USC wants to be in it for long run - LA Times
This was supposed to be a preamble to their one shining moment, the calm before USC and star recruit O.J. Mayo stormed back into the NCAA tournament in 2008...

...But it turned out those who dismissed USC this season did some shoddy detective work.

The roster included, among other assets, gritty freshman Daniel Hackett, who filled in capably at point guard until Gabe Pruitt returned from an 11-game academic suspension; a menacing inside presence in freshman Taj Gibson; and a steady scoring threat in junior swingman Nick Young...

...so today the fifth-seeded Trojans will play 12th-seeded Arkansas...

Also, Mother's day with USC - LA Daily News
Lodi's Doucette, Harden in the Big Dance - Lodi News
USC Guard Has Bigger Impact, Smaller Waist - NW Arkansas Morning News
Nutt Hopes Hogs Can Avenge USC Losses - Ft Smith Times-Record

He's in Need, but Too Proud to Beg - Washington Post
Willie Wood sat up in his bed and used his hands to help lift and maneuver his legs so he could face his breakfast tray...He has gout and has been unable to walk for the past four months, and he's about to undergo replacement surgery on his left knee to go with his previously replaced right knee and right hip...

...the room's occupant is a football legend.

Wood, a D.C. native who was a Hall of Fame safety on the great Packers teams of the 1960s, would get dressed shortly after breakfast. There would be a physical therapy session later in the day...His knee replacement surgery will come soon and Wood, 70, hopes to be up and about and back on the golf course not too long afterward...

Also, Wood paid a hefty price - Washington Times
Old friends gather to help ailing Wood - Green Bay Post Gazette
Wives United by Husbands’ Post-N.F.L. Trauma - NY Times

10 Intriguing Spring Storylines: USC's new crop of receivers - CNNSI
While USC will return star QB John David Booty, the Trojans lost two of the best receivers in America in Dwayne Jarrett and Steve Smith, who combined to catch 141 balls for 2,098 yards and 21 touchdowns last season. Booty will use the spring to gain a good rapport with Vidal Hazelton (7) and Patrick Turner (1).







Also, Defense reigns supreme - Lindy's

[Moore] Floyd's USC comeback all about heart - USA Today
This could be the best year of basketball coach Tim Floyd's life.

After getting fired from his last two jobs, he has proved again that he's a winner.

Aided by a new 10,258-seat on-campus arena, he has rejuvenated the traditionally mediocre Southern California basketball program...

...Floyd has even enthused a USC student body that became accustomed to worshipping the one and only true Trojan god — football. He has signed what some basketball experts deem the No. 2 recruiting class in the country.

All that pales in comparison...to what happened to Floyd on Feb. 25...

Also, Razorbacks must silence the critics - Daily Breeze
Floyd takes team to a scary movie - LA Times
USC faces a pack of agitated 'Hogs - LA Daily News
Trojans take in horror flick - OC Register

Spring look around the Pac-10 - ESPN
...USC Trojans
Spring practice starts: March 20
Spring game: April 7

Spring key: USC welcomes back 10 starters from a defense that was dominant a year ago, particularly late in the season. It welcomes back seven starters from an offense that rolled over Michigan's vaunted defense in the Rose Bowl. Yes, the Trojans, the likely preseason No. 1, are national title favorites again. The only significant area of concern is receiver, where Steve Smith and Dwayne Jarrett must be replaced. The offense won't have the skills of coordinator Lane Kiffin any longer, though, as he's taken over as the head coach of the Oakland Raiders. That means Steve Sarkisian will run the show with help from new receivers coach and passing game coordinator John Morton...

[Waldner] Personality goes long way at USC - Daily Breeze
...it was reasonable, critics believed, to speculate about how the Trojans, especially Pruitt and Young, are not tough enough, serious enough, intense enough or whatever enough to win big games.

Pruitt took the high road when asked his reaction to this reaction.

"I think we've played pretty well," he said.

Pretty well includes the third seed in the Pac-10 Tournament. Pretty well includes a 23-11 record. Pretty well includes two wins over Oregon, which drew a No. 3 NCAA seed to USC's No. 5 seed.

Not that Pruitt was shrugging off the poor performance against the Ducks.

"It's tough," he said...

Also, Tournament new to the Trojans - LA Daily News
USC hopes this is at least a start - OC Register

Local radio personality competing to be voice of the Rockies - Glenwood Springs [Colo.] Post
Fresh off a week of calling seven straight playoff basketball games, KMTS/KGLN news and sports director Ron Milhorn on Monday will put his vocal chords to work for a big prize: to become the public address announcer for the Colorado Rockies...

...The Rockies have pared down their pile of more than 250 applications and demo tapes to the top few, all hoping to replace the retiring Alan Roach...

..."I dropped off my resume and demo and then it was off to Boulder to do a game," Milhorn, who has a bachelor's degree in broadcasting from the University of Southern California and is a former Trojan football player, recalled. "I kind of forgot about it and then got a call on Friday."...

Greased Lightning - Daily Trojan
There are six words Chad Doreck is dying to hear.

"You're the one that I want."

He isn't daydreaming of a lustful encounter with Paris Hilton or Angelina Jolie. Doreck's one wish is to be chosen from a pool of thousands of potential Danny Zukos to star in a Broadway production of the musical phenomenon "Grease."

Since January, former USC student Doreck has been vying for the role of Danny on NBC's "Grease: You're the One that I Want," a reality television show on which starry-eyed contestants compete to become the next real-life Danny or Sandy...

Also, Long Beach native voted off reality show - Long Beach Press-Telegram

[Adande] USC racial 'joke' is no barrel of laughs - LA Times
To Pete Carroll, it looked like the opposite of a team at the center of a racial controversy.

He watched his football squad go through its final workout before spring break Friday morning, saw players of various ethnicities sweat together, roughhouse and joke around. To him it seemed like a racial utopia.

Ironically, it was the comfortable banter between different races in the Trojans football family that led to the issue at hand this week, when a player took the "White Nation" moniker bestowed on a group of Caucasian special teams members by an African American assistant coach and started a "White Nation" group on Facebook.com — in what was supposed to be a joke...

Also, Social-Network Postings Incite Furors on 2 Campuses - Chronicle of higher Education

Fed Up - NY Times
Barry Glassner has made it his business to set credulous consumers of mass media straight. His best-known book, “The Culture of Fear,” took apart several stories poised somewhere between urban myth and the lead item on the evening news, arguing that according to statistics, teenage moms aren’t really tearing up the fabric of society, road rage is less of a problem than lightning strikes, and gun control, not building more prisons, might be the best way of stopping violent crime.

This time around, Glassner, a sociologist at the University of Southern California, takes the same approach to what we eat. In “The Gospel of Food: Everything You Think You Know About Food Is Wrong,” he promises to blow the lid off your dinner...

...although his book delivers some convincing arguments, Glassner also makes many points that aren’t all that shocking...

Project aims to ease traffic in USC area - LA Times
The five new changeable message signs around Exposition Park should remind Robert Nubine to take a different route to work when USC's football team is playing at the Coliseum.

The signs, part of an $11-million area traffic relief project...

...Even when the signs aren't illuminated, motorists still could notice better traffic flow around the USC campus and adjacent museum complex, an area that city officials concede has lagged behind other sections of Los Angeles in traffic enhancements.

As part of a larger traffic relief project, eight more surveillance cameras have been installed and 176 traffic lights synchronized within the 5.3-mile area. The upgrade is estimated to increase travel speeds...

For Westchester freshman Polee, there's a lot to live up to - Daily Breeze
Sorry, Dad, but living up to your reputation isn't the biggest burden on the shoulders of Dwayne Polee Jr. these days.

Sure, his father was the L.A. City Section Player of the Year at Manual Arts and a two-time all-conference star at Pepperdine but Polee Jr. has found the expectations as a freshman playing varsity boys basketball at Westchester High to be his biggest burden these days.

"Westchester is such a big school and has won so many City championships, it's a lot to live up to," said Polee Jr., who didn't sleep the night before his first practice for the Comets.

It might not be easy making a college commitment to USC before you score your first basket in high school but the rangy 6-foot-5 forward carries the burden with a braces-filled smile...

[Farrell] College recruiting is speeding out of control - Sporting News
...I wrote in a blog a year or so ago that the football recruiting process has sped up by about six full months over the past two or three years. In other words, players who used to be offered in June of their junior year in high school were now being offered in January...

...Southern Cal, a program that recruits on a national level better than anyone and hands out offers as sparingly as Jon Gruden smiles, already has four commitments for the class of 2008. Last year the Trojans had one commitment before March 1. The three years before that? None. With four commitments, Southern Cal is arguably more stunning than either Texas or Texas A&M's fast starts...

Q&A with the Donald - Fortune
...What profession would you have gone into if you had not entered real estate? --Wade Henley, Mechanicsville, Va.

I had thought of attending USC to study film before I went to Wharton and decided on real estate as a focus. The entertainment industry has always been of interest to me, and that interest has paid off with the success of "The Apprentice" and the "Miss Universe," "Miss USA" and "Miss Teen USA" Pageants. I also have a production company in Los Angeles, called Trump Productions...

Salisbury's number gets call at auction - NC Times
It has been 26 football seasons since Sean Salisbury, a three-sport star, graduated from Orange Glen High...

...Salisbury is also coming to have his No. 12 football jersey retired...

..."Whenever I hear about guys having their jerseys retired I think that is so cool,'' Salisbury said from Frisco, Texas, where he lives. "There are games at USC, the Grey Cup and in the NFL that stick out, but my fondest athletic moments are at OG.

"This is as humbling a thing as I've ever experienced. I was very shocked when they called me about it.

"It seems like just yesterday I was at OG.''...

Featured Hall of Famer: Marcus Allen - Southbend Tribune
Marcus Allen played four years for [USC]. In his first two years he played some time at fullback. As part of his assignment, he blocked for Charles White, who won the Heisman Trophy in 1979. Allen moved to tailback, set records for rushing, and won the Heisman in 1981.

He led his team in both receiving and rushing those last two years. In 1980 he rushed for 1,563 yards, second in the nation. In 1981 he rushed for 2,342. He led the nation in scoring...rushing...and all-purpose running...

...In addition to the Heisman, he received the Maxwell Trophy and the Walter Camp Foundation and Pop Warner League designation as the Player of the Year. He was all-conference for the second time. Southern Cal retired his jersey No. 33. His coach, John Robinson, called him "the greatest player I ever saw."...

Q and A with Deuce Lutui - Official Cardinals Website
...What do you feel is the most valuable lesson you learned during your rookie campaign?

“I’ve taken in a lot of things. Being a rookie I was a big sponge...

...Do you think that will make you be easier or harder on incoming rookies this year?

“All I know is that I’m going to eat very well when the new rookies come in. I’m going to have the cleanest locker. I’m going to have all of my cleats cleaned and it is going to be nice. There is a possibility we could take a lineman in the first round this year so they’ll be able to afford to get me some things and I definitely already have a few requests. I have to fix up the landscaping at my house a little bit and that kind of stuff.”...

Polk makes an early decision - Redlands Daily Facts
When the college you've grown up rooting for asks you to join them, how can you turn them down?

Just 19 days after after USC offered a football scholarship to Redlands East Valley's Chris Polk, the junior wide receiver didn't turn his dream down, making an oral commitment to play for the Trojans this past Saturday.

"I've been following USC my whole life," Polk said Wednesday...

...Bruich says the Trojans envision Polk as a "Z-back" type, which means Polk could be expected to play in the backfield and do some receiving. But overall, the impression is that Polk will likely be best suited at wide receiver...

USC agrees to name RIAA illegal downloaders - Daily Trojan
Housing. Meals. Books. Classes. Lawsuits?

In addition to the typical expenses USC students incur, a Recording Industry of America Association notice - which will be passed along by USC to students - threatens to sue students who illegally download songs for between $750 and $150,000 per file.

The USC general counsel's office said it would work with Information Technology Services to help the RIAA identify 20 USC network users targeted in the RIAA's settlement letters...

...Legal experts at USC questioned the RIAA's tactics in issuing the letters...

Administration, SGA discuss school’s prestige - Pepperdine Graphic
Addressing concerns about the academic growth and reputation of Pepperdine University, Provost Darryl Tippens and Seaver Dean David Baird spoke to SGA in their general meeting on Wednesday.

After being with Pepperdine for six years, Tippens assured members of SGA that the reputation of Pepperdine is becoming increasingly prestigious and will continue to grow...

...Tippens said the Christian mission is one of the reasons more students are choosing school like Pepperdine over other Ivy Leagues and prestigious universities.

“If you look at most of the Ivy League schools, they were at one time religious,” Tippens said. “But now schools like Yale, Harvard, Stanford and USC sacrificed that affiliation due to their lust of reputation.”...

[Both Stanford and USC were founded as nonsectarian universities. Darryl Tippens email address is darryl.tippens@pepperdine.edu and phone is 310-506-4261. - Æ]