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!

Stafon had just finished his reps and was starting another set. Lifting somewhere between 280-300 lb. He lifted the bar and didn’t have the perfect grip on it. It slipped from his grasp and fell, but at an angle. As it fell, Stafon threw up his hand to stop the bar from hitting him full-force. It hit his hand and neck, and fell off. He sat up instantly and the whole weight room was watching him as he grasped his throat and said nothing for 30 second

s, while coaches and players asked if he was OK. When he finally did make a sound, it was a gasping for air. His

windpipe had been crushed. He spit up blood and coaches immediately called 911.

Apparently if it wasn’t for Stafon throwing up his hand, and his athletic neck, he most likely would have been internally decapitated, in which everything that attaches his head to neck would have been severed internally from the weight of the bar. As it stands, fitness both saved his life and nearly stole it.

Doctors have re-aligned the windpipe and larynx. It will be a long road for Stafon to learn to talk again and he will

likely have a new voice as well.

Let’s support http://www.twitter.com/@stafon13 and wish him the best in this tragic accident.

Fight On!

I was taken down to strawberry fields forever, where nothing is real. Living was easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding everything I see. It’s getting hard to be someone when I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. Now I look at you all and see the love that’s there sleeping. Kant, Hume, Aristotle, Nagarjuna, Plato, Buddha, and Sartre, you made a fool of everyone. Yet with every mistake, I must surely be learning. Maharashis, the greatest of them all, came around to turn on everyone. Lennon and McCartney, they broke all the rules and laid it down for all to see.

(Strawberry Fields, I Am The Walrus, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Sexy Sadie)

PS: goo goo goo joob. Too much studying.