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Do you think it’s wrong to steal a car? Well, it is. How about cheating on a significant other? That will land you in one of the deeper circles of Dante’s Inferno.

Sad to say, I believe I committed the cardinal sin of an undergraduate at UCLA.

I rooted for USC.

The sacrilegious event occurred this past Saturday while I was eagerly anticipating UCLA’s game with San Diego State.

While waiting for the Bruins’ game to start, I browsed to see what else was on TV and found No. 3 USC taking on Cal up in Berkeley. The Trojans were in a dogfight and hopelessly watching their national title hopes drown like Gray Davis’ governorship. The game went into overtime tied at 24, and that’s when it happened.

I’m not saying aliens came down and abducted me or that I was hallucinating, but at the start of overtime, something changed my life forever. It was terrible, awful, disgusting and downright wrong.

I was rooting for USC to win.

Now maybe it’s not the same when USC is playing a team other than UCLA. Maybe the rules are different, and maybe it’s OK to root for the Trojans in that case. But the more I tried to justify it, the more I realized how wrong it was.

However, I don’t own any apparel with a USC logo on it. Never been to a USC game of any kind. Never played a video game as a USC team (mainly because I’ve never played video games). So how can I be a USC fan?

I don’t like USC. There’s a reason 35,000 other UCLA students and I don’t go there. Actually, there are many reasons. Before you vilify me, as others already have, let me explain.

I appreciate good football. The first three weeks of UCLA’s football season left something to be appreciated. So what’s wrong with looking at the next closest source?

“Dude, there’s something seriously wrong with you beside that beard,” said one of the people watching the game with me. “That’s USC, our biggest rival. You’re not allowed to root for them.”

There’s nothing that would be better than to see Karl Dorrell and the Bruins bring home a national championship, but in the monumental chance that doesn’t occur in the next three years, what else would be satisfactory? I’m not sure, but if the Bruins can’t win it, I’ll root for whoever has the best chance to bring a crown back to Southern California.

That’s why when USC lost to Cal, it stung. Northern California is completely different from Southern California. We like sun. They like fog. We like clubbin’. They like dubbin’. We like good food. They like bad food.

I do know, however, that my time on this earth is short. In my miniscule life I would like to see the unusual and the magnificent. If it means seeing USC go undefeated and winning the national championship, that’s fine. But I’d much rather have the Bruins as the ones hoisting the trophy.

That’s why I was very upset this past weekend when the Detroit Tigers didn’t do the unusual and magnificent by missing the chance to set the single-season record for most losses in a season, finishing one loss shy of the 1962 New York Mets record of 40-120. They teased us for five months, stinking it up, and all of a sudden when they had to win, they do? That’s not fair. Instead of being the worst team in the history of baseball, they will disappear into history as just another bad team, not the worst team.

For better or worse, history is much more fascinating when it plays out right in front of your very eyes. When the Trojans lost, a shot at history was replaced with a common triviality, and in the case of having to choose between two regrettable evils – Cal and USC – I’ll root for the one that didn’t reject me.

Glass’ beard is wrong. Send him e-mail at sglass@media.ucla.edu.