FOOTBALL

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

The over/under for USC-Wisconsin is just 49.5 points. USC is averaging 31 points per game in the Big Ten games while Wisconsin averages 21.

Maybe the oddsmakers were not impressed with the 7 points the Badgers scored against UCLA. Can USC’s defense do that?

  • USC women’s volleyball plays No. 1-ranked Nebraska on Saturday at 6 p.m. PT on the Big Ten Network.
  • The USC band just added a rally before the Wisconsin game, two hours before kickoff at Jordan’s Big 10 Pub in Madison. How is it just getting added now?
  • Has anyone at USC done anything to secure more money for the baseball program? It’s a shame some of the big stars of the past haven’t stepped up. Many sports, like swimming, end up getting major donations from walk-ons because they appreciated the chance they got at USC.
  • And now for some history:
  • Sad news to report: Former USC basketball player Mark Wulfemeyer has passed away. He was 70.

Wulfmeyer averaged 36.5 points per game at Troy High School in Fullerton in 1974, when he was named Southern Section 4-A player of the year. In those days, 4-A was the best division.

He scored 2,608 points in his career, which was a record when he graduated and he did it without a three-point line. He scored 50 points in a Southern Section championship game.

Troy games had to be moved to Cal State Fullerton because crowds would line up at 4 p.m. for an 8 p.m. game.

A lot of people still remember seeing Wulfemeyer for the first time on KNBC (Channel 4), which showed a high school basketball game on Saturday afternoons. Ross Porter and Tommy Hawkins were the announcers.

He came to USC and played two seasons from 1975-77, averaging 5.4 points and 2.1 assists. Wulfemeyer was also a good pitcher and signed with the Angels out of high school but was sidelined with arm problems. He left USC and finished his career at an NAIA school.

A USC teammate was Bill Boyd, the son of then-coach Bob Boyd. Bill set the CIF career scoring record in 1971 at Crescenta Valley High School with 2,144 points. Wulfmeyer broke his record in 1974 by more than 400 points.

“We spent a few games sitting next to each other on the bench appreciating the irony — here he was the guy that broke my CIF career-scoring record — and we’re both on the USC bench,” Bill said.

  • Rancho Alamitos High School in Garden Grove defeated Anaheim, 10-7, on Thursday night to remain undefeated with a 9-0 record.

The Rancho Alamitos coach is Mike Enright. His great uncle was Dick Enright, who played at USC from 1954-56 and was the head coach at Oregon from 1972-73.

He was also Todd Marinovich’s coach at Capistrano Valley High School and head coach at Gardena High School from from 1962-69. He won a CIF title at Capo Valley and Gardena.

  • With the World Series starting Saturday, let’s remember a Trojan great who played in two World Series.

Don Buford was a USC tailback but had a stellar baseball career, winning a College World Series in 1958. He hit a home run off Tom Seaver in the 1969 World Series and won the 1970 World Series with the Baltimore Orioles.

Buford led USC in rushing, punt returns, kick returns, interceptions and tackles by a defensive back in 1958.

  • The photo below is a great shot of Los Angeles history, as Natalie Wood sits with fellow actors Nick Adams with Dennis Hopper (standing behind her) at Cooper Do-nuts, a 24-hour donut store in Los Angeles in 1959. All three were in “Rebel Without a Cause.”

Cooper Do-nuts was located around 5th and Main streets. There are conflicting reports over the exact location. And the year this photo was taken, it was the site of the “Cooper Do-nuts Riot,” which was a protest against police harrasment of the gay and transgender customers frequenting the shop.

It is considered the first instance of LGBTQ rebellion against police abuse in the United States, pre-dating the more famous Stonewall Inn riots of 1969 in New York.

PICTURE OF THE WEEK

Alexandra Bastedo

Pamela Tiffin

VIDEO OF THE WEEK

It’s time for another episode of What’s My Line? This is the part featuring mystery guest Muhammad Ali in 1965,

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

  2. Scott your Friday columns all relish as you rarely have an axe to grind. Good one this week edp noting Don Buford….BAL Orioles were a real machine beginning in 1966 when they swept the LAD 4 straight but then….even getting to the WS in 1969, 1970 & 1971 they dropped the two first two to NYY & PIT finally defeating CIN in 1971.

    Game 2 of the 1966 WS BAL vs LAD was the ladt game Kiofax pitched at Dodger Stadium and that unenviable record set by Willie Davis 3 errors!

    Good column

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    1. The Cincinnati series the O’s won 4-1 was the middle one (1970). They lost to the Mets 1-4 in 1969 and the Pirates in 1971 (a great 7 games series foreshadowing the “We are Family” 1979 rematch). Those Baltimore teams had 108 and 109 win regular seasons, and also went on to play the A’s in the ALCS in 1973 and 1974.

      Dead on the money with the 1966 Series – the Dodgers were defending champs and had replaced the Yankees as a quasi-hegemony (winning in 1959, 1963, and 1965) – and Koufax last game (that was the era of the “hitless” Dodgers) … he was dominant until the end (note: Jim Palmer entered MLB’s stage in that series).

      As you note, excellent job by the Wolfman of highlighting Don Buford one of many non-superstars (like Paul Blair, Earl Williams, Elrod Hendricks, Mark Belanger, and future manager Davey Johnson) on a team featuring Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Boog Powell – he of Camden Yard’s “Boog’s Barbecue” – and Palmer/McNally/Cuellar (plus Pat Dobson in 1971 when they had four 20 game winners in the same season).

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  3. Sad to hear Mark Wulfemeyer Orange County Basketball high school legend has passed away. The guy was a legend , but struggled at USC and never lived up to the hype.

    RIP Mark Wulfemeyer

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    2. I keep picking against them, being wrong the last two weeks … might as well keep making that contribution by going with Get Lucky With Bucky 27 USC (players not responsible for hiring and keeping the head coach, so can’t refer to them as the Coyotes) 24

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  5. Scott, you are at your best with your Friday posts. Troy HS was across the street from Cal State Fullerton which in the 1970’s had Augie Garrido as head baseball coach and national championship caliber teams. Troy also had an outstanding baseball team as well as basketball team. Cal State Fullerton also had a national championship mens gymnastic team as well as one of the first women’s gymnastics teams. Gymnasts from Cal State would coach gymnastics at the North Orange County YMCA where my oldest daughter and son learned gymnastics and were part of the youth team that competed all around Southern California. The coach at the Culver City YMCA was Makato Sakamoto the famous USC gymnast. All sports were local in those years, and North Orange County was a fertile recruiting ground for USC sports. Keith Van Horne, All American tackle at USC was recruited as a tight end from Fullerton HS. Hall of Fame baseball players Walter Johnson and Del Crandall went to Fullerton HS. Just a great sports community. Fight on, Dan, Class of 1962

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