FOOTBALL

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

It’s not something that will be discussed in polite circles, but there are a couple scenarios where Gary Patterson could be leading the USC football program.

Let’s say USC’s schedule is a little too difficult for Lincoln Riley, if he got fired who would be the immiediate replacement? Patterson.

Or, let’s say Riley’s represenatatives reach out to schools again for open jobs. Like a Florida State, for example. If Riley got hired elsewhere, who immediately takes over? Patterson. He might be coaching USC in a bowl game.

  • Just for the reading impaired, I view Patterson as a big upgrade from D’Anton Lynn.
  • Former USC swimmer Carsten Vissering ‘20 is a member of the Team USA Olympic Bobsled team at the Winter Olympics.
  • The worst headline I saw this week was on a USC site that said, “Former USC chief of staff Brandon Sosna hires Eric Henderson to NFL.”

Sosna works for the Washington Commanders as senior vice president of football operations. He doesn’t hire coaches. Washington coach Dan Quinn and defensive coordinator Daronte Jones hired Henderson. Sosna isn’t going to be anywhere near those type of decisions. But some people will go to any length to make a USC connection.

  • Jazzy Davidson played 33 minutes in last night’s 83-65 victory over Northwestern. She did not leave the game until 1:54 remained.
  • And now for some history:
Myron Lapka
  • Former USC defensive lineman Myron Lapka was known for his strength.

“Here’s a guy who’s as strong as anyone we’ve ever had,” USC defensive line coach Marv Goux said.

How strong was Lapka? Once he tossed a friend in his apartment into the next room . . . through an adjoining wall.

“Sometimes, we go through walls,” Lapka said, laughing. “It got him in a better mood.”

  • Lynn Cain rushed for 887 yards and four touchdowns in 1978.
  • A common sight at USC in the 1950’s and 60’s was athetes working jobs for the Operations and Maintenance dept. It was an easy way for athletes to make money. The McKeever twins had jobs with O and M.
  • Clarence “Bud” Houser of USC won the gold medal in the discus and shot put at the 1924 Olympics and the gold medal in the discus at the 1928 Olympics.
  • Famed Hollywood director Cecil B. DeMille (left) visited USC in 1957 to discuss his film, “The Ten Commandments” before a sold-out crowd at Bovard Auditorium. Naturally, then-Chancellor Rufus von KleinSmid, who never missed an opportunity to greet a celebrity was there.
  • Most people are unaware that his brother, William C. de Mille, was a founder of the USC Cinema School and Drama Dept. You might notice the brothers had different ways of writing their last names. Cecil altered the family name because he thought it looked better on marquees.
  • Last week, I ran a photo of comedian Red Skelton helping USC students steal a Cal banner at a football game. Here he is in a much-clearer photo from the 1956 contest.
  • USC graduate Brian Sullivan was a baritone for the prestigious Metropolitan Opera.
  • The USC band looked a lot different in 1932.

PHOTOS OF THE WEEK

Mylène Demongeot

Akiko Wakabayashi

Pamela Tiffin

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

  1. Scott, how can you be so sure that the Commander’s Vice President of football operations would not have some input into the hiring of a coach, especially one that hey are considering from a school where he worked. Where did you get the definitive information about who was involved in the hiring. By the way, thanks for the old photos. Lynn Cain was a junior college transfer from East Los Angeles junior college (in the 1950’s two year colleges were called junior colleges not community colleges). I believe that he also went to Roosevelt HS in East Los Angeles where Mike Garrett attended. Fight on, Dan, Class of 1962

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  2. Scott, start marketing your Fridays as a book.

    Lynn Cain played fullback that year, with Charles White as tailback. He played tailback in the NFL, that is just how good USC RBs were at that time. I recall he was undersized at the FB position but was a great blocker and imagine rushing for nearly 900 yards in a short season with Charles White…

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    1. Good input Trojan1967 about Cain playing fullback for Tailback Charlie White. McKay did that with Ricky Bell as well. They wanted to get their best running backs into the game instead of sitting on the bench. Now, it’s all about the passing game and can the backs catch passes not be lead blockers. It was unfortunate that Ricky Bell had his great season in 1976 in the same year that Tony Dorsett was leading Pitt to their great season, and the loss to Missouri in the opening game of the season kept USC at #2 all year in the rankings. Bell had a Heisman season instead he came in second in the Heisman vote. Scott, didn’t Bell set the USC single game rushing mark that had been held by CR Roberts for many years? He was fantastic for the Tampa Bay Bucs as the first draft choice that season….so sad about his illness. Fight on, Dan, Class of 1962

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      2. And, he was a local kid from Fremont HS in Los Angeles. Coach McKay thought that he was one of the best running backs that he ever coached. Fight on, Dan, Class of 1962

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  3. yet another virtuoso Friday performance, wolfman!! as usual you’re thinking 8-10 moves ahead, whereas trOXan “brain trust” is consistently reacting to the last game’s result. if I were the AD at SC i would name you “Special Assistant to the AD” and give you complete authority over the entire campus and surrounding businesses, think Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter. all i would ask is keep you cheerleader shenanigans off campus and get those releases signed!!

    #MakeMyDayWolfman

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    1. If only Martin Jarmond had hired Scottie as a consultant a couple of years ago…the DeShaun “HC for 1.27 seasons” Foster debacle would have been avoided. But there is not enough funny money gutty IOU slips that Scottie would ever accept to work for the baby bears.

      #Loyalty

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  4. I bet Bud Houser, the Olympic discuss champion, couldn’t throw a fellow student through a wall into the adjoining room. I believe Myron Lapka holds the record for the most slabs of prime rib consumed in the Lawry’s Beef Bowl. Something like 12, 13, 14 – a ridiculous number. Whatever team won the Beef Bowl generally won the Rose Bowl.

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    1. :KAM: Bud Houser, the Pride of Oxnard High. They named the stadium Houser Field as a surprise at his high school graduation. He was among a great contingent of USC athletes at the 1924 Olympics, which was made famous in the 1982 Academy Award winning movie Chariots of Fire.

      DON: At the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, Trojan Charley Paddock, considered The World’s Fastest Man, ran against Great Britain’s Eric Liddell in the men’s 200 meter final. Paddock didn’t win the gold medal — United States teammate Jackson Scholz did — but Paddock beat out Liddell for the silver medal. Liddell claimed a bronze in that race before winning the 400 meter gold medal, a supreme triumph which lent weight and resonance to the story portrayed in “Chariots of Fire.”

      Great Britain’s Harold Abrahams joined Liddell as an Olympic champion by winning the men’s 100 meters at the 1924 Summer Olympics. Trojan Charlie Paddock, trying to defend his 1920 gold medal from the Summer Games in Antwerp, Belgium, moved through the preliminary, quarterfinal, and semifinal heats to return to the final, but Abrahams beat him and the rest of the field to claim Olympic glory.

      Paddock added to his medal count of 3 gold medals and 2 silvers at the 1924 Olympics. He gained the distinction of having medaled in two separate Olympic Games, a fact which separates him from numerous Olympians in the larger scope of Olympic history. He was a great Trojan patriot who served in WWI and WWII and died in a plane crash during WWII while serving in the Marines.

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  6. The still prevalent problem in firing Wiley is the buyout. After 2026 he will only be halfway through his contract, so his buyout is still in the $50-million range

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  8. So back in the day SC footballers worked Operations and Maintenance jobs for money. Today they leave those jobs to the students

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    1. No. Only poor and middle class kids work these type of jobs and there are virtually no middle class students at USC anymore. The woke liberal DEI policies that you endorse ensured this unfortunate result. To afford 100K a year tuition, you need to be rich, a foreign student sponsored by the CCP, or a so called minority on a DEI scholarship or grant. Middle class families can’t take out hundreds of thousands in loans so their kids can go to school.

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