FOOTBALL

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

USC baseball assistant coach Travis Jewett has resigned to take a position with Vanderbilt. It means USC has lost its top two assistant coaches since the season ended.

He will be replaced by Bill Mosiello, who has been a candidate in the past for the USC head-coaching job and was a Trojan assistant in 2007.

  • The lawsuit filed by Brian Kennedy highlights another problem with USC. There are very few Trojans working in the athletic dept. and they don’t fully appreciate the people who donated for decades.

In the past, the athletic dept. had long-time employees with USC ties that knew how to keep boosters invested in the university and would regularly meet with them. It was smart business because you could go to those donors for repeat donations.

That hasn’t been the case lately. No one knows who anyone is anumore. This lawsuit also never would have happened under Pete Carroll. But you-know-who doesn’t like to mingle with the public.

  • One of my favorite Kennedy stories happened a few years after a USC-UCLA game at the Galen Center. Kennedy had courtside seats right next to the USC bench. USC lost to UCLA, and as Andy Enfield walked off the court, Kennedy told him, “You got outcoached!”
  • And now for some history:
  • Brice Taylor is one of the most amazing stories in USC history, the first All-American (1925) and first African-American player in school history. He also played football despite having only one hand.

The puzzling thing is USC did not have an African-American player for another 27 years after Taylor graduated. This was obviously deliberate but the question is why after Taylor’s success?

Well, here’s another weird twist to the Taylor-USC legacy. During most or all of this 27-year period when USC did not have any African-American players, it also omitted Taylor from its official list of All-Americans.

A campaign was started by Brad Pye, Jr., sports editor of the Los Angeles Sentinel and Deke Houlgate, Sr., a USC graduate who created his own college football rankings system, to get Taylor officially listed as an All-American.

I spoke to Pye about it once and he said he and Houlgate were forced to push hard with USC officials for Taylor’s inclusion. If you read anything on Taylor, he was a beloved figure wherever he went, so his omission is even more disgraceful.

Let’s remember USC also did not have an African-American basketball players during this period and Coach Forrest Twogood waited until 1959 to integrate the team. Another disgraceful period in the athletic dept.’s history.

As crazy as all this sounds, Taylor did attend the 1950 USC “men’s football banquet” that featured 18 members of the 1925 team.

And in 1957, he had his footprints placed in cement at halftime of a USC game, which was an honor given to every USC All-American in those days. By 1957, Pye and Houlgate had successfully had Taylor reinstated to the official list.

Those footprints are still on display at the McKay Center (but not for public viewing).

Taylor became the football coach at Southern University in 1928 and started the Bayou Classic with Grambling. He eventually became a teacher and football coach at Jefferson High School in Los Angeles, where he would open the gym on Saturdays and hosted Sports Nights during the week for neighborhood children.

He was the Teacher of the Year in Los Angeles in 1969 and was also appointed to positions by Gov. Ronald Reagan and Mayor Sam Yorty.

A DIFFERENT WORLD

Imagine a 600-student food fight. It happened at USC in 1975. Wonder what John Hubbard thought about it?

PICTURES OF THE WEEK

Anne Wiazemsky

Edy Williams

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

  1. KAM: Maybe this Kennedy fellow isn’t all that nice to shout at SC’s coach after a loss that “You got out-coached”

    DON: I guess after all those SC donations he figured he could say what he wanted

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    1. Nice pickup. Everything new I hear about Kennedy makes me like him less. Aggravating him isn’t gonna hurt us –I’m willing to bet donations are on the rise, not on the decline.

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      1. Telling Enfield that he can’t coach isn’t a put down, it’s the truth

        I’m willing to bet donations are not on the rise

        Liked by 1 person

      2. A BIG “yes” to first paragraph.

        But…

        …Kennedy sounds like a perennial pain in the asz…..

        #ScottNeedsToPresentUsWithNumbersOnParagraph#2

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      3. How would you like it if you donated tons of money to have your name on the building, field, whatever and then they took it off?

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  2. KAM: In 1925 and even in 1959 the U.S. was mired in racial prejudice,

    DON: It was only in the 1960s and ’70s that teams started to realize they could win big with Black athletes

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    1. Yes… that’s right… America was really, really racist in 1959.

      #ItWasSo,SoRacistItWasn’tEvenFunny…

      #[AllTheOtherCountriesWereSaddened]

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      2. Karma — I was too hasty [and that’s not like me]….Anne was in a film by French Director Bresson in which she appeared luminescent …and she went on to become Godard’s wife, starring in several notable films, looking and acting beautifully…she would have made a nice Helen in the Odyssey if Nolan had been around during her time [and weren’t intent on DEI casting]…..

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    1. Rumor has it there was a pretty serious corncob struggle in Pat Haden’s dorm room one year…. but I don’t think that’s the fight you’re referring to….

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      1. No rumor, it’s fact. There was a fight over a cucumber, fake Gabby tried to take it from Haden, they slipped on some Astroglide, and the cucumber ended up, well……. you can guess.

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      3. Soon Sybil is gonna get really upset with us having this dialog….. expect some “FREAK!” comments…..

        #”I’llShowThemIExist!!”

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  5. Has Wolf ever written about Robert Stack? Stack took some drama courses at the University of Southern California, where he played on the polo team. Does that make him a Trojan ?

    Or Robert Vaughn? Vaughn earned a PhD in communication from the University of Southern California in 1970. His doctoral dissertation “The Influence of the House Committee on Un-American Activities on the American Theater 1938–58” was an appraisal of the effect the committee’s activities had on American theater. Does that make him a Trojan ?

    This weeks column was a little light, think Wolf has a World Cup hangover

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  7. KAM: Finally, SC football practice begins next week

    DON: –And just when it’s starting to get hot in L.A. I was Down South one time when summer practices started, and wondered how kids got through that heat and humidity

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    1. Great minds think alike. Pat Haden sent the following message to our esteemed Athletic Director: “The best way to practice hard …while beating the heat…. is to allow the players to practice in the nude. I would be willing to supervise for free.”

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  8. Just checked out pictures of Anne Wiazemsky and Edy Williams, and I would put them in the category of “But they have great personalities”

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