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

As Yogi Berra would say, “it’s deja vu all over again” this week with the USC song girls in the news for all the wrong reasons.

I spoke to countless song girls over the years who were miserable under the reign of former coach Lori Nelson and terrified to say anything publicly because they knew there would be retribution.

You might remember the weekly “Song Girls Forum” on my original USC blog or the case of song girl Keli Snyder.

It’s hard to emphasize how big a deal it was that Nelson resigned last fall because for years she definitely was protected by long-time employees. And they all were part of the South Bay mafia that made so many key decisions in the USC athletic dept.

You would have thought I asked USC about George Tyndall in 2007 from the reaction I got when I noted all the song girls who attended Peninsula High and other South Bay schools. Nelson lived in Palos Verdes and her daughters were song girls.

It wasn an often toxic atmosphere but many song girls felt powerless. There really wasn’t any recourse back then. You think Mike Garrett wanted to hear complaints? (He didn’t).

It was so bad that Petros Papadakis said he was once got chastised by Nelson at a basketball game because he complimented the Trojan Dance Force. A lot of these things were written about on my blog, which drew the ire of Nelson, who even asked a parent of a football player to speak to me.

If you want to read the definitive song girls article, here is the 1991 story by Celeste Fremon, who was one of the original song girls.

  • I hear a current frontrunner for the USC women’s basketball job is Shannon Perry-LeBeauf, who is associate head coach at UCLA. Perry-LeBeauf was an assistant at USC under Chris Gobrecht.

Athletic director Mike Bohn is meeting with the USC players today. Could a new coach be hired by the end of the weekend?

USC has already apparently lost one player as 6-foot-5 center Angel Jackson entered the transfer portal. Jackson averaged 7.6 points, 4.3 boards, and 1.9 blocks per game for the Trojans.

  • By the way, a quick note on former USC coach Mark Trakh. It’s a crime none of the stories in the local papers on his departure from USC mentioned his greatest achievement, turning Brea-Olinda High School into a national powerhouse. Trakh won four state championships (1989, 91-93) at Brea.
  • Sierra Canyon guard Ryan Grande made six 3-point shots Thursday night against Culver City. He is the son of former USC guard Rich Grande. Ryan was at La Canada for three years but transferred to Sierra Canyon this season.
  • USC track-and-field coach Caryl Smith-Gilbert is being mentioned as a candidate for the soon-to-be-vacant job at Georgia. But track sources believe she would be more interested in using Georgia as leverage for a raise from USC than seriously thinking about moving to Athens, Ga.
  • Clay Helton attended several Palos Verdes High School games this spring to watch his son, Turner, play QB for the Sea Kings. Turner Helton completed 39 of 72 passes for 626 yards with 10 TDs and 1 interception.
  • If USC offensive lineman Andrew Milek turns out to have suffered a torn ACL this week, it would mean USC has three torn ACL’s and a torn Achilles during spring practice.
  • And now for some history:
  • Remember a couple weeks ago I wrote about Nick Pappas, who was the legendary leader of USC booster groups.

Here’s a story I forgot on Pappas: One day, the USC All-Americans Mike and Marlin McKeever t went to Pappas’ office at the Alumni House on campus. Pappas was not there but the McKeever twins saw his pipe collection on a rack.

The twins didn’t know much about pipes but they noticed they looked dirty. So they cleaned all the tar out of the pipes. The McKeevers didn’t realize Pappas had purposely allowed the tar to build up to add to the flavor. When Pappas returned, he was stunned to see his pipes cleaned out after his hard work.

  • With so much awfulness regarding the song girls, let appreciate the past.

Here is USC’s first African-American song girl, Linda Murray, in 1970.

And possibly the first Asian-American song girl, Nancy Kamei, circa 1970.

And here is song girl Roberta Crescenti circa 1969.

And, of course, Tricia Pillsbury, in 1983.

Archives for June 2008 | Inside USC with Scott Wolf - Page 10

And here’s the original song girls in 1968.

Image

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

    1. BFD dysentery mouth!

      Let’s wait to see who wins the Beach Bingo Wollyball Natty.

      #Can’t locate the SUCC softball team in the Pac-12 standings or CSB ranking. What’s up with that? – SUCC to cheap to start a softball team?

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      1. Easy to brag that you have teams we don’t, huh? Especially for an athletic department who can’t break even and has to dip into public funds to make ends meet. Total dufus irresponsible response that isn’t unexpected coming from a commie sow wannabe.
        Look at the balance sheet before bragging about all those great income producing teams…

        Liked by 1 person

      2. We are now on to softball!? Wow, JO is the desperate drowning man trying to grab onto anything. What is next, JO, the UCLA tiddlywinks team? Oh, well, I suppose every village has its village idiot, although even that might be too generous of label for you.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. pudlyfudgepacker76 continues to make excuses for the corrupt assholes in USC’s athletic dept. who have swindled millions of dollars from anyone they can take advantage of, all the while sucking Clay Helton’s cock and polishing his balls.

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      5. Harsh, but all too true.

        pudlyfudgepacker76 is not only Heritage Hall’s loudest cheerleader, he is Clay Helton’s personal house mouse/fluffer/ball polisher/bitch

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      6. You still have Troy your Superbowl winning QB. By the way USC QB’s have had the most QB’s snaps in NFL. Come to USC and play QB and you make the $$$$$$$ . Go to UCLA and you can watch girls softball.

        Liked by 2 people

    2. Turns out that the homeless person who was sneaking into the Trojans locker room, onto the practice field and into Clay Helton’s shower is none other than gotroll22.

      gotroll22 of “Inside USC with Scott Wolf” fame, had been wandering the streets of south central babbling incoherently, crying uncontrollably ever since the biggest loser Donald J. Trump had his ass handed to him in a landslide defeat against Joe Biden in the 2020 General Election.

      Liked by 1 person

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      2. I did you all the solid favor of me no longer commenting here so can you please reciprocate and just let me live my new life in privacy and not mention any of my current activities on this blog?

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  3. Where is the picture of Cindy McCain, she was a USC song girl?

    Before Cindy Lou Hensley became the wife of John McCain, she was a USC co-ed. She was a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority

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  5. Memo to: Dear Pisley, SUCC’s official Staff Brown Noser/Shill.

    SUCC can’t afford a Softball team, but it can afford a billion$$$$ settlement for the perverted Doc Tyndall/Clown U sexual abuse lawsuit.

    Priorities, priorities, priorities.

    #SUCCpussy’son

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    1. We pay our own debts. We don’t go hat in hand to the public coffers begging each year for a bailout like sow. What’s your point little fella. That doctor of yours cost TAXPAYERS $$$M’s. When the ruins actually pay the state back what they owe, then maybe you’ll have a leg to stand on.
      Commie/socialist little prick

      Liked by 1 person

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      1. Interesting. I call him a P u t s z and it gets moderated, I call him a prick and the moderator agrees‼️🖕🏽🖕🏽🖕🏽🤪🤡🖕🏽

        Liked by 2 people

      2. Scottie’s moderator is an artificial intelligence algorithm programmed by a 12-year old down the street. It randomly censors every 50th post. At $5 a month, you get what you pay for. As the kid gets older, maybe the algorithm will get better…

        Liked by 2 people

      4. Stupid ass pudlyfudgepacker69 doesn’t know that USC lobby’s for and receives Federal Grants (Taxpayer Money).

        pudly doesn’t know his head from his ass.

        In 2017 USC received $450,204,000 in Federal Grants for Research & Development.

        You can be damn sure that out of the Hundreds of Millions of Dollars USC receives each year from Federal Grants (Taxpayer Money) some of that money will go to pay off the $215,000,000 Debt that USC must pay out in the George Tyndall Sex Abuse Guilty Verdict/Settlement.

        STFU pudly you stupid son of a bitch know nothing fucking idiot!

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  7. It’s astounding to me that obvious issues like this with the song girls, the gynecologist, the Med School Dean, the Singer situation (Varsity Blues), etc. can go unchecked for decades by campus administration. Is it an absence of attention or denial. This seems to suggest there may be too much focus on perception and fund raising vs. doing what’s right. Though it doesn’t fall into the same category, retaining Clay as head coach given his inability to develop the team to a championship level is another example of not addressing an obvious problem. With respect to women’s basketball, it might make sense to focus on strong assistant coaches at Stanford or UCLA who both seem to have teams playing at a high level year after year.

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    1. It’s been scandal after scandal ever since C.L. Max Nikias took over at USC.

      90% of the scandals started on his watch, the ones that had been going on got much worse as he was too busy groveling and pandering to the corporate elite for every penny he could swindle.

      As the numerous scandals started to unfold in bunches C.L. Max Nikias tried to cover them up, but there were just too many to try and deal with.

      L.A. Magazine did a story on C.L. Max Nikias tenure as USC President, here is the title…

      “How USC Became the Most Scandal-Plagued Campus in America”

      C.L. Max Nikias, that’s how!

      And USC still has that corrupt filth C.L. Max Nikias in an office on campus, they’re pretending that he isn’t calling the shots, but he is.

      USC should have banned C.L. Max Nikias for life, not given him a lifelong tenure bullshit award!

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  8. There’s a fine line between having the athletes (song girls are athletes too) staying healthy and being cruel. I think that the line was crossed with a Mack Truck in this case, but it was the way things were done ‘back in the day’ I remember my OLDER sister taking classes at Mt. Sac to be a flight attendant. She was eating cheese and an apple and calling it lunch. She had to wear a chin thing to prevent sagging. Her weight was checked in class. It was the way ‘stewardesses’ were supposed to be. Now if the person of unnamed gender can waddle down the isle without knocking the drink out of a first class passenger’s hand, its all good. I cannot wait so see bare midriff outfits show doughy rolls at the football game. Come to think of it some our linemen might qualify for the squad.

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  9. Memo to: Ricki-Tiki

    Your comment:

    “By the way USC QB’s have had the most QB’s snaps in NFL.”

    Is like taking bragging about having the most flat tires in the last 50 years.

    Ricki, what SUCC former QB’s really lead the NFL in is making the most money under false pretenses.

    For example: Carson “the Bomber” Palmer – A surefire, first ballot HoF’er….LOL

    His last flat tire in the 2015 NFL Championship game cemented his Loser/Succer legacy. The Bomber single handedly caused the AZ Cardinals to lose 49 – 15 to Carolina.

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    1. Go to page 2, my friend. And just who is at the very tip top of the tier 2 teams? …..
      #WeAreUSC
      [Actually I think it would enhance the credibility of the super league if USC replaced Stanford in tier 1 — and Stanford was given the honor of becoming the new tier 2 leader]…….
      #ANeutralObserver

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  11. After a while it just gets tiresome with the arguing of who has the biggest Johnson.

    The facts: players, salaries. Christ I didn’t have the time to find the Ruins,

    Alabama 68 $950,084,340
    California 26 $821,901,254
    Ohio State 58 $792,588,388
    Louisiana State 50 $791,654,327
    Georgia 45 $714,158,891
    Michigan 40 $624,765,194
    Miami (FL) 37 $592,856,902
    Florida 45 $558,703,021
    Notre Dame 45 $544,461,597
    South Carolina 29 $540,897,829
    Florida State 35 $535,329,372
    Texas A&M 32 $504,259,912
    Oklahoma 33 $497,452,418
    Clemson 35 $495,916,092
    Wisconsin 29 $474,561,629
    Pittsburgh 19 $461,345,294
    Stanford 29 $450,088,366
    Mississippi State 30 $447,958,039
    Southern California 29 $416,602,684
    Iowa 33 $407,509,604
    Michigan State 20 $406,255,669
    Penn State 37 $356,787,617
    Nebraska 25 $356,690,182
    Auburn 36 $333,210,365
    California-Los Angeles 32 $331,203,729

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