The history of the varsity jacket, including those with USC branding, can be traced back to letter sweaters worn by the Harvard University baseball team in 1865. These early designs featured large letters and stripes indicating the number of letters earned, eventually evolving into the more familiar wool jackets with leather sleeves, chenille lettering, and school colors. By the 1930s, the varsity jacket as we know it, including the USC versions, had taken shape. 

Since its founding in 1880, USC has had two alma maters. The first, also known as the “University Hymn,” was written by John Oliver Wilson ’08 and had four verses. The second – and current – alma mater is Alfred F. Wesson’s “All Hail.”

In the early 1920s, Wesson ’24, a journalism major and a trumpet player in the Trojan Marching Band, penned the musical numbers for a student fundraiser called Campus Frolics of 1923.

Frolics was a comedy, poking fun at university life, and Wesson decided “it would be a good idea to wind up with something more stately and serious” to show that even though they were ribbing the university, the students “really did love it.”

So, as he told Los Angeles Times sports commentator Sid Ziff in 1965: “I wrote something stuffy. I wrote a thing called ‘All Hail.’” Wesson claimed the inspiration came to him on a streetcar when, as managing editor for the school paper, he was on his way downtown to deliver page proofs.