FOOTBALL

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

USC is popping up in several early Top 25 men’s basketball polls. Do people think Alijah Arenas is coming back?

The players metioned so far as potential incoming transfers sound underwhelming.

  • USC baseball hosts Iowa this weekend, hoping to break its four-game losing streak. The good news is no USC athletic teams play UCLA this weekend.
  • Makai Lemon is one of 16 players invited to attend the NFL Draft in Pittsburgh.
  • USC women’s water polo player Emily Ausmus is the MPSF Player of the Year. USC coach Casey Moon was the conference coach of the year.
  • Shocking that Jen Cohen’s State of Troy newsletter this week did not contain an update on the USC-Notre series.
  • Have you seen of the stories this week about U.S. soccer star Christian Pulisic and his ex-girl friend, Alexa Melton? Did you know Melton is a former USC golfer?
  • And now for some history:
  • Former USC assistant coach Dave Levy is in the USC Hall of Fame and was John McKay’s right-hand man. But this is a story I like to tell sometimes because you never know who hasn’t heard it.

Levy was a member of the UCLA football team in 1953 and then in 1954 became a coach for the UCLA freshman football team. He was assigned a locker in the coaches’ lockeroom. It was right between the lockers of Red Sanders and John Wooden.

Sanders was by far the bigger star, winning the national championship in 1954 while Wooden was still nine years away from winning his first NCAA title.

  • It was during this time that newspaper reporters would meet the local college football coaches at Scandia restaurant on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood on Mondays during the season. On some of those days, Sanders would skip practice because stayed at the restaurant all day drinking with the writers. It was no big deal to Levy and the other coaches, because they knew he might not make it back for practice on Scandia days.
  • Norv Turner, the former head coach of the Commanders, Raiders and Chargers, was a USC assistant from 1976-84.

He’s always coached offense his entire career but for some reason in 1980, Turner coached the defensive backs at USC. There’s probably some good stories about what Turner thought coaching defensive backs and what the defensive backs thought of being coached by Turner.

But he had a pretty easy job considering the secondary featured Ronnie Lott, Dennis Smith, Joey Browner and Jeff Fisher.

Columist Nick Canepa of the San Diego Union-Tribune once asked Turner what he had to do to coach the unit?

“Every once in awhile, Joey would ask me a question,” Turner said.

By the way, Turner played at Oregon, just like McKay and former USC coach John Robinson.

  • USC linebacker Dennis Johnson celebrates the Trojans clinching a Rose Bowl berth in 1979.
  • USC president John Hubbard at the 1979 Cal game, his final football season as president. The year before, he got an unsportsmalike conduct penalty in a game at Hawaii because he was so upset with the officiating.
  • This 1927 map from Paramount Studios showed what areas the state of California could double for during movies.
  • Everyone thinks of CBS college basketball analyst Bill Raftery at his current age but here he is when he played college basketball at La Salle.

And he threw a no-hitter in college!

PICTURES OF THE WEEK

Valerie Leon

Barbara Bach

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

      2. KAM: Cowardly Sparrow Gabby will always defend Sybil’s evil posts….

        DON: Because they are the same person. The real Sparrow left in a huff 2 years ago.

        Liked by 1 person

  2. So an SC coach was aked how he “coached” the Trojan All-Americans including Joey Browner– “Every once in a while Joey would ask me a question”

    This is how I imagined John Wooden coached Alcindor and Walton

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  4. I can’t imagine the blonde haired kid sitting next to Hubbard on the same field as Ronnie Lott, Joey Browner, Brad Budde, ect. Perhaps our version of Rudy.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  5. “Shocking that Jen Cohen’s State of Troy newsletter this week did not contain an update on the USC-Notre series.”

    Well, if the “Dame” is going to fall off, we may as well have the rest of the name fall off of the schedule. 😛

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  6. At this point the USC Basketball team is not a 25 team even with Arenas who is vastly overrated at this point. Rice, is a question mark how well if he can come back from a serious injury so who’s left on the roster that can be a game changer.

    Musselman is on the bubble- win this year,,,,,,..or your gone, and winning means 20 plus games plus a first round win in the NCAA tournament not the NIT.

    To me Musselman is the wrong guy for USC basketball he just does not know how to build a program long term. All he recruits are “wings” like Colonel Sanders use to, and explosive guards separate the good teams from the great teams.

    No USC game attendance by me at the Galen until Muss is canned. USC Women’s games yes we have a very good Coach.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  7. Sorry about being late to the party, guys.

    Just read Charlie’s thing about keeping a “kill list.” Every time I think he’s got a good side he proves me wrong.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      2. KAM: Cowardly Gabby is upset about her candidate Eric-bo Swallwell being exposed as just another B J C l i n t o n .

        DON: Fang Fang was just the tip of the ice berg. Swallwell makes Bill Cosby look wholesome.

        Like

      4. Wrong again Sparrow. Bucket said it was fine for an intruder to kill a defenseless woman as long as the women was MAGA. I don’t find the statement clever or funny. It’s sick. Why don’t you ask your psychologist wife what she thinks. I bet she says it goes beyond merely eccentric.

        Liked by 3 people

      5. KAM: Cowardly Sparrow Gabby will never ever condemn a n t i s e m i t e vile disgusting freak Cowardly Gabby aka Charlie Bucket the UCLA Fan aka TebowObama aka The Guy who posts as So Cal’s Wife & Michael Guarino & Buddhakarma &LawyerJohn & Pudly & Plow Horse & steveg49 & DOJ & Scott Wolf & Kathy & Foreskin Thoughts & Frank Young and The Moderator and Marjorie Taylor and Chuck Newton’s evil v i o l e n t obscene rants.

        DON: Gee I wonder why?

        Liked by 2 people

    3. “kill list” SAY WHAT?? what comment are you referring to?? i’m a lover not a kill list keeper!!

      #ShockedAndAppalled

      Like

      Reply

  8. This one might not get through — but—

    …I’ve it all figured out. Forget the Strait. Produce oil for USA & Japan.

    Save the Pacific. Say goodbye to our “allies.”

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      1. Yes. But…we need a military ally too: Japan. And we drill just exactly enough oil to keep ourselves and Japan running.

        Let’s stop negotiating with folks who have NO control over the Revolutionary Guard or the Strait. What’s the point? It’s like me asking my neighbor to release me from my mortgage: what good does it do if he says “okay”?

        Liked by 2 people

  9. I finally got to Scott’s column…and it’s really a fun read!

    #ThankYou,Scott!

    #[WeDon’tDeserveYou…EspeciallySomeOfUsWhoIWon’tName]

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      1. KAM: Poor Tranny Bruin is scrapping off his “S w a w l w e l l For G o v e r n o r 2026” bumper sticker today…

        .DON: …Off his VW bug.

        Liked by 2 people

      2. I’m hoping T doesn’t even have to scrape S-w-a-lw-e-l-l off — [but I tricked Google A. I. into sending Eric’s office info on the S-u-i-c-i-d-e Hotline]….

        Liked by 1 person

  10. Scott has always been a renaissance man with something for everyone especially the clinically depressed in society by hyping the negative. Scott is definitely one of a kind. Scott is a lifelong Trojan who has never left the campus. A dream of a lifetime, stay at USC forever with an eye for perfection. Fight on, Dan, Class of 1962

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      2. Thank you for the comment. Scott enjoys finding the negatives about sports at USC, and my point is that since Pete Carroll left for the Seahawks, our football team has been hit and miss under Clay Helton and now LR; however, we have won numerous national championships in other sports, and we have been in the national picture in all sports. Can we do better especially in football, basketball and baseball….of course we can. But give credit where credit is due and criticize when justified. As a lifelong Trojan, I greatly appreciate any successes and suffer the losses. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Fight on, Dan, Class of 1962

        Liked by 1 person

  11. Wolfie gives the MAGAs a place to blow off their steam with no fear of reprisals. Republicans, yes. MAGAs, no

    Like

    Reply

    1. KAM: A n t i s e m i t e vile disgusting freak Cowardly Gabby aka Cowardly Sparrow Gabby aka Charlie Bucket the UCLA Fan aka TebowObama aka The Guy who posts as So Cal’s Wife & Michael Guarino & Buddhakarma &LawyerJohn & Pudly & Plow Horse & steveg49 & DOJ & Scott Wolf & Kathy & Foreskin Thoughts & Frank Young and The Moderator and Marjorie Taylor and Chuck Newton has used this sports site to blow off steam the last 26 years.

      DON: And she is such a loser she intends to keep wasting her life here until she expires.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      1. I thought Sparrow was our pal John ….until roughly 72 hours ago….

        #….It’sMerelyThePassive/AggressiveSideOfSybill

        Liked by 3 people

    2. Love the way Sybil likes to believe THIS is the ONLY site or forum any of us offer opinions [for “fear of reprisal” elsewhere]…

      #…PrettyFarFromReality

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. KAM: On the Instapundit site there is a leftist who takes abandoned posters names over and spams the site with them until Disqus finally bans them. This has gone on since 2015.

        DON: Cowardly Gabby did the same thing with Sparrow’s handle. after Sparrow stomped off 2 years ago.

        Liked by 1 person

      1. Cowardly Gabby is Sparrow. The poster has an identifiable talent for saying nothing in the most mundane way imaginable. We saw that again in his last two posts. I am not so sure that Cowardly Gabby is Charlie Bucket because Bucket is actually quite cleaver and I rarely see that in Sybil’s posts. Of course, people with a narcissist personality disorder such as Cowardly Gabby suffer from mood swings and are medicated which may explain the behavioral changes.

        Like

Leave a comment