A bowl ban of 2 years, and the loss of 20 scholarships. Sounds heavy, but take heart, Trojan fans – all is not lost. Here are a few reasons the Empire will not fall:
- Company Culture. People playing for us play so they can get to the NFL. Other schools are all about bowl wins, team history, prestige, winning championships, etc., but that’s not the program’s priority at USC. Although our fans are all about championships, the program’s ultimate goal is to prepare and send guys to the NFL.
So a guy that goes to SC isn’t thinking championship, he’s thinking NFL – and us not having bowl-eligibility doesn’t hurt that. That’s the culture that Pete instilled when he was here (he was an NFL coach beforehand, remember), and Kiffin (also an NFL coach and a PC disciple) is going to coninue it.

- Team talent. Even before the sanctions, our recruiting classes are smaller than other teams (even the best programs, like Texas and Ohio State), because we don’t have that many holes to fill on our roster. SC recruits for quality, not quantity. Besides, walk-ons at SC have a history of producing – e.g. last year’s NFL Rookie of the Year Clay Matthews, for one, and to a lesser extent, multipurpose QB-WR-FS-holder Garrett Green.

- Location. SC is still in the nation’s second-largest media market. While other, smaller and less prestigious schools need to go to a bowl because playing in a bowl against top-level competition will help scouts evaluate whether or not the guys are as good as advertised, SC doesn’t need that. Every SC game is on TV (many of them national TV), and for all the flak that the Pac-10 takes, it’s always going to be discussed in the major media outlets.

- Hegemony. There just aren’t any other big-time programs in our area that can steal recruits. There’s always UCLA, and Oregon is gonna be good for a while – but SC is the undisputed powerhouse on the west coast. Though the Ducks are good, and we’re coming off a “down year” (although i can think of a hundred teams that’d love to have a season like we did last year), we’re still the premier destination for players that want to make it to the NFL. Two bowl-less years aren’t gonna knock us off.

There’s still reason for optimism in Trojan-land. So let’s get out there and watch our boys win a Pac-10 championship.

FIGHT ON!

For those of you who haven’t heard of TED conferences, it’s a series of talks, no longer than 18 minutes from people who are passionate or inspired about their ideas. Although sometimes, I don’t have a particular interest in the topic, the people are interesting and have things to say that may help you look at your own problems in a new way. TED’s tagline is “Ideas Worth Spreading”, and I think the idea of this conference is worth spreading to you.

Take a look at this quick TED talk to get an idea of what kind of things go on, and go ahead, subscribe on iTunes or visit the TED website to learn more!

Saw this in the paper the other day (yeah, I still read the paper sometimes). LA Times

Baby rover

Monster rover

another NASA JPL rover

Mars rover

Parking is at a premium in my neighborhood. Not as bad as some I’ve lived in, but still, a parking spot has value.

The point to this is, I’ve been watching him do this for months, and I’ve still yet to decide whether I think he’s very clever for devising a solution, tenacious in maintaining a car ritual, or inconsiderate for going to such lengths by taking up a spot with a broken car.

I’d like there to be some deeper philisophical meaning to the story – how you see this guy is how you view life, or something like that.
But really, I just don’t know what to think of it.