Greetings from the land of the perpetual traffic jam, where everything that should be written about the Rose Bowl already has been. But, to paraphrase Fitzgerald, still we beat on, laptops against the current, borne ceaselessly to the media hospitality center….
Observations:
I have a lengthy piece in tomorrow’s Intell about the remarkable experience of attending a USC practice, but allow me to just add here that I think I’m becoming a fan of Pete Carroll’s program, and I’m almost never a fan of anything any more.
The worst thing about college football is the patronage-laden, old-boy network of boosters and big contributors and alumni and bowl lackeys in pastel sportscoats that drive the sport. It’s because of all that that while the TV audience makes the sport lucrative, the people who run it don’t listen to that audience. It’s why there are no black coaches, and why there’s no playoff, and why there’s so much sanctimony and hypocrisy.
USC football is an antidote to all that. It’s in the streets, not in the ivy. It’s of, by and for the people. It’s fun, unalloyed. Oh, and it’s the best program in the country.
The cabbie who took me and the Carlisle Sentinel’s Eric Thomas to practice yesterday was a very odd Asian man who didn’t fully comprehend English or had little enthusiasm for it, and appended a goofy, gentle laugh to everything he said and everything you said.
So we get in the cab and I give the guy the exact address of the practice field, 30th and Hoover, like half a dozen times. But he heard someone at the hotel say, “USC,” so he ignores everything I say and drives directly to the LA Coliseum, where the Trojans play their games, which is of course deserted.
“Oh, 30th and Hoover…”
(Gentle, goofy laugh.)
When we get there, a USC media relations guy hears this story and explains that “LA isn’t really a cab town.”
Ahhh…
One of the many small fun things about the Penn State beat is Thomas’ imitation of PSU radio play-by-play guy Steve Jones, which sounds more like Jones than Jones does. Thomas once called Jed Donahue’s radio talk show and did 20 minutes, as Jones. Donahue never suspected a thing.
So we’re cruising down Sunset Boulevard last night and Thomas, doing Jones, is calling the action (”Fatburger is wide right, Guitar Center split left….”) and referring to the random strip club as, “a proud sponsor of Penn State athletics.”
Then we see this poor man, beyond disheveled, obviously homeless, pushing a grocery cart stuffed with junk and talking to the cart, at length, as if the cart is a living thing, and of course somebody says:
“Look: Randy Quaid!”
Professional journalists, ladies and gentlemen. On the story. Gettin’ paid.
More tomorrow. More tonight, maybe.
