USC pitcher Ben Cushnie has entered the transfer portal. He pitched 22 innings last season and had a 1.64 ERA with 13 strikeouts. Another pitcher, Garren Rizzo, who pitched only nine innings before getting injured, entered the portal. Freshman pitcher Jake Sekany, who redshirted, entered the portal this morning.

• Geoffrey Garrett, the dean of USC’s Marshall School of Business, was ousted by a faculty coup on Wednesday, according to LAMaterial.com. And in a delicious irony, the popular former dean, Jim Ellis, who was forced out and replaced by Garrett, is going to be advisor to the interim dean.

Garrett had been hired with a lot of fanfare by Carol Folt.

The faculty had been upset over declining enrollment and cuts to graduate programs.

• When is the last time a USC game at the Coliseum had this energy?

The Coliseum erupted when Mexico scored its FIFA World Cup opener pic.twitter.com/asqXPH4Y3g

— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) June 11, 2026

• And now for some history:
• There was intense speculation in May, 1975, that John McKay might leave USC for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That was about six months before McKay was hired.

It was probably crazy he remained the coach at USC after taking the job. But the Trojans were 7–0 and ranked No. 3 in the nation when Tampa Bay hired him. USC then lost four straight games.

Some players felt McKay lost interest. He fell asleep in his office during a bowl practice and student managers had to wake him up and get him out to the field.

• When USC played Michigan in the 1977 Rose Bowl, USC president John Hubbard made a $10 bet with President Gerald Ford, who played for the Wolverines.

• There are so many great stories of past USC figures that don’t get spotlighted enough.

Virgil Lubberden was the student editor of the USC yearbook in 1949. Under his editorship, the largest number of female staffers worked for the yearbook.

Lubberden eventually returned to USC to become business manager of the athletic dept. and then associate athletic director for more than 25 years. He was also the first permanent game manager of the Rose Bowl, serving from 1972-85 and he was inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 2008.

Virgil and his twin brother, Verle, were drafted during World War II and placed in the same military unit. On Nov. 14, 1944, the twins were part of a drive to Strasbourg, France, when a mortar exploded and injured Verle’s leg and arm. Virgil tended his brother, who was then taken to the hospital.

The next day, Virgil, no longer with his injured brother, was struck by a mortar round that injured his arm and leg. The brothers ended up in beds next to each in the hospital. After multiple surgeries and a long recovery process, the brothers, who grew up in Iowa, decided to return to California where they went to army training.

They enrolled at USC in the fall of 1945 and were devout Trojan fans for the rest of their lives. The brothers still lived together well into their late 80’s.

• When Virgil worked in the athletic dept., he was famous for always being the first one in the office. One morning in 1971, he saw two caretakers approach what they thought was a drunk student laying in the baseball infield at Bovard Field.

Lubberden went to see what was going on and the trio discovered it was former USC pitcher Bruce Gardner.

“He was sprawled out, face down,” Lubberden told Inside Sports. “I didn’t realize at first it was Bruce. It was just unbelievable when I found out who it was.”

Gardner had walked out to the infield and shot himself in the head. He had three plaques with him when he died: A baseball All-American certificate, his USC diploma and a suicide note.

Gardner had a 40-5 record at USC from 1958-60 with a 2.72 ERA. His 40 career victories was a USC record for nearly 40 years. He won a school-record 18 games in 1960 and was named national player of the year. He was even 10-0 on the USC freshmen team.

But he never got over the fact his mother refused to let him sign with the Chicago White Sox after his freshman year at USC for $66,500. By the time he signed a pro contract in 1960 after playing at USC, his stock had dropped and it was for a $12,000 bonus. He then had arm problems and was out of baseball after three years in the minors.

PICTURES OF THE WEEK

Victoria Principal

Beverly Adams

VIDEO OF THE WEEK

You might have seen everything but you have you seen Johnny Bench on Hee Haw?

Bench sang the Jim Croce classic, “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” in January, 1973 (the video incorrectly says 1969). This was just a couple months after he won his second National League MVP award after he hit ,270 with 40 home runs and 125 RBI.

Can you imagine an MVP doing this today? But then they couldn’t sing like Bench.