A Time for Nostalgia

This is the time of year that we begin to look forward to. The end of summer is nearing and we are getting in the last few backyard barbecues before school starts. The sun is going down a little earlier and the humidity is rising in Southern California before the autumn breezes start to kick in. The end of summer and beginning of fall is my favorite time of year as the baseball season winds down and football season starts to gear up. It is a time of melancholy as well, as I reflect on summers and falls gone by. I grew up watching the Dodgers and USC Trojans and until recently, I was a very spoiled fan. For that very reason, the expectations are always high and lately the disappointments have been very deep.

USC has a great football tradition and lately that tradition has taken a large hit. The kids that are graduating from USC have never seen a National Championship football team. Most people that have great memories of USC are over 30 years old. Back in 1962, someone could have just about written the same story. It was 30 years since the last National Championship. The 1930s were a distant memory for many of the Trojan faithful and many were calling for the head of the young USC Head Coach at that time. SC had just come off of back-to-back losing seasons and its fourth losing season in the previous five. Many people were beginning to lose hope of ever seeing a return to glory.

On September 8, 1962, USC took its first step toward a stretch of 21 years of football dominance with a 14-7 win over the 8th ranked Duke Blue Devils. On November 17th of that year, the Trojans beat the Roger Staubach led Navy Midshipmen 13-6 to move into the No.1 spot for the first time since the AP Poll began in 1936. The Trojans then beat UCLA and Notre Dame in the same season for the first time since 1956 to finish the regular season undefeated and No.1. The Trojans, under young Coach John McKay, went to the Rose Bowl to face Big Ten Champion and No. 2 rated Wisconsin for the National Championship. After jumping out to a 42-14 lead early in the fourth quarter, the Trojans had to withstand a furious fourth quarter rally led by Wisconsin QB Ron VanderKelen to win 42-37 and clinch the National Championship. McKay joked that he left his assistants in charge at the end of the third quarter and began to dress for the Rose bowl parties afterwards. He said he was surprised to find out the game had finished so closely with his trademark dry wit. He also remarked that it was surprising to so many people that he had gotten smarter over the previous two years.

John McKay left an indelible imprint on the University of Southern California with his big, fast Trojan football squads and he also was the man that popularized the I formation that brought USC, the nickname Tailback U. In 1965, Mike Garrett won the first of USC’s four Heisman Trophies. Unfortunately, Mike never made it to the Rose Bowl. By that time I had become a Trojan fan at the age of eight and the memories just roll on. I’ll never forget the opening of the 1967 season when USC crushed Washington State 49-0 in the first game that O.J. Simpson played. Behind the strong running of Simpson and four interceptions by All-American linebacker Adrian Young, USC ended a 28-year drought at South Bend by defeating the previous year’s National Champion Notre Dame 24-7. On November 18th, the fourth ranked Trojans met top ranked UCLA with the City Championship, National Championship and Rose Bowl berth on the line. In a see-saw game USC beat Heisman Trophy winner Gary Beban’s Bruins 21-20 when O.J. ran 64 yards for a touchdown on an audible call by SC backup QB Toby Page. USC went on to win its second National Championship under Coach McKay with a win over the Cinderella Indiana Hoosiers in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day 1968.

Coach McKay won two more national championships while at USC in 1972 and 1974. The 1972 squad was the greatest in USC history, led by QB Mike Rae and sophomore tailback Anthony Davis. That team was loaded, but more than anything it played as if there was nothing it would rather do than to smash the other team’s faces in. In my eyes, that squad defined team more than any I have ever seen in sport. The 1974 team was just as talented, but started off slowly with a loss to Lou Holtz’s Arkansas Razorbacks 22-7. After a tie at midseason with Cal that had McKay fuming, the Trojans steamrolled everybody until the first half at the Coliseum on November 30th. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish came in and just killed the Trojans early on, building up a 24-0 lead before Anthony Davis scored just before the half. Coach McKay called on Davis to return the kickoff for a touchdown to start off the second half and the Trojans went on to pile up an amazing 55 points in 17 minutes to beat the Irish 55-24. I was driving back home from Las Vegas while the game was being played and turned off the radio in disgust after the Irish scored their last TD. When I got home, I asked my brothers how bad it had gotten and almost had to be revived with smelling salts after they told me what had happened. I thought I was dreaming. Thank God in those days for the USC replay, which was played twice that weekend. Notre Dame also had a replay and I watched three replays of that game during the weekend. SC went on to win another come from behind victory in the Rose Bowl against Woody Hayes’ Ohio State Buckeyes 18-17 on a Pat Haden to Shelton Diggs two point conversion for the fourth National Championship in 13 seasons.

In 1975, Coach McKay left the program to Coach John Robinson, who led USC to a 67-14-2 record in seven seasons before leaving the program in 1982 as the NCAA put the Trojans on a severe probation period. Robinson led the squad to a national championship in 1978 and two No. 2 finishes in 1976 and 1979. His teams had some of the most talented collection of players in USC history with players like Anthony Munoz, Charles White, Ricky Bell, Marcus Allen, Ronnie Lott, Chip Banks, Paul McDonald, Dennis Smith and Brad Budde among many others. They had some great teams and great wins, such as the last minute win over UCLA in 1977 and Notre Dame in 1978 on field goals by Frank Jordan. The 1979 win over Notre Dame was the most methodical and thorough whipping I have ever seen delivered to an Irish squad in South Bend. We should have won the National Championship that season, except for a falter in focus against Stanford that led to a 21-21 tie. I was married the day of USC’s 28-24 victory over Oklahoma on September 26, 1981. As I was driving into the parking lot at the church, Fred Cornwell caught the game-winning pass from John Mazur. The 1982 season ended an era at USC as SC won one for the “fat guy” in John Robinson’s last game for the Trojans.

It has not been the same. USC has had some good years, coming close to a national championship in 1988 and they went to three straight Rose Bowls under Coach Larry Smith from 1987-1989. They last won a Rose Bowl game after the 1995 season after Robinson returned to the campus in 1993. The Paul Hackett years produced nothing but tears and anguish among the Trojan faithful with poor fundamental football and uninspired play. Those years were not unlike the years prior to the 1962 National Championship season.

Is Pete Carroll the coach to lead USC back to national prominence and restore prestige to a proud tradition? Do these things go in cycles? Only time will tell, but there are a lot of similarities to the circumstances surrounding the 1962 and 2002 football squads. The 1962 football team was a veteran squad that had outstanding team speed. This year’s edition of Trojan football also has the same qualities. This year’s team is coming off a 7 year Rose Bowl drought just as the 1962 team had and both have seen the fortunes of USC football fall. Hopefully, the 2002 Trojans will touch off another 20-year run of excellence. Is it possible to bring the program back to where it twice has been? Only time will tell. Stay tuned!