FOOTBALL

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

When USC dropped out of playing Texas Tech this week, it was obviously bigger news in Lubbock, Texas, than Los Angeles.

It even caused USC senior associate AD Cody Worsham to issue a statement to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

“Texas Tech is one of many schools we have had conversations with regarding future non-conference scheduling opportunities. We will continue to play competitive matchups that align with our program’s goals, excite our fans, and position USC Football for success.”

Did he say “excite the fans?” USC has not scheduled a single opponent to excite the fans since Lincoln Riley got hired. Some of these guys in the athletic dept. say things that can’t even be defended.

  • I’m sure this was a complete coincidence. But after I wrote about how it would be a poor idea to house the Heisman Trophies in the new football building if it is closed to the public, USC announced Thursday that the lobby would actually be open to the public Monday-Friday.

This is a positive development but it begs the question of why the McKay Center was closed for 13 years? The public certainly would have loved to see the lobby of that building too.

  • USC men’s basketball will play South Carolina on Nov. 25 and Utah State on Nov. 26 as part of the 26-team Acrisure Series tournament in Palm Desert.

Duke is coming to the tournament and will play Washington State. I hope USC tried to play the Blue Devils because that is the type of opponent needed given all the hype around the Trojans.

  • Last month, Geoff Garrett, the dean of the USC Marshall School of Business, announced he would step down amid a revolt of the business school’s faculty, which planned to hold a no-confidence vote.

Now it has emerged that applications to the MBA program of the Marshall School were down 40 percent in 2024-25 according to admissions data from U.S. News and World Report. Even worse, MBA applications were down 39.5 percent in the past three years.

This is surprising given the reputation of the Marshall School MBA program. In typical USC fashion, Garrett will not leave USC but become a special advisor to the president for global strategy and engagement.

  • And now for some history:

Ricky Bell is one of the greatest tailbacks in USC history.

But did you know he also did a little acting on the side?

The picture below is of Bell in an episode of The Rockford Files. It was an uncredited role but he played a valet at a wedding in the Season 3 episode, “The Trouble with Warren.” How many USC fans have seen this episode without realizing Bell was in it?

  • Look at this poster for the 1977 film, “Disco 9000.”

Bell has a credited role along with fellow USC star Gary Jeter. Also listed is former UCLA basketball player Lucius Allen and Brad Pye, Jr., who a couple weeks ago I wrote about leading a campaign to get Brice Taylor listed as an All-American in USC’s official records.

  • Bell wasn’t the only former USC player to appear in The Rockford Files. Phil Hoover, a member of the 1962 national championship team, also did an episode.

And of course, at least one episode was filmed at USC. Here is James Garner parking his famous Firebird in front of the Student Union.

  • And here he is taking a break on campus during filming of the episode.
  • Speaking of Hoover, Hoover played left end (receiver) at USC but during the 1963 Rose Bowl, USC ran out of defensive linemen. Gary Kirner sat on a luggage rack that collapsed and the fall cut his finger to the bone. He tried to play in the game but collapsed from the pain. Marv Marinovich got thrown out of the game.

So late in the fourth quarter, Hoover was sent in to play defensive end. He covered Wisconsin star tight end Pat Richter so well that QB Ron Vander Kelen stopped throwing to his favorite target and instead threw a pass that was intercepted by Willie Brown in the end zone and sealed the Trojans’ 42-37 victory and national title.

There’s no shortage of stories on the 1962 team. Assistant coach Dave Levy told me that Marv Marinovich got into the most fights of any player during that time. One of Marinovich’s classmates relayed this story.

“I can still remember the time Marinovich got into a fight with (USC football player) Lloyd Winston. It started in Marks Hall and ended in Trojan Hall. No one wanted to break it up because they didn’t want to get beat up.”

  • For decades, there was a school of thought that any football player could get into USC, no matter the grades.

Let’s go way back . . . to 1948 when the great running back Hugh McElhenny graduated from Washington High School in Los Angeles. If you talk to anyone who was around in those days, they can tell you about McElhenny’s exploits in football and track.

McElhenny wanted to go to USC but did not have the grades. So he went to Compton College, coached by former USC player Tay Brown. But after just one season, he learned the University of Washington could accept him immediately. USC needed him to go another year to Compton.

McElhenny went to Washington, became an All-American, rushed for 296 yards and 5 TD’s vs. Washington State and returned a punt 100 yards for a TD vs. USC. He then became the ninth player selected overall in the 1952 NFL Draft and was selected for the Pro Bowl six times.

  • In 1973, USC was interested in JC tailback Chuck Muncie of Arizona Western. When the USC coaches saw his transcripts, they knew it would be impossible to get him eligible and basically gave up.

To their amazement, Muncie became eligible at Cal. Muncie finished No. 2 in the Heisman Trophy results in 1975 and was Pac-8 Player of the Year.

PICTURES OF THE WEEK

Pilar Velázquez

Linda Harrison

VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Rita Moreno is a favorite of this blog because she was the queen of a USC student charity dance in 1954. And this is her memorable performance on The Muppet Show as she sang “Fever” with Animal on the drums.

The performance is a little more than two minutes but Moreno won an Emmy and it’s one of the most popular segments of the show that ran from 1976-81.

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

  1. FYI……Alani Noa was named to the Outland Trophy watch list. Jayden Maiava and Waymond Jordan were named to the Maxwell Trophy watch list

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    1. KAM: Scott, can you block this Cowardly Gabby person’s IP address? The constant violent threats, impersonations of real posters and obscene political rants have no place in a USC sports blog. Please, do the right thing and make this blog respectable again

      DON: Thank You!

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      2. KAM: Your evil message is loud and clear, Cowardly Gabby

        Gabby

        November 8, 2024 at 12:13 am

        how about a serving of gabby’s fist…….p u s s yboy

        DON: Ban this violent freak!

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  2. Moreno is also one of 28 people to win an Emmy, Tony, Oscar and Grammy. She also played a sultry tease in the film Marlowe which also has some martial arts guy in it playing a mob enforcer named Winslow Wong, think his last name was Lee ?

    Marlowe was a nice PI flick, released in 1969 after Harper, 1966 and Bullitt 1968, all three are worth a watch more than once, the cast of Harper is amazing.

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    2. Harper is wonderful: lots of fantastic locales, lots of fun scenes, Newman at his best…..

      ……but, then, there’s Shelly Winters…..

      #I’mGladCliftKnewHowToHandleHerIn”APlaceInTheSun”

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      2. Scott, the name-calling and vulgarity from this unhinged troll need to stop. Please, block the IP address and make the blog respectable again

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    1. KAM: Todd Marinovich is currently 57 years old and lives in Hawaii.

      DON: He has recently released a memoir titled Marinovich: Outside the Lines in Football, Art, and Addiction in August 2025, detailing his life experiences and struggles.

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  4. KAM: Hard to understand why people want to be in the movies, even if it is only a 10-second cameo

    DON: I guess the thinking is now they are immortalized because movies are forever, or so they think

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  5. KAM: So the dean of the SC business school is being demoted at least in part due to MBA applicants being way down

    DON: Maybe guys figured out that it’s not so much education that counts in business, it’s about how much money can you bring in

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    1. The B-school model has changed. Employers weren’t seeing the value added of MBAs from second or third tier schools (sorry Marshall) relative to really good undergrads from Stanford and MIT. Even applications at some tier 1 places are stagnant or down.

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      1. Marshall is a 2nd or 3rd tier B school ? Hmm US News would disagree

        ” Placed in the top 25 (tied at #25) among U.S. graduate business schools by U.S. News & World Report. Tied for #1 in undergraduate and graduate accounting programs, and holds strong top-20 placements for entrepreneurship, marketing, and supply chain management. “

        It’s great if you stay local or regional, not so much if you want Wall Street or East coast.

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    2. Regionally it is strong in Southern California. I do call #25 third tier – Tier one is Chicago, MIT, Stanford, Wharton, Northwestern, Harvard (more in terms of its name), Yale; second tier includes Columbia, Michigan, NYU, Duke, Carnegie, maybe UVA. Third tier would be USC, Texas-Austin; gutties at back end of second tier or top end of third tier.

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      1. the only full time MBAs worth quitting your job and pursuing are the big ones as noted, and I would put Haas and Maybe Anderson ahead of USC given the natural edge in recruiting in the Bay Area which is really where all undergrads should commit to moving to for a few years if they’re serious about making money. Haas gets a lot of FEMBA students through their dual Wharton program. My company would have paid but by that point in my career I thought it was a waste of time.

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  6. KAM: Some of Scott Wolf’s ‘ring kissers say Scottie only shows pictures of girls he got tired of dating

    DON: I wouldn’t mind seeing some of his rejects

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      1. ’67, anybody here who supports ucla has 2 strikes against them and I am ready to mow them down with my fast ball

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    1. “John”, you can include this as a weekly piece, right before the gal Fridays for max exposure

      Here is one for next week, feel free to cut and paste”

      “Dear Missus Ed, the squirrel’s nest on the bottom of the double-wide is a actually a win-win. Some of those acorns being stored there will be a great addition to Ed’s vegan nut loaf…”

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  8. Great Friday piece Scott. Met Garner one time, wonderful gentleman, totally down-to-earth, and he loved the driving the Pontiac Firebird.

    Magnum was another excellent PI show with Trojan roots.

    I think Mike Warren from the gutty hoops teams of the late 1960s did a lot in Hollywood, acted and then directed.

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    2. Isn’t it a shame that we have to point out how some actors like James Garner are nice guys while the rest are too self-ego involved

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      1. I met Robert Redford in the SLC airport, he wasn’t a jerk. You, as usual, paint with a very broad brush, and not very well I might add.

        Liked by 1 person

  12. I remember the quote made by a WI Badger player after their near comeback at the Rose Bowl against USC when asked how it happened.

    “We started playing dirty like USC.” Seemed confirmed by Marv Marinovich violent personality.

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  13. ….anyone else recall that LA Times sports article about Todd Marinovich being ‘disciplined’ by his daddy ‘Marv’ who had him (Todd) bounce a basketball from Huntington Beach Pier to Newport Beach while ‘Marv’ shrieked at him from behind.

    The sole saving grace he had was his Uncle Craig Fertig.

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  15. Yes Scott, you are responsible for the public’s ability to touch the Heismans. By the way, when I was on campus a few years ago for a game and had time to kill, I visited the McKay Center which allowed the public to enter. In fact, I thought that the campus was too open after the night game. Thank you LR for providing the impetus behind the new football center which keeps us competitive with other top schools, especially Oregon. If USC finally wins the NC, Scott will say that they only earned it because they didn’t play ND during the season. Good historic fact about the 1963 Rose Bowl. As a rah rah fan, I’m predicting that the 2026-27 school year, USC will win national championships in football, men’s or women’s water polo, women’s basketball, men’s volleyball, women’s volleyball, beach volleyball, men’s and women’s track and field, women’s golf, men’s tennis and will be in the College World Series final. Scott, you can congratulate me for my insight at the end of the year. Fight on, Dan, Class of 1962

    P.S. Of course Scott would say that all the NC’s were meaningless because men’s basketball only got to the final four where they lost in OT to Duke.

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  16. I knew a guy at my old gym up north that played D-Line at Cal when Muncie arrived. This guy was also a high school teammate of Haden and McKay at Amat. His Muncie story was about Cal having to stash him at a JC and apt in the East Bay, and everyday asst coach Artie Gigantino would go pick him up. One day in the. Caldecott Tunnel Muncie pulled out a joint , offered some to Artie and then burned it all the way to Berkeley. He said Muncie dressed like a pimp and left Cal functionally illiterate.

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  17. KAM: I bet Texas Tech is sore over the contract it had with SC. For them it would be a ‘Welcome to the Bigs’ moment

    DON: And SC effectively says back ‘Sorry. That’s the way the cookie crumbles

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  18. DON: There is a lot of pressure to perform on this 30-something SC freshman class. Being No. 1 will do that to you.

    KAM: It might not be fair they’re rated that high. The large number of recruits was a major factor in the ratings

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  19. DON: –With SC losing their football center, the odds of them making the Playoffs dropped from 24% to about 23.2%

    KAM: Playoffs Slayoffs, I don’t care, for me SC-Ohio St, is all I need. And throw in Oregon too

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  20. KAM: Remembering that memorable 1962 SC team in the Rose Bowl with Wisconsin, and the Badgers simply running out of time as they scored 23 unanswered points in the darkening, frantic 4th quarter

    DON: Is it true that a Wisconsin player said “We started playing as dirty as USC?” It wouldn’t surprise me. SC and Notre Dame had a reputation for dirty play and getting penalties

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  21. KAM: Strange that the Wolf Censor would wipe that one out. Let’s try it with fewer words– It is 3-weeks from the first game, and for the freshmen that get in the game that first play is like their “Rudy” moment

    DON: And with them thinking, ‘Wow, it’s official now, I am an SC football player

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