University Southern California Trojans
Lexus Gauntlet Trophy Presented To USC
May 23, 2006 | USC Athletics
May 23, 2006
The Lexus Gauntlet trophy returned to USC for the third time in the competition's five-year history in a ceremony held on Tuesday (May 23) at Heritage Hall.
Mike Sullivan of the Southern California Lexus Dealers presented USC athletic director Mike Garrett with the 150-pound, pewter-gilded trophy that will be displayed for the next year in the lobby of Heritage Hall. The Lexus Gauntlet is given annually to the winner of the head-to-head all-sports competition between crosstown rivals USC and UCLA.
"It's a great show of two universities competing at the highest level, and it's always nice to win," said Garrett. "The greatest pleasure out of this is to beat UCLA in just anything, let alone the Gauntlet.
"When the Lexus Gauntlet first started, I was hoping we could win it every year, but we've won it every other year. The real test will be next year because next year is UCLA's year when they're supposed to win it. So I'm putting everyone on notice at USC that I'd like to win two years in a row."
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"Look at the two games we played with UCLA this year," said USC women's basketball head coach Mark Trakh, whose Women of Troy swept the Bruins. "There were 8,500 people at the Sports Arena. It was about 5,000 at their place. So the two games drew a lot of attention. The rivalry's real intense and generates a lot of interest in Southern California.
"Hopefully, there will come a time when every recruit growing up in Southern California wants to go to either USC or UCLA. Let's keep them all at home and continue to have these great rivalries."
Added new USC men's volleyball head coach Bill Ferguson, an assistant on this past year's team that beat eventual NCAA champion UCLA to snap a 14-match losing streak to the Bruins: "To beat your crosstown rival at home in pretty decisive fashion was a big deal for us in growing our program this year. We ended up beating both the teams that played for the NCAA championship, UCLA and Penn State."
In the five years of the Gauntlet competition, the schools have alternated winning the trophy. USC won the inaugural trophy in 2002, then again in 2004 and now in 2006. UCLA captured the rivalry's crown jewel in 2003 and 2005.
The Southern California Lexus Dealers are proud to be the leading sponsors of both the UCLA and USC athletic departments as well as the exclusive title sponsor of every USC-UCLA athletic competition. For more than 80 years, these champion rivals have competed for the ultimate citywide title of number one. Now, based on the practice of knights who challenged each other to duel by throwing their armored gauntlets to the ground, Lexus has issued the absolute challenge: the Lexus Gauntlet competition.
