FOOTBALL

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

Andy Enfield saying he is “not disappointed” in the basketball season reminded of when Steve Sarkisian said the season was a “total success” in 2014 after USC won nine games and the Holiday Bowl.

  • How many times will we see Cheryl Miller hanging around the USC women’s basketball team during March Madness?
  • Did you see Jerry Neuheisel went from wide receivers coach to tight ends coach at UCLA? That’s a demotion. “Some fans wanted him to get a promotion after Chip (Kelly) left, but Eric Bieniemy came in and stuck him with the tight ends,” said a UCLA coach who will remain anonymous.
  • And now for some history:
  • Look at Ricky Bell on the cover of the USC-UCLA game program in 1975.

HEART-STOPPING GAME

USC vs. UCLA at the Sports Arena in 1967
  • Did you know two fans reportedly had heart attacks at the 1967 USC-UCLA came to the Sports Arena? It’s ironic considering UCLA won in a low-scoring game, 40-35.

The Bruins were undefeated (16-0); ranked No. 1 and led by center Lew Alcindor when they faced the Trojans. USC had already lost to UCLA by 15 and 24 points that season. UCLA scored 105 and 107 points vs. USC in the first two games.

So USC coach Bob Boyd decided to play a stall and the Trojans didn’t shoot for 2-3 minutes at a time. USC led 17-14 at halftime and the game was tied at the end of regulation before the Bruins won in OT before 14,417.

Some fans demanded refunds, cursed at Boyd and spat at him despite having a police escort after the game.

Two days later, Loyola coach John Arndt defended Boyd.

“I don’t think the first responsibility is to please the fans. The fans liked the Christians and the lions but I don’t think that was particularly good.”

In those days, every Monday featured a basketball writers’ luncheon with all the college coaches from Southern California.

“Too many coaches think too much of basketball to do (what USC did),” John Wooden said.

USC athletic director Jess Hill, known for being mild-mannered, followed Wooden to the podium and offered a rare glimpse of emotion.

“Bob had my support in everything he did. Any team that attempts to run against UCLA is doomed for devastation,” Hill said.

Boyd got his revenge almost to the day two years later when he slowed it down again and defeated 25-0 UCLA (and Alcindor), 46-44. It was UCLA’s first loss at Pauley Pavilion.

Lew Alcindor vs. USC in 1967
  • If you think that 1967 game was bad, check out what happened in 1932.

USC held the ball for the last 15 minutes of the first half against UCLA, which caused the Bruin band to play funeral music. UCLA fans threw pennies and peanut shells on the floor and USC star player Jerry Nemer supposedly read a newspaper (no word if Nemer was in the game or on the bench at the time).

UCLA won, 19-17.

GOLDEN ERA OF MUSIC

  • It’s official. The year 1974 was a landmark for music at USC. Last week, I wrote how Linda Ronstadt performed on May 11 and Rita Coolidge and Seals and Croft were on campus May 22.

Well, on March 28, 1974, Rick Springfield performed at the Student Activities Center patio. This was 7 years before “Jessie’s Girl,” but Springfield still drew a large crowd at USC because he had a top 15 hit, “Speak to the Sky” in 1972.

Rick Springfield performs at USC in 1974
  • When Dedeaux Field opened, it meant USC baseball was not playing at Bovard Field for the first time in almost 90 years.

“Dedeaux Field? After 32 years playing at Bovard Field, I think I know the name Bovard better than Dedeaux,” USC baseball coach Rod Dedeaux said.

Dedeaux was proud of the fact at the time baseball was one of the few sports actually played on campus at the time. That’s something Carol Folt should have realized when she kicked the baseball team off campus for two years.

  • During a 1958 game at Bovard Field, there were 18 pro scouts to watch the Trojans.

BYGONE ERA

When USC baseball opened Pac-8 play in 1974 against Cal, the Bears’ top hitter was first baseman Steve Bartkowski. That’s right, the famous Cal quarterback was also an outstanding baseball player. Later that year, he helped the Bears tie No. 6-ranked USC, 15-15, at the Coliseum.

Bartkowski was an All-American in football and baseball. In 1973, he hit .329 with 12 homers. He led the Pac-8 in completion percentage (56 percent), passing yards, passing yards per attempt and passer rating in 1974.

Bartkowski was the No. 1 pick in the 1975 NFL Draft by the Atlanta Falcons.

Steve Bartkowski playing baseball (above) and facing USC (below).

  • My colleague Tom Hoffarth has taken a comprehensive look at the life of USC All-American and long-time Los Angeles City Council member, John Ferraro. Link here.
USC vs. Cal in 1968

PICTURE OF THE WEEK

  • When you went to see the movie “Baby Face” in 1933 at either the Warner Bros. Hollywood or Warner Bros. Downtown L.A. theatres, you didn’t just see a movie. You also got a full stage show including music and/or vaudeville acts.

This is what the Warner Bros. Theatre in Los Angeles looked like in 1954. It was located at 401 W. 7th Street in Los Angeles. It’s now a Jewelry Exchange located in the Jewelry or Diamond District but the balcony is still intact.

VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

  • If you were alive between 1971-84, you probably spent about a quarter of that time watching this commercial, which starred the great English character actor John Williams (not the musician), who was in three Alfred Hitchcock and two Billy Wilder films. And he’s memorable in all of them.
  • When producer Charles Roven won an Oscar for Best Picture at the Academy Awards last weekend, it was another win for a Trojan alum. That gives us an excuse to showcase his mother-in-law, singer-actress Fran Jeffries, seen here with Tony Curtis in the 1964 film, “Sex and the Single Girl.”

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

  1. The real question is how much money players like Lew Alcindor were making to play for ucla in those days. John Wooden went for what, 13 years with no winning seasons before Sam Gilbert (Papa Sam) started doling out the cash? Everyone with a brain knew ucla was buying top players and so did John Wooden.

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      2. Cowardly Gabby aka TebowObama aka Charlie Bucket the Bruin Fan The Guy who posts as So Cal’s Wife & LawyerJohn & Pudly & Plow Horse & steveg49 & DOJ & Scott Wolf and Frank Young. needs to be incarcerated at Atascadero State Mental Hospital. She loves Senile Joe letting illegal alien murderers and rapists into America:

        Liked by 1 person

      3. Funny, when illegal aliens kill someone they argue until they’re blue in the face that it has nothing to do with the mess Joe created at the border and the fact he completely ignores our immigration laws. It’s entirely the murderer’s fault and his alone.

        But oh, when there’s a shooting by an American citizen, it’s magically the gun’s fault! 😲

        Liked by 2 people

      4. These illegals do violent crime and they get a hand slap and are quickly back on the street again. Proud boy leader (who’s half black and half hispanic)was in Baltimore on january 6 and he got 18 years in prison. Some anti-abortion people were peacefully protesting at an abortion clinic and they’re predicting that they will get 11 years in prison. But that’s the way dictators are. Play the game their way and the government will look the other way when you brake the law. Don’t play the game their way and they will find a way to convict you of something that will put you in jail for a long time.

        There is a bloodbath coming here in america. It’s already starting. I know what the dems will do. When it gets bad they will blame it on the repubs(principally Donald Trump). They will say that it is his fault that the borders were never closed even though DT did everything in his power to close the borders and the dems fought him tooth and nail at each step. Unfortunately, americans will probably believe them.

        Liked by 2 people

      5. What’s scary is how the entire world now knows how to get in and how much encounters with people from “other countries” has exploded. When the SHTF, we will get hit on our soil by people who have already infiltrated from the Middle East and/or China.

        Liked by 4 people

      1. I saw you yesterday passing by with a large trash bag of aluminum cans hanging off the back of your moped. Life must suck when you have been reduced to collecting cans to make ends meet.

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      2. You see alot of hallucinations when you poke your head out of the dumpster you live in on 6th and Grand Avenue in LA’s Skid Row, Cowardly Gabby aka TebowObama aka Charlie Bucket the Bruin Fan The Guy who posts as So Cal’s Wife & LawyerJohn & Pudly & Plow Horse & steveg49 & DOJ & Scott Wolf and Frank Young. You have as many tall tales as your Dictator Senile Joe:

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    6. Thirteen years with no winning seasons? Did I read that right? Better check out your history pal. JW coached 29 seasons(beginning at Indiana State) and never had a losing season. The only losing season he ever had was his first year of coaching at Dayton High School where he went 6-11. He coached 11 years of High School basket ball before he went into college and his record in high school was 218-42.

      As far as Sam Gilbert is concerned, this is what Swen Nater had to say:”I was on the 1973 UCLA team that played Indiana University (Knight was coach) in the semifinals of the final four. Although they gave us a run for our money, we won and went on to win our seventh straight NCAA championship.

      Sam Gilbert was a millionaire real estate tycoon, based in the San Fernando Valley, just north of Los Angeles. Sam was a UCLA basketball fan but went a bit too far. He illegally helped some of the players, materially and financially. Coach Wooden got wind of what was going on, warned us to stay away from Gilbert, and trusted us to do the right thing. The rest of the story is, the NCAA put UCLA on probation years after Wooden retired.

      But I have no idea why Bobby Knight claimed Gilbert was involved in player recruitment. I was a UCLA player for three years and never heard anything of the sort. 

      To this day, there is much communication between Bruins, and to my knowledge, not one has ever said, Gilbert helped recruit him, and that includes Kareem, Walton, Johnson, Wilkes, Wicks, and Hazzard. I have read numerous articles about Sam Gilbert’s dealings and nowhere have I found even a hint of Gilbert being involved in UCLA recruiting. Had it been true, it certainly would have surfaced by now, don’t you think? It’s been over 40 years.

      Knight erroneously assumed Wooden needed help recruiting. Are you kidding? The best players in the country were standing in line wanting to join the legendary program Coach Wooden had developed. As for me, I wanted to play for a coach that was a role model.

      But I have to confess; Coach Wooden bribed me into signing with UCLA..On three of my other four visits to major universities that recruited me out of junior college, one gave his players money to take me to a porn flick and offered me a bunch of cash when I departed. Another promised me a starting spot. One coach set me up with a date —the football centennial queen who followed up our date by writing a letter which said in part, “When you get here, I want us to date.”  

      Coach Wooden took me to a UCLA track meet. As we watched, he said I’d never see much playing time because the best center in the country was coming to play at UCLA — that was Bill Walton, 3-time NCAA player of the year.He also promised, to the best of his ability, he would help me make maximum improvement. Every day in practice, he said, I would be honing my skills against the best team in the country — the six-time NCAA champion Bruins. He thought I would have a very good chance of being noticed by NBA scouts, even if I never started a game.I just couldn’t resist that bribe.

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  2. Wooden preaching about integrity is hilarious, considering his record sucked ass until Sammy started buying him players.

    Enfield is an embarrassment, he should be fired ASAP.

    Wolf, SJW Folt could care less about USC athletics, she’s all in on DEI and getting as many Chinese and Saudi kids in school as possible, she couldn’t care less if baseball played it’s games in Chino.

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      1. Cowardly Gabby aka TebowObama aka Charlie Bucket the Bruin Fan The Guy who posts as So Cal’s Wife & LawyerJohn & Pudly & Plow Horse & steveg49 & DOJ & Scott Wolf and Frank Young is the embarrassment:

        Gabby(Real)
        MAY 27, 2023 AT 3:41 AM
        Michael, bury your little cock in my ass

        Like

      2. Cowardly Gabby aka TebowObama aka Charlie Bucket the Bruin Fan The Guy who posts as So Cal’s Wife & LawyerJohn & Pudly & Plow Horse & steveg49 & DOJ & Scott Wolf and Frank Young is as mentally competent as Senile Joe:

        Like

      5. Why do you continue to lie, Coward of the County?? You admitted you are a chicken. Cowardly Gabby aka TebowObama aka Charlie Bucket the Bruin Fan The Guy who posts as So Cal’s Wife & LawyerJohn & Pudly & Plow Horse & steveg49 & DOJ & Scott Wolf and Frank Young.

        Gabby (original)
        JULY 8, 2023 AT 3:06 AM
        no one is going to fight someone over comments made in a blog…..plow is an old man just popping off…and you fucking know it…

        Like

  3. Stanford fired their mens BB head coach last night…..as to ‘the peckerwood’ that gutless wonder – his lack of stones was his calling card and I do recall Nellie bird ‘expectorating’ venom at Mack Calvin after the 1969 defeat at Pauley

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    1. I knew a gentleman that had graduated from SC who had a friend that referred college games. He said that the ref would run by Peckerhead Wooden and that due would cuss at him. He would call him a Mother###### and other words. He was trash. 

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      1. Never heard that ‘but’ I remember when Jerry Tarkanian was becoming a threat at CSULB ‘the peckerwood’ got the then President Steve Horn to go after Tarkanian promising Horn that he’d assist him in getting a chancellor slot at one of the UC campuses……Horn did as he was told and ‘the peckerwood’ never knew him.

        Liked by 2 people

      2. I guess I can’t argue with that. After all, “you knew a gentleman that had graduated from SC who had a friend that referred college games”. That sounds like irrefutible evidence.

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    2. Cowardly scott wolf aka grabbbyy aka gotroy22 aka  stmarseille14 aka fake Gabby aka TebowObama aka Charlie Bucket the Bruin Fan The Guy who posts as So Cal’s Wife & LawyerJohn & Pudly & Plow Horse & steveg49 & DOJ & Scott Wolf and Frank Young ,

      Like

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      1. Cowardly Gabby aka TebowObama aka Charlie Bucket the Bruin Fan The Guy who posts as So Cal’s Wife & LawyerJohn & Pudly & Plow Horse & steveg49 & DOJ & Scott Wolf and Frank Young is psychotic and needs institutionalization:

        Gabby(Real)
        MAY 27, 2023 AT 4:32 PM
        I love using my dildo. Wanna taste Michael

        Like

    3. Here’s the loser,
      Cowardly Gabby aka TebowObama aka Charlie Bucket the Bruin Fan The Guy who posts as So Cal’s Wife & LawyerJohn & Pudly & Plow Horse & steveg49 & DOJ & Scott Wolf and Frank Young:

      Gabby(Real)
      MAY 27, 2023 AT 3:40 AM
      I really enjoy beating off while reading Michael comments

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      Reply

  5. Is Enfield saying he is “not disappointed” with the season somewhat like Hitler saying he is not disappointed with the outcome of World War 2

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  6. A shame we only recall the SC Heisman trophy winners (or any who returned their trophy) when Ricky Bell and Anthony Davis should have also won

    Liked by 2 people

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  7. The english actor John Williams looks like he might have played the role of “Q” in an early James Bond movie. Look into it and let me know, will Ya Scotty?

    Liked by 2 people

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  8. Scooter,

    Speaking of Hill and 7th, right where the jewerly mart is presen and where the theater used to be, before that though, was the seccond location of Loyola High. The first location was in Highland Park right next to St. Ignatuis of Loyola Catholic Church. There is a plaque reminding that Loyola High was there in the alley at 7th and Hill. 

    Liked by 2 people

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      1. I know most of us really appreciate the amount of time that goes into a piece like today’s —it doesn’t write itself …

        ##We’reMightyLuckyThisGuy’sAround…

        ###[IKnowCarol&AndyJoinMeInExpressingThisSentiment]

        Liked by 2 people

    2. Was just reading an old LA Times article from the 79 USC v ucla game.

      Charlie White was knocked out in the game but continued to play, he scored 4 TD’s but could only remember 2 of them after the game.

      Donahue said after the game that if his players weren’t disappointed they had better go to the ucla Medical Center to see if they had a pulse.

      He also said that this may not have been the best USC team he ever went against, but it was the worst ucla team he’s had.

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      1. ..oh, don’t underestimate bruin football, Terry….there have been plenty of terrible teams… why limit it to one?

        Liked by 2 people

      2. Donahue had lost 4 straight to USC, 24-14, 29-27, 17-10 and 49-14. He was on the hot seat and then made a career saving move by hiring The Nutty Professor, Homer Smith, to remake his offense. The Bruins made and won 3 Rose Bowls (83,84,86) and lost a 4th in 1993 under Homer Smith’s offense and Donahue received all the credit. As soon as Smith left, the Bruins reverted to the 1970s underachievers. Thatynks to Smith, the Bruins ended their 4 game losing streak to USC in 1980, 20-17: This was called the Probation Bowl, due to the fact that both teams were barred from bowl games for recruiting violations. UCLA won in the last minute on a tipped pass from Jay Schroeder to Freeman McNeil.

        The Trojan defender who tipped the pass? None other than the former Rams and Tennessee Titans’ coach, Jeff Fisher. 

        Liked by 3 people

  10. Rusoviet,

    Another reason to hate or strongly dislike Peckerwood Wooden. When Tarkanian was at LBSU, Tark wanted to play ugly. Peckerwood was so scared that he peed himself because he knew Tark’s team could do damage to the ruins. So Peckerwood called the AD Director Young of ugly and started stories about Tark. Young had a friend in the ncaa headquarters and he told his friend and his friend started the investigations on Tark.   

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    1. “So Wooden called UCLA AD Young and started stories about Tark”. And, of course, we have evidence of that don’t we.

      “Young had a friend in the ncaa headquarters and he told his friend and his friend started the investigations on Tark”. 

      Ah yes…..the mysterious “friend”.

      If what you say is true why did Tark say these things about Wooden?

      He said , when asked about Wooden, “He was always very nice to me. We had a very good relationship,” 

      After Tarkanian got his first Division I job at Long Beach State in 1968, several coaches gathered for a session with the Los Angeles media.

      “I barely knew him, but John spent five minutes congratulating Long Beach State for hiring me,” Tarkanian said.

      Tark vividly recalls his three games against Wooden in the early 1970s, even saying the officials “really stole the second one from us.”

      It was after that second meeting in 1971 — which UCLA won 57-55 in the NCAA West Region finals — when Wooden tried to do Tarkanian a favor. Wooden was being pursued by Indiana but was not interested.

      “John said he recommended me for the Indiana job. He gave me the athletic director’s phone number and I was supposed to call,” Tarkanian said. “I told (wife) Lois, and we were excited about it. But it was an emotional time, and I never followed up on it. Instead, they hired Bob Knight.”

      Forgive me if I have my doubts but the only time I’ve ever heard of their being problems between Wooden and Tark is from you with nothing to back it up.

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    2. Lavin initially attended San Francisco State University, where he played on the basketball team for two years. He transferred to Chapman University, from which he graduated in 1988 with a bachelor’s degree in communication

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  11. Rusoviet,

    True story, I was a kid and someone drug me to Polly Povilion to see Wooden and an exhibition of the ruins. I went there and that place gave me the creeps. I see Wooden on a ladder putting quarters on the backboard. Someone asked why he was doing that. Wooden’s response was that is how he kept Alicendor motivated. He jumps to and grabs the quarters and he keeps thsm. I am about 10 years old and I was thinking, Alcendor is getting paid and what a cheapskate that Peckerwood was only paying quarters and not dollars. That dude was a cheap ass punk

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    1. I know the NCAA put in the ‘JD Morgan’ rule forbadding ADs from sitting on the court because of the ranting and idiocy Morgan indulged in to support ‘the peckerwood’.

      For me the most indelible hit against Wooden wasn’t what he hadn’t the courage to do but what Gene Bartow did. Bartow understood what a foul presence Gilbert was and moved to ban him from the squad. Gilbert threatened his life and Bartow went to Morgan who suddenly, asked Sam to back off.

      Everything about that era at Bel-Air Tech was the whitewashing tbe entire 4th estate gave ‘woodie’. Tarkanian was on with that smug back end of a horse Roy Firestone who was waxing on about Wooden when Tarkanian happened to mention Gilbert and Firestone immediately went to a long commercial break.

      Ever wonder why Steve Lavin rarely interacted beyond a perfunctory greeting with Wooden? Lavin played for Bobby Knight and was well aware of how others perceived Wooden and his rigged coverup.

      Liked by 1 person

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  12. SoCal

    Bidenocchio

    That’s good!!!!! The best cartoon I’ve seen in a long time. Biden, Mayorkas and the rest of the dems can look you right in the face, smile and tell you that pigs can fly and really think you are dumb enough to believe it and many americans do.

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