USC Football: Pete Carroll Brought College Football To the People

While the recent ruling by the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions has tarnished Pete Carroll’s legacy, in the minds of many, this writer included, Pete Carroll remains one of the all-time great coaches in college football.

What Carroll did in his nine years at USC was nothing less than phenomenal.  He took a losing program that was lethargic and unmotivated and pumped his own dynamic brand of energy into the entire program from the returning players to new recruits.

He made Carson Palmer a Heisman Trophy winner and positioned the Trojans to go on and win two national championships, seven consecutive PAC-Ten Championships and make seven consecutive BCS Bowl appearances. 

Carroll also made Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush Heisman Trophy winners and had the Trojans nationally ranked in the Top Four over seven consecutive seasons.

While the NCAA can vacate 14 of USC’s victories including one National Championship, they cannot remove the memories of those victories and the glory years under Carroll.

Some have called him arrogant, mostly out of jealousy.  His celebrity status, that included appearances on shows such as “60 Minutes” and on the covers of national magazines, offended many in the ranks of the NCAA as well as sports writers and other pundits, who feel that college coaches should not have such close rapport with their players or be able to relate with these young men on their own level.

They were offended by a coach who spent some of his spare time surfing in the Pacific on a boogie board or cavorting with celebrities in the locker room to the amusement of his players.

In short, these are the misanthropes who are offended by anyone who truly seizes life, living it to the fullest and daring not to care what the NCAA, ESPN, Bill Plaschke or Scott Wolf think about it.

But neither Pete Carroll’s coaching success nor his celebrity status are anything compared to his true legacy – the legacy that he brought to even the most common and underprivileged of us.

Pete Carroll brought college football to the people.  Not just the undergraduates and alumni who are intelligent and fortunate enough to secure a college education.  But to people who have never been in college and many who have not even been to high school.

He made the USC Trojans everyone’s team, the team of the people. 

The NCAA is punishing USC (and perhaps deservedly so, I will not be the judge) for this, which is Pete Carroll’s greatest legacy.

USC is being punished because Pete Carroll had such enthusiasm for the game of football and for the young men that he coached that he opened the doors of Howard Jones Field to everyone, young and old, rich or poor, educated or not.

He showed all of us how football was played from the ground up.  From the conditioning drills, to the fundamentals, to the seven-on-sevens, to the special team drills, to the intrasquad scrimmages.

Pete Carroll made football fun for all of us, even those of us who never knew what a seven-on-seven drill was.

He allowed groups of school children and the handicapped and the underprivileged from South Central Los Angeles to come and watch his Trojans' train and meet some of their Saturday heroes afterward.

And Carroll, himself, always had time for a kind word, a pat on the head or an autograph for every youngster who approached him after practice even as a horde of reporters clung to him like bees to a hive.

Maybe the nectar of life that one such as Pete Carroll exudes is much like honey, both attractive and invigorating.

But not only did Carroll bring the people to Howard Jones Field, he brought his philosophy and sometimes his players to the people of South Central Los Angeles.

Carroll started an organization known as A Better L.A. to rebuild the lives of young men that have been devastated by gang violence.  He set up classes to re-educated and inspire these youths and encouraged employers to give them opportunities to make a new life.

In short, Carroll’s organization is turning the nightmare of gang violence into a dream of new possibilities for many families in this underserved community.  He brought hope where there was none before.

But along with the good, often comes some bad.  And the NCAA as well as the pundits have chosen to focus on the few greedy bastards who saw a way to make a fast buck by preying on young superstars and enticing them to break the rules.

The NCAA looked upon those crowds of common people, many of whom had no attachments whatsoever to USC, standing on the sidelines of Howard Jones Field and focused on the fact that a few sports agents or their representatives could get close to these young men whose amateur status the NCAA must protect at all costs.

They were appalled that Mike Garrett and his staff allowed those doors to Howard Jones Field to remain open to anyone who wanted to stop by and watch a USC practice.

Well, those doors are now forever closed and Pete Carroll’s legacy tarnished as a result of a couple unscrupulous criminals and one star athlete who put his own greed and his family’s above his school, his team and the common people of Los Angeles.

But let us all be thankful, for we can sleep peacefully at night knowing that the NCAA is protecting the amateur status of all its student-athletes.  Not through seeking legislation to revoke licenses of sports agents and institute prison sentences for tampering with student-athletes or revoking the NBA’s right to sign student-athletes after only one semester of education – but by punishing USC.

Sounds like a good plan, but I wonder if it can go seven consecutive years without a violation anywhere in Division 1 sports.  In the meantime, I’ll put Pete Carroll’s legacy above anything the NCAA can do or say.