FOOTBALL

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

When will USC return to the Bay Area for a football game after it plays Cal tomorrow?

This is a question that would be unfathomable in the past.

The rivalry could be fierce at times and there were some classic games. Now it’s a footnote to the conference realignment craze.

  • Wide receiver Xavier Jordan, a four-star prospect from Sierra Canyon, might decommit from USC. Some analysts believe USC might be backing off.
  • The band seems to be generating attention recently and not in a good way.

Some alumni told me they bought plane tickets on what was billed as a chartered flight with the band to Chicago for the Notre Dame game. Instead, it turned out to be a commercial Southwest flight with the band and they claimed their was no interaction with the students because its members slept on the flight.

That was followed by the band’s no-show at a $200 a ticket pre-game picnic in South Bend, reportedly because a shuttle driver got lost or didn’t show on time. Whatever the reasons, USC alumni were irate that a promised performance didn’t happen.

Then several alumni contacted me this week to tell me the band’s halftime show for the Utah game was the worst they ever witnessed. Why? They blamed it on some electric guitars that completely drowned out the band.

  • The USC baseball alumni game is Nov. 11, which frustated some of the former players, who can’t believe it is the same day as the USC-Oregon football game. Of course, the way things are going for football, that game might not be nearly as important in a couple weeks.
  • You could take the train to San Francisco or Berkeley round trip for $9 in 1939.
  • The last San Francisco rally will take place tonight at the Embarcadero Plaza.
  • And now for some history:

You might not believe this story.

USC was a 20-point underdog against undefeated and No. 2-ranked Notre Dame in 1948 but took a 14-7 lead with 2:30 remaining on a scoring run by Bill Martin, his second TD of the game. Notre Dame then returned the kickoff 87 yards and, aided by a pass interference, scored a game-tying touchdown before 100,571. USC forced seven fumbles and recovered six in the game.

Now for the unbelievable part. USC fans, the band and students serenaded both teams’ locker rooms after the game. When Notre Dame coach Frank Leahy emerged from the Irish locker room they hoisted him on the shoulders of three USC cheerleaders and demanded a speech.

Notre Dame coach Frank Leahy (left) and USC coach Jeff Cravath at the 1947 USC-Notre Dame game.

“Without a doubt, this is one of the best teams we met all year,” Leahy said. “Sterling coaching by Mr. (Jeff) Cravath and fine team play made possible your impressive showing today but the spirit of all of you also contributed to this fine performance this afternoon.

“This is the first time in my coaching career that I have been so highly honored by the student body of an opposing school.”

Can you imagine something like this happening today?

USC’s Bill Martin crosses the goal line for a TD in the third quarter against Notre Dame.

BANQUETS, BEAUTY QUEENS AND LUNCHEONS

Now if USC cheerleaders carrying the Notre Dame coach on their shoulders wasn’t crazy enough in 1948, the night before the game featured the “25th annual men’s homecoming banquet” in the men’s gymnasium at USC.

It lasted five hours! And more than 1,000 people squeezed into the P.E. Building for the event.

The five-hour affair featured a reunion of the 1923 USC team and its coach, Gloomy Gus Henderson. Also attending were CBS sportscaster Red Barber, former UCLA coach and athletic director Bill Spaulding, USC coach Jeff Cravath, Notre Dame president, the Rev. John Cavanaugh and USC athletic director Willis O. Hunter.

The entertainment included the Mills Brothers vocal quartet, Academy Award-winning actress Celeste Holm, ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, musician Spike Jones, an orchestra and the USC band.

Celeste Holm won an Academy Award in 1947 for “Gentleman’s Agreement”

If you didn’t go, it was broadcast on radio station KLAC and also included football coaches Frank Leahy (Notre Dame), Pappy Waldorf (Cal), Bert LaBrucherie (UCLA), Howie Odell (Washington) and Ike Armstrong (Utah).

I’m exhausted just writing about this, let alone attending it.

  • Let’s say you went to the five-hour Friday night banquet and then the USC-Notre Dame game the next afternoon at the Coliseum. Well, what about Saturday night?

No worries, the USC homecoming dance was held at the Ocean Park auditorium and Casino Gardens in Santa Monica with 4,500 in attendance. A 35-piece orchestra and singer Martha Tilton provided entertainment.

Martha Tilton frequently performed at USC dances.
The USC-Cal rivalry looked its best when the teams wore these uniforms in 1976.
  • If you want to read about the low point of the USC-Cal rivalry, it was in 1959 when Trojan linemen Mike McKeever was accused of delivering a dirty hit on Cal’s Steve Bates. USC president Norman Topping apologized to Cal, which infuriated USC coach Don Clark. Some of Clark’s friends believed it played a part in Clark resigning after the season.

It was so bad that Cal athletic director Greg Engelhard flew to Los Angeles four days after the controversial hit to show game films to the media in a downtown hotel. The films were showed at 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. for maximum exposure. You can read about the whole incident here.

Cal double-teamed USC’s George Achica in 1981.
USC-Cal in 1985.
USC-Cal in 1994.
  • If you ask any USC player about playing at Cal before the stadium renovation in 2012, they will remember the old visitors’ locker room. It was the smallest locker room anywhere and seemed to be the original from 1923. It was almost impossible for the whole team to dress at the same time and became a running joke for decades.

There was also these old, elevated walkways the players would need to use that went right through the guts of the stadium and were visible to fans. If USC lost, the Cal fans departing the stadium would heckle the team.

RESTAURANT OF THE WEEK

This was so close to the Coliseum, that it literally stood where one of the closest parking lots is today to the stadium. It must have been crazy after a USC football game. The ad is from 1948. You can’t tell me the food options were not way better back in those days.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Actor Richard Roundtree died this week at age 81 so let’s watch the famous opening of his 1971 classic, Shaft.

PICTURE OF THE WEEK

Time for another France Nuyen photo.

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

  1. It is amazing the price of anything in 1939 looks so small
    but ‘yesterday’s millionaires were today’s billionaires

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      1. Home prices are worse. My dad sold his West LA home in 1950 for around $15,000. That same 2 bed-2 bath house is now
        $1.2 million, a nearly 80-times increase,
        and so say goodbye to any chance to own for the Under-35 crowd

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    2. Speaking of clowns, when this idiot was done screwing up the national anthem, as he walked off he got an earful from a whole bunch of people about how stupid he sounded, told him he was crap…LOL!

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  2. In 1948 fans and students at SC serenaded both SC and Notre Dame
    and hoisted opposing great ND coach Knute Rockne “on their shoulders’
    Must have been one helluva time back then

    Liked by 1 person

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  3. You don’t play football without knowing you are going to see some dirty play but footballers ‘assume the risk’

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  4. Opposing fans heckling the losing team– seems to be an American tradition
    Have they ever heckled the winning team?– “Ha ha you only beat us by 20-points!”

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    1. Ever been to a game at Cal ? It’s a fucking joke. One year they threw frozen fruit at SC’s band while they performed. I’ve seen them rock the rooter buses outside frat row, they throw things at the buses, fucking animals.

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  5. Great video, the opening to Shaft.

    Nice to see that even in ’71 cops didn’t think the rules applied to them, (crossing against traffic and flipping off the taxi driver). I realize it’s always been this way, but many deny it. It’s a lot more than “just a few bad apples”.

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      1. Oh well, it’s the “Roaring ’20s’ all over again, only now we have added a 2020s style where even promises are not promising

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    2. One more thing since someone is bound to criticize…

      I realize Shaft was just a movie. But it was portrayed that way because that’s the way it was and the way it is now.

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      1. Exactly, John!

        The fools who want to abolish or defund the police are nuts. But they need to re-evaluate whatever indicators they are using to determine qualification. Maybe try the Costanza method and do the opposite! 🙂

        They also need to pay out any excessive force or wrongful death settlements out of their pensions! Maybe then they’d start policing each other the way they should.

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      2. Agree with LJ that police departments traditionally attracted an overly aggressive personality type. I think there have been substantial changes since the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. The FBI keeps statistics on police brutality, racial profiling, wrongful deaths, ect. It is remarkable and probably counter-intuitive how well the cops have done over the past 10 years or so. There was a study done by a Black professor at Harvard as well as a book by Heather McDonald that documents and analyzes the statistics. Of all the encounters with police, hundreds of thousands of them every year, only a few hundred result in deaths – about 200 white people dead and 20 or so blacks. And of that number, some of those are questionable regarding who is at fault – the police or the person they are pursuing . If you watch the news with clips from cell phone cameras now available, you would think this type of thing happens all the time. In fact, it is relatively rare.

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      3. I think that the police do quite well considering their terrible working conditions. These guys are dealing with the scum of the earth and yet many times our corrupt culture wants them to proclaim the thug to be the victim and the poor innocent victim to be the thug.
        Think of George Floyd. He was in jail or prison 7 times…..once for pistle whipping a pregnant woman. A real hero. He was high on Fentanyl when he was pulled over. The policeman on the scene was trained to put his knee on his neck in their police academy. We still don’t know for sure whether he died of the knee on the neck or from fentanyl. Yet at his funeral, they had a picture of him with a baseball cap and halo over his head like he was some kind of a saint. That was right in the auditorium where they had his funeral. The policeman trying to do his job was the bad guy and George Floyd the thug was the good guy.
        Or how about the killing of Michael Brown in St. Louis. He walks into a liquor store, steals a box of cigars and threatens the clerk and then when the policeman comes around he charges the policeman and tries to take his gun.
        The average policeman has to worry about 2 things. He has to worry about not just getting killed but going to prison for life if he gets the jump on the thug and kills the thug before the thug kills him.
        Under those working conditions cops do become angry and aggressive. I’ve known a number of cops before they went into the police force and after they retired. They were long time friends. I’ve seen how working under those conditions changed them. They’ve gone from live and let live people to angry people. They see much more of the corrupt society than we do.
        The real villain here are the public schools who have deliberately changed our american culture to a culture who calls good evil and evil good and even celebrates evil. Americas public enemy #1…..our public schools.

        Liked by 1 person

      4. Well, yeah, deaths are the ultimate offense. But beatings or even other abuses of authority (threats, harassment, etc.) should not be tolerated and go on far too often.

        Until they get rid of police unions, it’ll continue. And that will never happen.

        Liked by 1 person

      5. Frankly So Cal, you are at least 20 or so years behind the times if you think cops in this litigious age routinely rough people up. Rarely happens. There are body cams on them and passersby recording their actions on cell phones. They don’t get away with much today.

        And do you think LA cops ever get the benefit of the doubt from our commie Soros funded District attorney George Gascon? How about Mayor Garcetti or now Mayor Karen Bass. Do you think they protect the police? Hell, all these people were instrumental in defunding the police at the expense of public safety. And they used false narratives based on what happened 40 years ago, to support their destructive policies. We need to change direction and institute the policies Garcetti, Bloomberg, Branton, and Kelly established 25 years ago. Broken windows policing, arresting people for jay walking or spray painting walls, or breaking windows or hopping subway turnstiles, cash bail, 3 strikes law, undercover police units, stop and frisk, ect.

        Liked by 1 person

      6. Four cops just stood there while two others beat Kelly Thomas to death. They should have all been charged. They were not.

        When they were looking for Chris Dorner, they fired on not one but TWO pickup trucks that were not occupied by Dorner. All of them should have been locked up that day and charged with attempted murder.

        About four years ago, an off duty LAPD member shot up a family in Costco. The 60-something year old parents were shot in the BACK because they were between the cop and their son; They were trying to calm him down. He was killed. When the cop started firing, the family was twenty feet away!! He should have been locked up that night, but he was not because he was a cop. He’s finally being charged, but you know better than anyone that the more time you can put between the crime and the trial, the better it is for the defendant. I doubt he’ll be convicted of the worst charges he faces.

        These are just a few of the most egregious and well covered cases in So Cal. I’m sure they go on all over the country.

        This site documents SOME of the DV cases involving cops where they sweep them under the rug or the cop gets a slap on the wrist.

        http://behindthebluewall.blogspot.com/

        Anyone who thinks bad cops are the minority is living in a fantasy world. Yes, more get caught these days because everyone is walking around with a video camera. But most of them are still thugs who have no business being on the force. They need to change their hiring practices and make it easier to fire bad cops.

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      7. Most of the cops are good people just trying to maintain law and order. I’m not going to deny that the police force is becoming more corrupt. But that is because policemen are just part of our society and the whole society is becoming corrupt. I’m talking about the average man on the street.
        The society has been corrupted by the public school system. The people who were corrupted in the public school system went out into the real world(the media, the movies, sports, politics,…………) and corrupted them. There is no way that the society could become corrupt and the police stay pure.
        We live in a corrupt society that was deliberately corrupted by the public schools. The police are part of that corrupt society so obviously they have become more corrupt. But, by and large, the average policeman just wants to keep the peace. PUBLIC ENEMY #1……not the police but the public schools……it all starts there.

        Liked by 1 person

      8. BTW, I’m all for cash bail and three strikes! This is one area where I think both sides have it wrong. I am definitely in the middle.

        Many times, when they fail to follow reasonable requests, I’m on the cops’ side! Jacob Blake, Michael Brown and Erik Garner are perfect examples.

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      9. Fine So Cal. I know there are bad cops who have done horrible things but if you think this is wide spread, epidemic, a real problem, evidence of endemic racism, ect., then you are ignoring documented FBI crime statistics. The things you cited are tragic but fortunately very rare and things have dramatically improved over the past 40 years. My only criticism with what you have said is that you suggest that they have not.

        Liked by 1 person

  6. So in 1959 Don Clark “quits, I thought he was fired having poor teams
    Either way it opened the door for this unknown Oregon guy named John McKay

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  7. The Cal coach said about the disintegration of the Pac-12 that he was
    “sad,” and that it was “shameful”

    Tradition is now treated as if ‘an unwanted step child;’
    When will SC embark again to the Bay Area for Cal & Stanford? Never?
    “Thanks for the memories” but ‘no thanks’ kind of stuff

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  8. Greetings fandom , well pgh. fire department entered the second floor window of a section 8 property last night about 7;30 pm !!! it has 3 floors some of the front windows all falling out from lack of maintence ??? there was no fire !!!!! Regards , Edward

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      1. Phillipe’s leg of lamb dips with extra juice are the best. Still sell them at a reasonable price, about $13. I usually get mine with blue cheese but excellent all on its own. Once went there before the Dodger game with a woman who had a side of pig’s feet. I just couldn’t handle that one.

        Liked by 4 people

  10. Wiley this week said that he was looking forward to the last games-
    “We haven’t played to the way we think we can play. And you persevere through it and you overcome it. The energy and the excitement and the camaraderie that comes from that is so powerful”

    Sounds as if the guy is recharged after his week-bout with sickness
    and that his team might be more relaxed now that National Championship expectations have faded away

    For afterall, “We are–SC!”

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    1. One player killed, 2 players arrested in connection with the killing
      So Northwestern State cancels the balance of its season
      whereas an SC or Ohio St would say “The show (money) must go on”

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      1. I’m inclined to believe the 0-6 record thus far factored into the decision.

        “Oh, the hell with it! Let’s just call it a season.”

        Liked by 2 people

  12. You can bet Wash is watching this SC-Cal game to pick up pointers on how to beat the Trojans
    This is THE GAME for the Huskies, they need it for a run at the ‘Final-4
    And although the Huskies will be favored Troy will be a tough out

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      1. SUCC kisses off Helton and than buys itself a $10 million a year whiny, lemon to run the crummy, “Ripple and Puke,” 6 – 2, FB program…OUCH!!!

        “Who goofed,” I’ve got know.” ~Howard Cosell

        #Call me “MS. FOLT.”

        Liked by 1 person

  13. “No publicity is bad publicity,” it is said.
    Hopefully in SC’s case that saying is true
    because they have gotten a lot of ‘publicity’ since Wiley,
    from being the national sports laughing stock with Tulane
    to the ND embarrassment to the ‘Utah Blunder’

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  14. Best part of Shaft was the music of Isaac Hayes. Lyrics weren’t bad either.

    Who’s the black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks?
    (Shaft)
    You’re damn right
    Who is the man that would risk his neck for his brother man?
    (Shaft)
    Can you dig it?
    Who’s the cat that won’t cop out when there’s danger all about?
    (Shaft)
    Right on
    They say this cat Shaft is a bad mother
    (Shut your mouth)
    But I’m talkin’ ’bout Shaft
    (Then we can dig it)

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