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The clock was slowly ticking down... one minute... fifty seconds...

It was a cool Southern California evening at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The USC Trojans were about to break an eight year losing streak against the hated cross-town rival UCLA Bruins. As a long time USC fan and alumni, I was positively giddy at the win, which was only seconds away from being official.

Running along the edge of the infield at the Coliseum is a series of straight stairs that connect the stands and the playing field. My season tickets, which I shared with about a dozen close friends, were in the very first rows very close to a set of stairs leading directly to the field. As the fourth quarter of the game was winding down and a Trojan victory became apparent, most of my friends and much of the rest of the section behind me gathered in the aisle, preparing to head down to the field to celebrate with the team and other USC fans.

All told, there were likely around two thousand people in my section alone that were about to try and descend the staircase that I was standing on the top step of. Around the stadium at each staircase, this situation was the same - thousands of people lining up, ready to rush on the field. It was an impending tidal wave of humanity, the combined mass of which would push back a massed army of Greek Hoplites if given the chance.

As the "point man" at the top of the stairs, I looked down to make sure the stairs were reasonably clear before the clock hit zero and all heck broke loose. Not that there was much I could do about it - I was "stuck" by the mass of people behind me, with only one safe way out - down the stairs.

At the bottom of the stairs, on the field, was a single security guard. He was a not-very-large rent-a-guard with one of those yellow "Event Staff" windbreakers on. He had the impossible job of trying to keep people off the field. He may as well stand on a beach with a 5 gallon bucket and try to keep a tsunami off the sand.

He looked up at me and meekly proclaimed, "You guys can't come down here!"

I laughed a bit and yelled down to him, "With all due respect, you better take a close look behind me. Even if I personally had no desire to go on the field, there are two thousand people behind me who are going to make it a moot point in about 30 seconds. I HIGHLY recommend you just step aside!"

"Um... er... oh crap!" was his only reply.

Sure enough, the clock hit zero, the Trojans won the game, and about 25,000 fans - streaming down from two

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