FOOTBALL

If It’s Friday, It’s Time For A USC Notes Column

What would Wilt Chamberlain think of load management? In 1971-72, he was 35 years old and played all 82 regular season games and then was part of the Lakers’ post-season run to the NBA championship. Wilt averaged 42.3 minutes per game. He also shot 64 percent from the field, scored 14.8 points and grabbed 19.2 rebounds.

Chamberlain played all 82 regular-season games the final three years of his career!

Wilt Chamberlain vs. the Lakers at the Sports Arena in 1961
  • And now for some history:

I had no intention of writing about USC band director Tommy Walker this week but the joy of this column is it literally takes me down unknown paths and allows me to tell stories that are lost forever.

Tommy Walker

Some background: Walker was the USC band director and placekicker in 1947. How? He wore no pads under his football uniform and during halftime he would change into his drum major’s uniform and lead the band. One game, USC coach Jeff Cravath let him direct the band before the game and then change into his uniform.

  • That’s just the beginning but now let’s focus on the morning of Saturday, Oct. 30, 1955. USC played Oregon State that afternoon at the Coliseum.

There were 26 high school bands who showed up that morning to rehearse at Bovard Field for their halftime performance with the USC marching band. There were about 3,000 band members plus another 2,000 spectators at the rehearsal.

Walker directed the high school bands atop a 22-foot tower scaffolding that the football coaches used for practices. The scaffold had two platforms and there were at least a dozen people on it.

Just before noon, the tower swayed, then it shuddered and collapsed to the ground. There were 15 people in a huge mass who either fell off the tower or were underneath it. Some were unconscious. Others cried for help. One witness compared the scene to a bomb going off.

Band members inspect the observation tower that collapsed and caused 15 injuries.

The tower was overloaded, which caused a tire at the base to break off its axel.

Walker suffered cuts, bruises and was visibly bleeding. But after hitting the ground, he dragged himself to his feet and somehow mounted another platform to keep the bands performing. There were so many bands playing that many were marching and didn’t see the accident.

Walker made a quick trip to the Student Health Center, got released and performed his part at halftime of the Band Day show at the Coliseum.

USC band director Tommy Walker breaks down to athletic director Willis O. Hunter
  • Overall, 15 were injured and five were still in the hospital a few days later. Ambulances arrived within 10 minutes of the accident. Band directors from Puente High School (in La Puente), Oxnard High School and San Marino High School were among the injured.

Many were taken to Georgia Street Receiving Hospital, the first hospital to provide emergency care and paramedics in Los Angeles. It sat on property that is now part of L.A. Live. Robert F. Kennedy was initially taken to the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital after being shot in 1968. After doctors maintained a good heartbeat, Kennedy was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital for surgery.

A DIFFERENT WORLD

  • In 1978, a crowd of 40,000 attended the annual USC-Dodgers game at Dodger Stadium. USC pitcher Bill Bordley started the game and helped shut down the Dodgers in a 3-1 USC victory.
Walter Matthau puts his foot in a batting helmet at the USC Celebrity Baseball Game
  • The 1977 USC Celebrity Baseball Game featured Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon and John Wayne. It was a big weekend for Wayne, who also received the General Alumni Assn. Achievement Award.
John Wayne
Jack Lemmon
  • USC sprinter Clancy Edwards is shown below winning the Pac-8 200 meter championship in 1977. Look at the crowd. He also won the 100 meters at the meet and was named Pac-8 track athlete of the year as he helped USC win its fourth straight Pac-8 championship.
  • Edwards was also the Pac-8 track athlete of the year in 1978, when he ran the world’s fastest 200 meters (20.03).

In 1978, Edwards won the 100 and 200 meters at the NCAA championships and AAU championships, the first person to do that since 1943.

  • Just to recap, you had 40,000 at a Dodger-USC game; 5,000 at a band rehearsal in 1954 and 10,000 at the Pac-8 track championships.

RESTAURANT OF THE WEEK

Imagine right near the Coliseum, dining and dancing and nightly entertainment seven nights a week. Plus floor shows two nights a week.

PICTURES OF THE WEEK

We learned this week the USC band mistakenly thinks “Tusk” is the school’s fourth fight song.

So here are a couple pictures of Fleetwood Mac performing “Tusk” with the band at halftime of the Arizona State game in 1980.

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham presented a platinum disc for the single “Tusk” to the band at halftime.
Mick Fleetwood

32 thoughts on “If It’s Friday, It’s Time For A USC Notes Column”

    1. Sure looks like it — signature move, right size and uniform.

      #Can’tReadTheNumberOnJersey,Though

      #FightOn,Jon!

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  3. See, Scott Wolf is human afterall when he writes “the joy of this column” is going down uncharted paths and telling stories that would otherwise be forgotten

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. What Scott does here every Friday is amazing…. it’s cherished by old time Trojans [and will be remembered by newbie Trojans for a very long time] …..

      #…That’sWhyWeCallB.S.OnAnybodyWhoUnfairlyMalignsIt

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  4. Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon were in movies together and were great pals. One movie had Matthau improving and then going on and on until Lemmon finally intervened and plaintively said, “Could I please have an actor here”

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    1. Walter was not only great in those Lemmon comedies …. he was also terrific as the villain who gets his ass beat by Burt Lancaster [The Kentuckian] and Kirk Douglas [Strangers When We Meet]…

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      1. Right So Cal. And I believe Mick Fleetwood asked Lindsey Buckingham to join the band and Lindsay conditioned his acceptance on the band also offering his girlfriend Stevie Nicks. So he got her hired, she made tens of millions based on it, and then she got him fired. Ain’t love grand.

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      2. Completely off subject [well, that’s what I’m here for]: After testimony that Hunter did crack morning, noon and night & forced everybody around him to either supply him or do it with him, pseudo doctor Jill said “I’m proud of Hunter.” No one in the press asked her what part she’s proud of.

        Also, I’ve been wondering how Biden and the press would steer America into World War Three —now we have the answer. Every major newspaper & all the networks are putting out headlines today: “Biden vows not to let Ukraine attack Moscow with offensive weapons he’s giving them.” Wonderful. Guess how Putin will respond the first time one of our missiles hits a Russian city not named Moscow.

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      4. Jill said “I’m proud of Hunter.” No one in the press asked her what part she’s proud of.

        Same thing can be said about Gay Pride month.

        Liked by 2 people

  8. Can you imagine what would happen today if a platform collapsed and injured high school kids and their band directors. There would likely be hundreds of claims filed for millions in damages even though the real injuries were limited to about 15 people.

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    1. How can you live with yourself? What of the PTS? Miscarriages? Mourning families of suicide victims?

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      1. My favorite – traumatic brain injury with no loss of consciousness, no impact to the head, a negative MRI but mom will testify that he has a different personality ever since the accident.

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      2. “From that day on he had a whole different look on his face in the morning”

        — actual testimony from wife in 14 million dollar civil suit over husband’s potato sack race “injury” at office picnic …

        #LosAngelesJury:”SayNoMore!”

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  9. June 6, 1944 on the beaches of Normandy, France a lot of 17-20 year old Americans were killed. The French still fly American flags all over the area and there are no old men buried in its cemeteries. When I was there I got in the ocean and imagined rushing the machine-gun German bunkers and realized it was a form of suicide

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    1. Our boys were actually told in advance, “this is gonna be hell on earth, you will endure all men can endure & more, many of you will die, if you don’t understand that you shouldn’t be a soldier.”

      Half way through that speech I would have been tempted to ask the commanding officer, “are you coming with us?” [But I would have held my tongue out of respect for the truth of what was being said, the need to say it…and what was at stake].

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      1. Battle of Cold Harbor 1864… Union vets knew the odds of surviving were slim to nil. Raw recruits puzzled why the vets were using paper, pencil and pins….when asked the vets told em’ “So they’ll know what my name was when they find me.”

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      2. I don’t know if it’s true or not but LAPD guys assigned to do the “dirty” jobs used to tell me they still wore their army dog tags for the same reason….

        Liked by 1 person

  10. Meanwhile the Russians (who get short shrift) were working the Germans on the Eastside and they celebrate their own victory on May 9, 1945

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    1. ‘…the Russians (who get short shrift)…’

      If the reds hadn’t worked out that deal with the Nazis there never would have been a 2nd World War. They gladly participated in dismembering Poland and then pressured the Balts to let them put military personnel at their harbors and air fields….they attacked Finland w.o. warning end of November 1939. In In June 1940 when the Wehrmacht was defeating the Benekux, France and driving the Brits off the continent, the Reds seized Bessarabia from Romania. That November 1940 Molotov arrived in Berlin ignoring the Reds seizure of Bukovina and instead presented a laundry list of demands to Hitler.

      FDR never should have given the red any help….their (Reds) best flunkie was Harry Hopkins – a closet spy for the kremlin…..blank the russkies

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      1. I totally get it, Alv….but now might not be the best time to take them on…

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  11. I agree MG – I have no quarrel with the ‘Ivans’….I do have it with anyone espousing Communism in any variant any….in 2024 it’s perv fags….men dressing as women reading to children….perv medical schools concealing the mutilation of pre-teen children and blocking any parental notification….phony climate crap whose ultimate goal is to completely control all those deemed to be ‘serfs’ to having any capitalistic driven future….fat lesbian childless single feminazis dictating what the rest of us can say or do….a walking clown in that fruity ass ‘Rachel’ Levine – Wikipedia won’t even state what this freak was named ‘Richard’….appointed by the elitist left progressive demoncrat partei.

    Great game from Yankee Stadium….tied 0 – 0 after 9 innings

    LAD 0 NYY 0

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