In June of 1994, shortly after the arrest of football star and media celebrity O. J. Simpson for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole and Ron Goldman, a spate of nearly one hundred jokes emerged, transmitted by word of mouth as well as by Internet (Dundes 1994). One of the jokes reflected the public's concern over whether it would be possible to find twelve individuals to serve as jurors who had never heard of OJ. The concern arose from the fact that his football feats at the University of Southern California and later in the National Football League with the Buffalo Bills combined with his role as television sports commentator, his functioning as principal spokesman for Hertz Rent-A-Car commercials, and his appearance as a minor actor in a number of motion pictures had made him virtually familiar to every household in the United States. The joke was: Did you hear they finally found twelve jurors who never heard of OJ.? Twelve of his professors at USC. (Dundes 1994:48) The joke is actually more of a slur on USC than a comment on OJ. The clear implication is that USC, a perennial football powerhouse, almost always ranked among the top college teams in any given year, recruits athletes with little if any regard for academic standards. According to the standard stereotype, USC, like certain other college football organizations, does not much care whether their players bother to attend classes or earn degrees. What matters is their performance on the playing field on Saturday afternoons. In theory, a successful football season, preferably ending with an invitation to a prestigious bowl game, such as the Rose Bowl, is considered a way of keeping loyal alumni happy, presumably so that they will be inclined to make large donations to their alma mater. At such institutions, instructors are often carefully picked by the coaching staff, instructors who are either easy graders or who are willing to look the other way in terms of the usual class requirements for any football players enrolled. The jock stereotype of football players doing little or no academic work is not new. In the late 1970s, one of the light bulb jokes reflected this view: How many football players does it take to change a light bulb? One, but eleven get credit for it. (Dundes 1981:263; Beezley 1985:22) This stereotype of dumb athletes (and coaches) is part of the folklore of academe (cf. Bronner 1990:192-98) in general and is by no means peculiar to USC. The folklore of campus athletes often revolves around exams (Bronner 1990:36), but there is another obvious issue surrounding the recruitment of athletes. What about admission standards? Can athletes pass the required admission tests? If not, how can they be admitted in the first place? There is another stereotype often applied to USC, a stereotype perhaps even more common than that of the dumb athlete. This stereotype reflects the alleged wealth of USC students and their families. USC is a private university and its tuition charges are more like those of the so-called Ivy League schools in contrast to the many public universities in California which remain relatively inexpensive. The stereotype suggests that only rich students can afford to pay USC's high fees and that moreover the university is specifically interested in recruiting well-to-do students, again with the hope of ultimately increasing alumni financial contributions to the university. What we find then in the case of USC stereotypes is an unusual combination of two distinct stereotypes: dumb athletes and wealthy undergraduates. This is fairly unique. Most of the nation's leading college football teams are not private institutions, but rather are public or state schools, e.g., Alabama, Florida, Florida State, Michigan, Oklahoma, Texas, etc. Indeed, among private universities, USC is almost alone among the top-ranked teams in the weekly national polls. It should be noted that USC enjoys an excellent academic reputation. …