This video is almost a Pac-12 level of underwhelming to announce the official start of the new Big Ten.

Never been stronger. #B1GWelcome https://t.co/zi60CvZm98

— Big Ten Conference (@bigten) August 2, 2024

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• And now for some history:

• How is this for an interesting career: Ainslie Bell was a member of the UCLA basketball team for the 1942-43 season.

Although he never played football before, Bell transferred and joined the USC football team for the 1943 season as a quarterback. Despite being a backup, he took over and started the final game of the season, which was the 1944 Rose Bowl.

This explains why he received a letter of advice on starting at QB in the Rose Bowl before the game from UCLA star QB Bob Waterfield, who started the previous year’s Rose Bowl.

Bell threw one pass, a 36-yard TD to Gordon Gray in the Trojans’ 29-0 victory over Washington. USC played the Huskies because of World War II travel restrictions.

During the game, Bell had to delay giving signals because he couldn’t be heard over a military training plane that flew over the stadium during the game.

It looks like Bell joined the military because he only lettered one season at USC and then graduated from Stanford in 1948. Bell graduated from Marshall High School in Los Angeles.

• It’s normal now for a B-2 bomber to fly over the Rose Bowl before the game. In 1944, a B-17 Flying Fortress buzzed the stadium before kickoff.
• USC players burned corks before the game to use for eye black.
• USC defeated Washington the Rose Bowl, 29-0, but lost to March Field, 35-0, in 1943.

A DIFFERENT ERA

Back in the 1940’s, it was perfectly normal to see USC coaches regularly attend other sports events on campus. Head football coach Jeff Cravath, his assistants Gus Shaver and Shelby Calhoun; swimming coach Fred Cady and baseball coach Rod Dedeaux were familiar faces at games.

Maybe even more surprising, celebrity professors Frank Baxter and Roy French, who was director of the Journalism School for 30 years, were regulars at baseball games.

Cady was USC swim coach for 33 years and the diving coach for four U.S. Olympic teams (1928-48).

• USC had a plan in place to celebrate the end of World War II on April 3, 1945. The war with Germany officially ended on May 7, 1945.

• With the Olympics in full swing, here’s a few Trojan Olympians that don’t get discussed a lot today.

• In his 1927 film, College, legendary comedian Buster Keaton used USC Olympians for a series of track stunts, including the one below where 1924 gold medal winner Lee Barnes pole-vaulted into a second-story window.

Barnes and USC teammates Charles Borah (gold medal winner for the 4×100-meter relay in London in 1928); Clarence “Bud” Houser (gold medal winner in shot put and discus in 1924, gold medal in discus in 1928); Mort Kaer (pentathlon, 1924) and Leighton Dye (110-meter hurdles, 1928) performed in Keaton’s cross-campus dash to save a damsel in distress.

#USC pole vaulter Lee Barnes, gold medalist at the 1924 Olympics, performed this stunt for legendary comic Buster Keaton https://t.co/3qcPY9mnLG

— InsideUSC (@InsideUSC) March 11, 2022

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• Keena Rothhammer won a gold medal in the 800-meter freestyle at the 1972 Munich Olympics, when she was only 15 years old. She not only became the youngest swimmer ever to win a gold in that event, but also set a world record. She also won a bronze in the 200-meter freestyle. Rothhammer graduated from USC in 1979.

• Conn Findlay won gold medals for rowing in 1956 and 1964 along with a bronze for rowing in 1960. He then won a bronze for yachting in 1976. At the time, he was the only athlete to compete in four Olympics and win a medal each time.
• Bob Hughes swam the 200-meter breaststroke and was a member of the U.S. water polo team at the 1956 Olympics.
• Janice Romary was a six-time Olympic fencer and competed in every Summer Olympics from 1948 to 1968, the most of any USC Trojan. She became the first woman to carry the U.S. flag in the opening ceremonies at the 1968 Olympics.

BOBBY BANAS, RIP

The actor/dancer/choreographer famously played Joyboy in the film version of “West Side Story” and it was impossible to notice anyone else when he danced. Exhibit A is this 1964 episode of the The Judy Garland Show featuring him and other dancers dancing to the song, “The Nitty Gritty.” He attended Hollywood High School.

• Bobby Banas also shared a screen kiss with Marilyn Monroe in Let’s Make Love (1960).

VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Here is Olga Korbut performing the daring Dead Loop or Korbut Flip at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. It was her signature moment.

Korbut, while standing on the high bar, performed a backflip, and then regrasping the bar. The Dead Loop was banned shortly after the 1972 Olympics due to its high level of danger.