USC Athletics: The Pride Before the Fall

So there we were, about 30 rows up in the Los Angeles Coliseum. Seemingly lost in a sea of Cardinal and Gold, beautiful Southern California girls, and "Fight On" being played ad nauseam by the Spirit of Troy. Yes, USC football was alive and well!

The problem was, it was fourth and 10, at the USC 10 yard line, and Stanford had the ball. The Men of Troy were clinging to a 23-17 fourth quarter lead as a 41 point favorite. You could feel the tension and nerves throughout the entire game. Then it happened, Tavita Pritchard dropped back and threw the perfect fade for the touchdown. I have never heard 90,000 people get that quiet, that fast.

Gone was the shot at another national title. Gone was a 35 game home winning streak. Gone was the sense of invincibility. And most importantly, gone were the Pete Carroll Trojans as I knew them. I remember looking at my son and saying, "You just watched the biggest upset in college football history."

How wrong I was!

That game truly marked the beginning of the end of USC's dominance. It was forgivable in 2006, when SC lost road games to Oregon State and UCLA. After all, the Beavers are a great home team and UCLA is a rival, albeit a rival they beat 66-19 the previous season. But I could not get a grasp on a home loss to Stanford.

The mighty Trojans were never the same, losing later that season to Oregon on the road, and then suffering an unforgivable loss to Oregon State in 2008.

And 2009 was just the icing on the worst cake that Pete Carroll and company ever baked.

Now it's all over folks. No more Pete Carroll, No more Reggie Bush drama, no more Mike Garrett, and no more discussion of Rose Bowls and BCS berths.

It's not over because we lost games to inferior football teams. Not over because we became a direct parallel of the University of Miami and their near three-peat in the early 2000s. Most assuredly it's not over because of the out flux of talent that's stripped from our roster on an annual basis by the NFL draft.

It is over because we were blind, or in the case of Carroll and the University, because they chose to NOT SEE. It is over because Reggie Bush had that good old sense of American entitlement. He was, and is a spoiled athlete, and he had to have it NOW, NOW, NOW!

Combine that with the OJ Mayo situation, and the cards came tumbling down.     

Were we all blinded? I think so. Blinded by pride, expectations, bright lights and our own traditions. Blinded by a slobberfest from ESPN commentators like Mark May, Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit. Every week we had to hear how GREAT Pete Carroll was and how USC didn't rebuild, they reloaded. About how our cupboard was always full and how our second string guys could win a conference title.

We actually believed that USC was doing it right. Year in and year out, doing ALL the right things that it took to compete on the highest level.

Doing the right things it took to, "Win Forever," as Pete would say.

Although my heart didn't want to believe that Reggie Bush and OJ Mayo were on the take, my mind ALWAYS knew differently. I had too much pride in the program to want to notice its flaws. 

But if you were a true fan of the program, you had no choice but to know that something wasn't quite right.

Why else would a blue chip West Virginia kid come to Los Angeles to play college hoops for a team not called the Bruins? How else does the Bush family live in THAT house on THAT salary? How does the Bush family attend THAT number of home and away games? How does Reggie have THAT Impala on the front of Dub magazine as an unemployed kid on a NCAA Division I football scholarship?

If the above listed events didn't raise any red flags for USC and their compliance department, I contest that they were not looking. Worse than turning a blind eye, was the lack of  involvement by the University in the wake of the 2006 allegations and investigations of Bush, and the 2008 OTL report on Mayo.

USC did NOTHING to curtail agents on campus and in locker rooms following these reports. They did nothing to REGAIN institutional control over their athletics department. They did NOTHING to ensure the Pac-10 and NCAA that they were on the case. 

Mike Garrett basically approached the NCAA with a catch-me-if-you-can attitude. USC just couldn't learn from it's own mistakes.

If you don't believe me, see the Joe McKnight situation. With Bush under a microscope and Mayo taking down the hoops program, one has to wonder why McKnight wasn't being watched all day, every day. He drew every other undeserved comparison to Reggie Bush. Why not watch him, under the assumption that he would take money like Reggie?  

Why was McKnight not under a scope? Because USC was blinded, as were we all. Trojan players, fans, coaching staffs, and administrators all saw themselves as the West Coast golden goose, untouchable by the NCAA because of their status as a perennial football powerhouse and emergent basketball program.

Their pride blinded them, and as we all know pride comes before the fall. And the fall is here and now.

The funny thing is, many USC fans are still blinded. I know people that think losing 30 scholarships is no big deal. They believe Lane Kiffin is a stand up guy. They think Reggie should keep his Heisman and SC should keep their titles. They feel like Pete Carroll left USC for a better opportunity in Seattle. Really? Seattle? 

Some even think the sanctions are going to get overturned in an appeal process that has never worked for ANY team in NCAA history. Ask Alabama, Baylor, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Auburn. USC could even ask themselves. This is not their first go around with the NCAA and a sanctions committee. 

So on that October night, as I looked down at my son, I told him, "He just witnessed the greatest college upset of all time," I was right. It wasn't the greatest on the field upset. But the greatest upset EVER was the fall of Troy, which would transpire some years later—and we have no one to blame but ourselves.