USC Trivia
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50 free USC trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This USC trivia quiz covers the University of Southern California from its founding in 1880 with 53 students to today's Big Ten powerhouse. It asks how the Trojans got their name, why the horse is called Traveler, who sculpted Tommy Trojan, which dental student wrote "Fight On", and how the marching band ended up on a Fleetwood Mac record. Sports fans get plenty of football: the eight Heisman winners, the Thundering Herd, John McKay and Pete Carroll, the Jeweled Shillelagh and the Victory Bell, plus Rod Dedeaux's baseball dynasty and USC's Olympic medal haul. There are questions on the campus too, from Doheny Library and the Coliseum to the film school George Lucas paid to expand, and on alumni ranging from a moonwalker to a Nobel chemist. Easy questions cover colours and mascots; the hard end gets into presidents, dates and record books. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on USC, Trojan athletics and campus landmarks, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01USC opened in 1880, a year before which institution?
Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times. USC opened the year before the paper's first issue, with just 53 students and 10 teachers, in a pioneer town of little more than 10,000 people.
Q 02Which judge led the effort to found USC, securing land and donations from early Los Angeles figures?
Robert M. Widney
Robert M. Widney. The university stayed in the family: his younger brother Joseph became its second president in 1892.
Q 03USC was originally operated in affiliation with which church?
Methodist
Methodist. Its early teams were simply called the Methodists or the Wesleyans, nicknames that university officials never liked.
Q 04Which future Western film star played football for USC in the 1920s?
John Wayne
John Wayne. He found work shifting props at the Fox studio, where director John Ford befriended him and began casting him in bit parts.
Q 05What are USC's official colours?
Cardinal and gold
Cardinal and gold. When USC beats UCLA, the carriage of the Victory Bell is painted cardinal for the year; a Bruin win turns it blue.
Q 06Who gave USC's teams the nickname Trojans?
A newspaper sports editor
A newspaper sports editor. Owen Bird chose Trojans because USC's athletes kept battling teams that were bigger and better equipped.
Q 07What is the official name of Tommy Trojan, the bronze statue at the centre of USC's campus?
The Trojan Shrine
The Trojan Shrine. UCLA pranksters have painted it in their own colours so often since 1941 that crews now wrap the statue during the week of the rivalry game.
Q 08Sculptor Roger Noble Burnham used which people as visual references for Tommy Trojan?
USC football players
USC football players. The statue is a composite of several late-1920s Trojans, and a $1 surcharge on season football tickets helped pay for it.
Q 09What kind of animal is Traveler, USC's official mascot?
A white horse
A white horse. Whenever USC scores at the Coliseum, the band strikes up "Conquest" and Traveler gallops around the field.
Q 10At Traveler's 1961 debut, Richard Saukko wore a Trojan warrior costume borrowed from which Hollywood epic?
Ben-Hur
Ben-Hur. Charlton Heston's outfit proved too cumbersome, so Saukko made his own leather costume for the 1962 season.
Q 11USC's main campus sits directly across the street from which Los Angeles park, home of the Coliseum?
Exposition Park
Exposition Park. It began as a fairground where horses, dogs and even camels raced on a track that is now the park's rose garden.
Q 12Which USC song was composed in 1922 by dental student Milo Sweet?
Fight On
Fight On. Legend has it the song blared from the deck of a transport as American troops stormed a Japanese-held island in the Pacific, and they roared when they heard it.
Q 13The Trojan Marching Band's victory march "Conquest" was written by Alfred Newman for which 1947 film?
Captain from Castile
Q 21Under coach Howard Jones (1925-1940), USC's dominant teams earned which nickname?
The Thundering Herd
The Thundering Herd. Headline writers loved the name: "Thundering Herd Slaughters Georgia, 60-0" ran in 1931, one of four national title seasons under Jones.
Q 22Which coach led USC to four national championships between 1962 and 1974?
John McKay
John McKay. He left in 1976 to coach the NFL's brand-new Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who lost their first 26 games.
Q 23Who was the first USC quarterback to win the Heisman Trophy, in 2002?
Carson Palmer
Carson Palmer. A broken collarbone in the third game of 1999 ended his season, but it earned him a redshirt and with it the fifth year in which he won the Heisman.
Captain from Castile. Alfred Newman later gave USC the rights to the film's march, which the band plays after every Trojan score and victory.
Q 14In 1979 the USC Trojan Marching Band recorded the title track of which Fleetwood Mac album?
Tusk
Tusk. Fleetwood Mac recorded the band's part at Dodger Stadium and filmed the session for the song's video.
Q 15Which director led USC's Spirit of Troy marching band for half a century, until 2020?
Arthur C. Bartner
Arthur C. Bartner. A Michigan graduate who arrived in 1970, he tripled the band to more than 300 members and led the 800-strong college band at the 1984 Olympics.
Q 16The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was built as a memorial to veterans of which war?
World War I
World War I. It was built to honour only local veterans, and the memorial was later widened to everyone who served in the US forces during that war.
Q 17Which baseball team played home games at USC's football stadium, the Coliseum, from 1958 to 1961?
Dodgers
Dodgers. Newly arrived from Brooklyn, they squeezed a ballpark into the football bowl for four seasons, until Dodger Stadium opened in 1962.
Q 18Which historic NFL game was played at the Coliseum in January 1967?
Super Bowl I
Super Bowl I. Thousands of seats sat empty as Green Bay beat Kansas City: it is the only Super Bowl that failed to sell out.
Q 19Which San Francisco 49ers legend played his college football at USC?
Ronnie Lott
Ronnie Lott. A national champion at USC in 1978, he was drafted eighth overall by the 49ers, who promptly moved the All-American safety to cornerback.
Q 20Before its run of quarterbacks, USC's first four Heisman winners all played which position?
Running back
Running back. All four won it as tailbacks between 1965 and 1981, and the last of them had been recruited to USC as a safety.
Q 24In 1981, which Trojan rushed for more than 2,000 yards in a season and won the Heisman Trophy?
Marcus Allen
Marcus Allen. Two years earlier he had been the fullback blocking for Charles White's own Heisman season; given the ball himself, he ran for 2,342 yards.
Q 25Which USC star forfeited his 2005 Heisman Trophy in 2010, only to have it reinstated in 2024?
Reggie Bush
Reggie Bush. The Heisman Trust handed the trophy back after college athletes won the right to be paid for their name and image, the kind of benefit that had cost him it.
Q 26Which coach revived USC football from 2001 to 2009 before heading back to the NFL?
Pete Carroll
Pete Carroll. The Jets and the Patriots had both fired him before he came to USC; after nine seasons he returned to the NFL and won a Super Bowl with Seattle.
Q 27Lincoln Riley was hired as USC's head coach in November 2021 after five years at which school?
Oklahoma
Oklahoma. His quarterback there, Caleb Williams, followed him to Los Angeles weeks later and won the Heisman in their first season together at USC.
Q 28Which NFL team took USC's Caleb Williams with the first overall pick of the 2024 draft?
Chicago Bears
Chicago Bears. They held the top pick only because Carolina had traded it to them a year earlier in a deal for the first choice of 2023.
Q 29USC and Notre Dame play for which trophy in their football rivalry?
The Jeweled Shillelagh
The Jeweled Shillelagh. Each USC win adds a ruby Trojan head to the Irish war club, and each Notre Dame win an emerald shamrock.
Q 30Which future First Lady graduated from USC in 1937?
Pat Nixon
Pat Nixon. Left on her own at 18, she worked her way through USC with part-time jobs that included playing an extra in Hollywood films, and still graduated with honours.