 min. rally. The band plays a couple songs. A player and a coach usually give some sort of pep talk. It is distinctly collegiate. Los Angeles, CA 9/15/2017 (Photo by John McCoy, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

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USC’s jock rally is one of the football program’s lesser known traditions and one of its longest, having started in the 60s. The gist is the band and song girls greet the players right after their Friday afternoon walk through for a brief 10-15 min. rally. The band plays a couple songs. A player and a coach usually give some sort of pep talk. It is distinctly collegiate. Los Angeles, CA 9/15/2017 (Photo by John McCoy, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

USC’s jock rally is one of the football program’s lesser known traditions and one of its longest, having started in the 60s. The gist is the band and song girls greet the players right after their Friday afternoon walk through for a brief 10-15 min. rally. The band plays a couple songs. A player and a coach usually give some sort of pep talk. It is distinctly collegiate. Los Angeles, CA 9/15/2017 (Photo by John McCoy, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

USC’s jock rally is one of the football program’s lesser known traditions and one of its longest, having started in the 60s. The gist is the band and song girls greet the players right after their Friday afternoon walk through for a brief 10-15 min. rally. The band plays a couple songs. A player and a coach usually give some sort of pep talk. It is distinctly collegiate. Los Angeles, CA 9/15/2017 (Photo by John McCoy, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)



Keith Belton, Assistant Strenght Coach, gives a message to the team. USC’s jock rally is one of the football program’s lesser known traditions and one of its longest, having started in the 60s. The gist is the band and song girls greet the players right after their Friday afternoon walk through for a brief 10-15 min. rally. The band plays a couple songs. A player and a coach usually give some sort of pep talk. It is distinctly collegiate. Los Angeles, CA 9/15/2017 (Photo by John McCoy, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

USC’s jock rally is one of the football program’s lesser known traditions and one of its longest, having started in the 60s. The gist is the band and song girls greet the players right after their Friday afternoon walk through for a brief 10-15 min. rally. The band plays a couple songs. A player and a coach usually give some sort of pep talk. It is distinctly collegiate. Los Angeles, CA 9/15/2017 (Photo by John McCoy, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

USC’s jock rally is one of the football program’s lesser known traditions and one of its longest, having started in the 60s. The gist is the band and song girls greet the players right after their Friday afternoon walk through for a brief 10-15 min. rally. The band plays a couple songs. A player and a coach usually give some sort of pep talk. It is distinctly collegiate. Los Angeles, CA 9/15/2017 (Photo by John McCoy, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

USC’s jock rally is one of the football program’s lesser known traditions and one of its longest, having started in the 60s. The gist is the band and song girls greet the players right after their Friday afternoon walk through for a brief 10-15 min. rally. The band plays a couple songs. A player and a coach usually give some sort of pep talk. It is distinctly collegiate. Los Angeles, CA 9/15/2017 (Photo by John McCoy, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Chris Hawkins talks to his team mates. USC’s jock rally is one of the football program’s lesser known traditions and one of its longest, having started in the 60s. The gist is the band and song girls greet the players right after their Friday afternoon walk through for a brief 10-15 min. rally. The band plays a couple songs. A player and a coach usually give some sort of pep talk. It is distinctly collegiate. Los Angeles, CA 9/15/2017 (Photo by John McCoy, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)



USC’s jock rally is one of the football program’s lesser known traditions and one of its longest, having started in the 60s. The gist is the band and song girls greet the players right after their Friday afternoon walk through for a brief 10-15 min. rally. The band plays a couple songs. A player and a coach usually give some sort of pep talk. It is distinctly collegiate. Los Angeles, CA 9/15/2017 (Photo by John McCoy, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

A tradition that started in the 1960s thanks partly to former USC assistant coach Marv Goux continues with Trojan Marching Band Director Dr. Arthur Bartner bringing the band to greet the football team on the evening prior to home games. The tradition is referred to as Friday “jock rallies.” (Photo courtesy of Youtube)

Bartner and the band greeted them with a couple of their signature songs in a foyer outside of the locker room and coaches’ offices.

Then Goux, in his gruff voice, addressed the team in a spirited pep talk.

“Marv screamed and hollered and basically used every four-letter word,” Bartner said.

It was not an unusual address, though new to a rookie 30-year-old band director from the University of Michigan.

Bartner recalled how close together the team and the band were, packed in the cramped quarters to listen to Goux. It was a 7-foot ceiling, one former coach estimated.

“It was basically the Marv Goux show,” Bartner said.

Goux was always fiery. The basement had one main lightbulb that hung from a chandelier. Amid his speech, Goux often knocked it out and continued to address the team in the darkness. Another time, he yanked off the front door of a locker. He frenetically waved his arms. He sought to motivate the team, or rip into their opponent. A favorite line was to burn their barns.

“He was an exciting guy,” said Dave Levy, an assistant alongside Goux for 16 seasons under John McKay. “He would use colorful language. He would also just challenge the others to speak, call a player up and say, ‘what are you going to do?’”

Goux left the program in 1982, heading to the Rams with Coach John Robinson, but the tradition stuck. Bartner has continued to bring the Trojans marching band to greet the team on the evening prior to football home games, what they refer to as Friday “jock rallies.”

Similar festivities are fairly common in college football. Notre Dame holds a Friday night pep rally. Texas A&M has a “Midnight Yell.” Many schools put on the events for fans and alumni who flock to the college town on gameday weekends. But the teams do not usually attend them. Bartner believes USC’s rallies are then unique for the close interaction between the team and band, starting with Goux’s encouragement in the early 1960s.

“It was a great way to get a sense of what the students were participating in,” said Adrian Young, a linebacker for the Trojans from 1965-67.

The jock rallies moved around over the decades.

Under John Robinson, who replaced McKay in 1976, the band greeted the team on Howard Jones Field after the walk-through ended. In other years, players walked across McClintock Avenue and met with the band on Cromwell Field, where it practiced.

When Pete Carroll took over in 2001, the rallies moved inside the lobby of Heritage Hall, a nod to when Goux brought them together inside, with tunes like “Conquest’ echoing throughout the building. But in these years too, fans and other members of the public were able to watch.

After a renovation of Heritage Hall was completed in 2014, the festivity moved to a plaza outside on the west end.

The script grew, too.

“Nowadays, it’s kind of stylized, Hollywood-ized,” said USC graduate Bob Padgett, who attended some of the original jock rallies as a student in the 1960s.

The band begins with a series of songs, playing “Tribute to Troy,” one of the school’s anthems with its thundering drumbeat, and “Fight On!” the official fight song. A contemporary tune might come next. At a recent rally, it played “All I Do Is Win,” by DJ Khaled. Then an assistant coach addresses the players and the 300-plus band members in a reprise of Goux’s hallmark pep talks.

Many people believe Ed Orgeron, as an assistant under Carroll in the seasons from 2001-04, came the closest to Goux, addressing them in his thick Cajun accent.

Padgett recalled a near-annual bit by Orgeron on the eve of the games against crosstown rival UCLA, in which he ribbed the Bruins, who played for the public university in Los Angeles, as welfare children on the state dime.

By contrast, the Trojans were the team “with the fire in their belly,” Orgeron told them.

It is generally for motivation.

“You just say something that’s meaningful to the team or appropriate for the time,” said John Baxter, the Trojans’ special teams coach who often makes a speech.

Goux often pointed to a player to address his teammates. It was an impromptu address. Current players are asked earlier in the week if they could speak.

The band plays a series of other songs, too.

“Tusk,” a rendition of the Fleetwood Mac hit that is often referred to as an unofficial fight song, follows the assistant coach’s presentation. Players crowd surf as the trumpets blare.

“All Right Now” comes after the player’s speech. USC started playing the song in the 1970s to parody the popular track done by the Stanford band. But it also became a favorite of Goux, so it stuck. Players dance along with the Song Girls. During games, it is played after the Trojans’ defense gets an interception or recovers a fumble. A turnover, Goux believed according to Bartner, was the best result possible for a defense.

The 20-minute rally ends with “Conquest,” the final note of the week.

The next day, USC plays a football game.

“We kind of get our juices flowing,” said Cameron Smith, a junior linebacker.

A half-century ago, after listening to Goux, they often left stirred.

Said Bartner, who later developed a friendship with the fiery assistant, “He was the spiritual leader.”