Friday, November 17, 2006
USC: Everything Cal isn't but wishes it was
Here is the article:
GARY PETERSON: TIMES COLUMNIST
It's a quiet Sunday morning on the USC campus, and all is well at this academic oasis in South Central Los Angeles.
It's just hours after the football team's big win over Oregon, and just hours before it will bound from seventh to fourth in the national rankings. Soon the oasis will shake itself awake, and thoughts will turn to the California Golden Bears. But for now, life here is just as the locals like it:
The buzz from another loud football Saturday night still ringing in their ears, another righteous victory coming 'round the bend, another season to remember in the making.
It's tradition. It's an entitlement. It's a birthright. And people hate USC for it. Especially people from Berkeley.
"I had grown up in Northern California, just being a football nut the whole time," USC football coach Pete Carroll said barely 48 hours after sleepy Sunday, "knowing about the Rose Bowl and how grand it always was, with 'SC being synonymous with the Rose Bowl. When I got a chance to coach here, it just kind of all came together. This is really an extraordinary place to be, with the opportunity to represent the history and the tradition of the program."
You can wish an outbreak of blue hair for the fair-haired Carroll. You can mock his supercilious sideline demeanor. But you can't dispute his contention, because Carroll has friends in low places. And by low, we mean the cardinal-and-gold carpeted lobby of Heritage Hall, USC's athletic administration building.
On a sleepy Sunday morning, Heritage Hall is a remarkable place to be. It's just you and the ghosts. See there, the first thing you notice upon pushing through the glass doors? It's a half-dozen Heisman Trophies arranged in a flying wedge. At the wedge's point is a trophy bearing a full-sized crystal football -- one of three doo-dads under plexiglass commemorating the 2004 national championship.
It has to be the largest collection of Heismans in captivity. The winners, from left to right: Reggie Bush, O.J. Simpson ("If I had won the Heisman, here's how it would have happened"), Matt Leinart, Carson Palmer, Charles White and Marcus Allen. USC has such a surplus of tradition that the Heisman won by current athletic director Mike Garrett isn't even missed. It's probably in his office; or maybe at a day spa having its fingernails buffed.
Five of the seven Heisman-winning jerseys are on display. As is Chris Claiborne's 1998 Butkus Award. As is the bust of coach Elmer (Gloomy Gus) Henderson, the man who took the Trojans to their first Rose Bowl. As is the bust of coach John McKay, who birthed the birthright by leading 'SC to its first four national titles, who fathered Student Body Right, who recruited Simpson and then had him carry the football 30 times a game because, "Why not? It doesn't weigh much."
Within a quip's throw of McKay's bust is one of John Wayne, "student and scholarship athlete," according to the plaque.
John Wayne, for crying out loud.
The run-up to Saturday evening's Cal-USC game is worthy of the heat and light it has generated across the week. To the winner goes the Rose Bowl -- or, in the case of USC, an outside shot at something better. But there is more to it than can be decided in one night. Saturday's game is more than a game. It is a class conflict, pitting an imperial "have" against an envious "have not."
The emotional current has a distinct north-to-south flow. It's not that Carroll's Trojan army doesn't respect Cal. It's just that USC's attentions are historically divided between a number of white-hot rivals -- Notre Dame, UCLA, Cal, whichever aspiring king slayer happens to be across the line of scrimmage on a given Saturday.
Whereas when it comes to Cal's Top 10 list of schools to loathe, Stanford is No. 1 (holding down an honorary position), with USC occupying spots 2 through 11.
The disdain is purely football driven. Cal can hang with USC in almost every manner imaginable -- the value of a degree; the notable alumni (John Wayne notwithstanding); the urban campus; the band; the old, gray grand dame of a football stadium (Cal's more scenically located, USC's still bearing the mint and mauve signature of the 1984 Summer Olympics).
And while Cal can take pride in its Hall of Fame room built into the undercarriage of Memorial Stadium, there simply is no competing with the lobby in Heritage Hall. The Heismans (seven to Cal's none). The national championships (seven to Cal's none). The Rose Bowls (18 appearances since Cal's most recent; 17 victories since Cal's most recent). The 430 NFL draft picks produced. The legend. The lore.
It's tough to say what annoys Cal fans more -- that USC boasts that kind of psychic bounty, or that their school doesn't.
"I loved the class of the program as a teenager growing up," Carroll said. "Once you get here, you realize there truly is a Trojan family and a legacy that we live with. It helps with our recruiting. People can sense it when they're here. It's real and it's very, very powerful."
Fans of Cal football want that feeling. They want to experience that power. They would like to know what Pasadena smells like on New Year's Day. They know the dynamics of the Cal-USC relationship cannot be reversed in three short hours. But a win Saturday night would send them to a place they haven't been for decades.
A word of warning: The ghosts have called another meeting for the lobby of Heritage Hall on Sunday morning. The plan is to silently celebrate another righteous victory. It's what they do. And until further notice, it's who they are.
Contact Gary Peterson at gpeterson@cctimes.com.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/16035891.htm
