Let’s be careful not to forget the fun in sports


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Think back to when you were a kid, when you would come home from school and shoot hoops with your friends in your driveway, or wake up on a rainy Saturday morning and put on your soccer jersey and cleats on without a second thought, or when you would spend all day in your fourth […]

Volleyball deserves more fan support


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The USC men’s volleyball team, has a rich tradition of success, including four NCAA championships and 12 Final Four appearances. Over the last couple years, USC coach Bill Ferguson has directed the USC men’s volleyball team back to the top of the collegiate volleyball hierarchy; his teams have been synonymous with the word “success.” In […]

Coliseum can learn from Dodgers’ ordeal


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One stadium’s misfortune could be another stadium’s opportunity. With less than five months until the Trojans take the field against Minnesota on Sept. 3 for their 2011 home opener, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum commission and USC have a chance to create their own silver lining in the aftermath of the altercation outside of Dodger […]

Future still bleak for USC football program


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I woke up yesterday to an email from USC football announcing Tuesday’s “Trojan Day” at L.A. Live. USC coach Lane Kiffin, his father Monte and Ed Orgeron will be there signing autographs. Season tickets will be available for purchase. But the most promising part of the email was written in all capitals at the top: […]

‘Arrogant’ USC blog provides perspective


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I have this very annoying habit when I wake up each morning of anticipating things to come — a tendency to glance at a calendar, eager for some distant event to occur. My initial idea behind this was pure: I wanted the good news to come faster. Fortunately, I’m not unique in this regard. At […]

Cream of the crop in USC’s athletic program


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The other day, my buddy and I got into a pretty intense argument. It started out with him saying he was glad spring football had started, because “now there’s something worth talking about in USC athletics.” I shot back that, although it was okay for him to be excited about spring ball, he had no […]

NCAA air balls UConn situation


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As I watched the NCAA championship game, I could only shake my head in disbelief. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The entire Butler team could not put the ball in the basket, and, as hard as it is to believe, UConn wasn’t much better. But besides the lack of offensive efficiency both teams, […]

USC’s nonconference schedule the right call


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In every level of athletic competition, there is one core tenet coaches use when looking toward the future: To be the best, you have to beat the best. The USC men’s basketball team turned a corner in that regard with wins over non-conference foes like Texas and Tennessee in 2010, though the challenge of taking […]

March still trumps the BCS chaos every time


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Every college football season for the past 10 years has featured a thunderstorm of complaints about everybody’s favorite whipping boy, the Bowl Championship Series. When fans, coaches and sports writers complain about the lack of a playoff system in college football, they immediately point to March Madness as the gold standard for determining a true […]

New USC challenged to survive 2011 climate


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Last June, after a four-year NCAA investigation, then-USC Athletic Director Mike Garrett echoed a commonly held sentiment: The NCAA had it in for USC. At a hotel ballroom in San Francisco, filled with 180 university boosters, Garrett responded to the Committee on Infractions’ 67-page report by accusing college athletics’ governing body of jealousy. “As I […]