Johnny Wooden & Tommy Lasorda

A few years ago, I had a chance to meet Pete Carroll. I was leading a group of at-risk children on a tour of USC and one of our campus hosts had an in with him. I am pretty sure it meant more to me than it did to the kids who described as “some white guy.” But we didn’t exchange contact info and the clandestine meeting, which many of my friends have heard me exaggerate, really was little more than 10 minutes and I was part of a group tour.

Then why am I so upset about his departure?

I started asking this question when my brother called me at work Friday with the scoop – he knew I would be upset. My dad knew I would be upset. Most of my friends knew I would be upset. Why do I have such an emotional attachment to man who by all technical definitions of the word is a stranger?

Is there something bigger than Pete Carroll’s departure to be written about? It is my dysfunctional attachment to sports celebrities (everyone has heard me go on and on about Brett Favre) or is a larger issue with the changing face of sports? What happened to the days of John Wooden(or Johnny Wooden as he was known in my house growing up) when a coach built a dynasty and saw it through?

Johnny Wooden is said to attend as many UCLA home games as his health will allow for Pete’s sake (no pun intended) a team he hasn’t coached in nearly four decades! That is loyalty, that is devotion, that is a bygone era. He didn’t leave in the middle of the unmatchable streak of National Championships to coach the Lakers lured by a higher paycheck. I don’t doubt he might have at times wanted to, but he was faithful to a setting that suited him well.

Or consider another L.A. Sports Personality – Tommy Lasorda. He goes to many, many Dodger games. Moreover, last year during the playoffs he was acting like a freaking cheerleader – out of his seat, jumping around, waving a towel all in a clear effort to rally the fans because he himself is a fan. I highly doubt Pete Carroll will be singing “Fight On!” clad in cardinal and gold in fifteen years. I know your counter is that in the case of Tommy Lasorda he remains an employee of the LA Dodgers, but still, I think paycheck aside, he is very invested in the team he not only played all of his games with but one he helped earn its last championship ring.

But bigger than sports trends, do the untimely and painful departures of guys like Pete Carroll remind of us a profound shift in our culture? Have we become transient consumers not unlike Pete Carroll prone to flee when the going gets tough (NCAA violations, a terrible season, players leaving early, etc) and frankly a better offer is on the table? And so maybe we hope for those moments when he had success at USC that he, Pete Carroll would be better than us, the exception to the rule the noble one who boldly and nobly stands face to face with all that is bad in our culture and draws a line in the sand instead of well, cashing out for a bigger paycheck and less hassle?

Somber Reflection on Events to come…

Dear friends, the time has come. I can no longer postpone dealing with the pain. I can no longer pretend there is not an elephant following me around to every room of every single place I go to. This most awful of awful of situations will not be made better by not looking it square in the eyes and calling it what it is. Terrible. Ridiculously terrible.

Pete Carroll will likely announce his regrettable decision to take a job coaching the Seattle Seahawks in the morning. Burn down Athens; bomb the harbor, pillage Rome, siege the city – whatever metaphor people use to describe devastating and irreversible turns of events that bring ends to empires. The Trojans’ glory suffered terrible blows this year, but this, dear friends is the end. And to think, coach Carroll knew Thursday night of the tragedy about to befall our beloved Trojans when he eloquently, coolly and perhaps a bit smugly commentated the BCS game.

This might be worse than Brett Favre becoming a Viking. Good Lord, do I now have to be a Seahawks fan? I think I might have to call in sick to work tomorrow.

Older than Matt Barkley, Part IV

I believed this little bear hadn’t survived the years of moving – but alas, I found him this morning! Indeed, what you are looking at is a tiny stuffed Bruin strung up on a noose. We bought him from a Coliseum bootlegger (we’ve all done it) in the late eighties making him significantly older than our dear QB. Today, he will return to the Coliseum where he hasn’t been in well over ten years – I know, what kind of USC fan am I? Interestingly, in 1994 he made the front page of the Arizona Star and was the key ingredient to sneaking in three college basketball fanatics into McKale Center for a sold-out matchup between an Arizona team that would go on to make the Final Four (losing to Bill Clinton’s Razorbacks) and the first year of the O’Bannon brothers tenure as Bruins.

Here’s to hoping his magic is back today for USC, God knows they need it. Also, as I have said before, and perhaps I am one of the only USC fans who feels this way, but Norm Chow, please come home, all is forgiven.

Older than Matt Barkley, Part II

In high school, I worked as a hostess at the Olive Garden – Hospitaliano was our motto. As it happened then, not sure if Olive Garden still has this policy, we host staff were required to serve as doormen/people which for me, as a gregarious sixteen year old, was a good fit. Except for the weather and that year, as I am told is the case this year, was an El Nino. So there I was, rushing out the door to make my shift at the OG when I needed a jacket. Why I didn’t grab a jacket of my own, I don’t know, but I stopped at the closet in the entry way of my parents house and grabbed my dad’s caramel-colored corduroy lined with chocolate brown faux fur which much to the chagrin of my father has been mine ever since.

I have it on good authority my father has not been able to fit into this jacket since he stopped smoking in 1984, so it wasn’t much of a loss for him. I believe this jacket was purchased at JC Penny’s in the mid-seventies, making it a good fifteen years older than our beloved QB. I don’t wear it as much as I used to, but without fail every time I do, I get many, many compliments. In fact, over the years, I have had more than one person offer to buy it right off my back – can you believe it?

And so today, as the Trojans take on the Sun Devils, not to be confused with the devil incarnate and recent World Series Winners who’s MVP instead of Matsui ought to have been cold, hard cash, Fight On and let’s win out our games. Emerald Bowl, here we come!

PS: Don’t you just love my new patio furniture? I heart Craig’s List.

Older than Matt Barkley Part I

It occurred to me earlier this season that USC’s new (future Heisman) QB was born in 1990. As is the case for many of us out there, I remember 1990 well. Matt Barkley being such a youngin’ makes me feel painfully old. To this end, I have decided for the duration of USC season, around each game I will do a post featuring an item I own or have in my possession that is indeed older than Matt Barkley.

Item #1 Older Than Matt Barkley, my couch. Yes, ladies and gentlemen the tactfully covered couch featured above is approximately 25 years old. My parents bought it at then Price Club circa 1985 giving me a good five year cushion on number 7.

Fight on tonight and let’s break our three year losing streak in Oregon.

The Rocking Horse Mug

The hope of a freeway series is fading – instead it looks the World Series will be a matchup between the Phillies and the Devil Incarnate.

By week’s end, I will have turned a year older (gulp), moved into a home I own, seen the devil incarnate play in Anaheim (and game 7 at Chavez Ravine if there is one or homecoming for the Trojans) and my first ever U2 concert. But back to packing, cleaning, sorting organizing, making lists, agonizing over appliances and all of the craziness of moving. I am very grateful for PTOs and having negotiated three weeks of vacation.

I have lived in no fewer than eleven different places with fifteen different people (plus nine months with my parents in my mid-twenties) in the last sixteen years. In that time I have lived in dorms, crappy apartments, townhouses, houses, guest houses, gated communities, and more crappy apartments in four different cities in two different states.

All of that ends Thursday when I move into a home I own.

As the gypsy/bohemian chapter of my life comes to a close, I am grasping to make sense of this wonderful and unexpected turn of a page. Sifting through the unbelievable amount of possessions I have, I came across this rocking horse mug pictured above. I believe he (the rocking horse mug) was given to me at a Christmas party in either 1993 or 1994 having come wrapped in red cellophane and filled with hot chocolate mix. I don’t know how or why he made the cut; with each of the previous moves I certainly purged many, many items as I am doing this time around. Perhaps I kept him all of this time because I so love the friends who gave him (the rocking horse mug) to me who now live five states away. Perhaps it reminds me of childhood and my penchant for rocking and carousel horses. Whatever the case, he (the rocking horse mug) now lives in my new house cleaned and stored with all of his friends, the other coffee mugs of course. He will continue, as he has for the better part of fifteen years, to bear witness to my life.

David and Goliath

Tonight I am packing for yet another trip to Colorado. I should be excited – and I suppose there are pieces of this trip I am looking forward to Jason Mraz at Red Rocks, catching up with dear friends, and being trained to lead a mentoring program that I think is amazing – I am sort of tired of traveling. I never thought I would get to this point and I suppose it doesn’t help that very recently I traveled to the Rocky Mountain State, but I am dragging my feet in packing.

I am also totally worried our beloved Trojans might lose tomorrow. I know the Huskies are a nothing team, but wasn’t it about this time last year they were able to beat Ohio State only to fall to Oregon State? Please never schedule a Thursday game again Mike Garrett (or whoever decides these matters). But consider our past few regular season losses – obviously Oregon State ’08, Stanford ’07 and Oregon State again in ’06 and lastly and perhaps most painfully UCLA ’06. Rankings or not, USC has a Goliath complex and we all know how that story ends.

And of all people, I believe Steve Sarkisian (who I was happy to see go last year) would love to beat his former boss tomorrow. He knows this team; he knows these players and this win would make his season. All other eyes might be on the swamp or such places but I hope Goliath keeps an eye out for small boys with slingshots (aka Steve Sarkisian’s Washington Huskies).