The Official & Exclusive Illustrated History of USC Trojan Football

Introduction by

Pat

Haden

With Original Contributions by

Ronnie

Lott

Troy

Polamalu

Keyshawn

Johnson

Anthony

Mu単oz

Sam

Cunningham

John

Robinson

Mike

Garrett

Dr. Arthur

Bartner

Tony

Boselli

Brad

Budde

Jon

Arnett

Matt

Leinart

Jack

Del Rio

J. K.

McKay

Frank

Gifford

Charle

Young

Rodney

Peete

Willie

McGinest

Pete

Carroll

The 1908 team was coached by Bill Traeger, who was attending law school at USC.

Anthony Davis helped USC beat Ohio State, 42–17, in the 1973 Rose Bowl.

USC upset fifth-ranked Notre Dame, 42–20, in 1955.

Wide receiver Steve Smith catches one of his three touchdowns to help USC beat Oklahoma, 55–19, in the 2005 BCS Championship game in the Orange Bowl.

Mike Garrett ran through defenses during his 1965 Heisman season.

The Official and Exclusive Illustrated History of USC Trojan Football

introduction

by

Pat Haden

W

hen I think of USC football, I think of one long continuum. Everyone is represented, from the fan to his father, his grandfather, and even his great-grandfather. It is so much more generational than any other program in the country. What makes USC such a great story is that you can go all the way back to the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and then even look ahead to 2020, and USC will still be playing winning football.

When you go to a game, you can see as many as four generations of fans. I went with my dad to the Coliseum to see USC play football, then I took my kids, and now I’m taking my grandkids. I know one family that has had season tickets since 1929, if you can believe that. It’s just the way it is for so many people in the USC family. It is part of your upbringing. You go to church, you go to school, and you go to USC football games.

I believe what made it such an institution in Los Angeles is that USC football became successful about the same time LA was growing into a true metropolis. We grew together, experiencing some of the same fantastic years and eras.

I know I did. I grew up in a Southern California suburb called West Covina back when there were only three channels on our television set. There was just one college football game a week, and you’d sit down on Saturdays and watch it with your dad. What’s burned in my memory is the USC–Notre Dame games and that, on what seemed like every New Year’s Day, USC would be in the Rose Bowl.

I also think the infatuation with USC has to do with our location. We are part of the city. We are located right in the heart of LA, and I think people are touched by us. They are connected to the school and the football team. As part of my job, I welcome some of our recruits from all sports to my office. They come in, always with members of their family, and usually they’ll even bring along Grandpa. When they do, Grandpa always wants to talk to me about football, saying he remembers back when I was playing quarterback and he was there to see us make that great comeback against Notre Dame or watched that time we beat UCLA. I always smile, because I realize that’s who we are.

We’re all a part of that. We’re a large private university, and that makes us something special. We have some 30,000 students attending, and as they finish their education and move on, those are people who will relate to USC for the rest of their lives.

I’m proud that we are constantly reminding our athletes we are a university first and foremost.

We’ve won 120 national titles and counting, but I want our football players, and all our athletes, to be aware of our rising academic status. We have become one of the leading academic institutions in the country, and we should all be very proud of that. I was fortunate enough to be a Rhodes Scholar,

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but I don’t put those kinds of expectations on the kids today. I just tell them they should work hard and appreciate all the university has to offer. I remind them this should be some of the greatest years of their lives, and they should allow themselves to realize what is going on around them. I want them to learn from everything that is happening, to open up their senses to it.

I remind our football players that they are very lucky, too. When I think back to my days as a player, I realize I never would have been able to come to USC without an athletic scholarship. I didn’t really know what I was getting into, but it was a fabulous experience. My football career couldn’t have turned out any better. We never lost a Pac-8 game when I was here, and we went to three Rose Bowls and won two national championships. What makes it even better is that USC students stay connected to this university like no other place in the world. I recently had my sixtieth birthday party, and 90 percent of those who were there were people who attended USC when I did.

People ask me why I came back to be athletic director. Well, it wasn’t on my radar, I can tell you that.

I never sought the job. But now that I’m here, I love it. There are pressures, sure. Everyone wants us to win all our games. But what makes it neat for me is that I’m back in a learning community, sort of taking a mulligan to my college experience. I’m trying to take advantage of everything—going to lectures, hanging out with the kids. I even took a part in a campus musical. It has really reenergized me. My own kids are now in their thirties, and it feels like I’m back raising 650 kids, because I think of all our student-athletes as my kids.

Football, of course, remains a big part of what I do. The words and images of this book encapsulate USC’s tremendous history and rich tradition. We’ve had so many fantastic athletes through the years, and it is truly fascinating to see these photos and read the players’ descriptions of what it is like to compete for the Trojans and what it has meant to them throughout their lives.

If you and members of your family love USC football, I’m sure you will treasure this book as much as I do.

Pat Haden is USC’s athletic director and played quarterback on USC’s 1972 and 1974 national championship teams.

above Pat Haden calls the signals during USC’s 34–10 win over Stanford in 1974. opposite Haden throws a pass during “The Comeback” against Notre Dame in 1974.

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chapter one

1888-1940

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chapter

One The Roots of USC Football Out of the mustard fields and orange groves and fruit orchards of the rapidly growing city of Los Angeles, the University of Southern California emerged in 1880. Eight years later, a football program—destined to become one of the most storied in the nation—was born.

USC’s football team began its existence during the 1888–1889 academic year, with two shut-out victories over a local athletic club. That was a harbinger of things to come, although the Trojans were not really on the national football map until after the arrival of Head Coach Howard Jones in 1925.

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Jones’s predecessor, Elmer “Gloomy Gus” Henderson, took USC to its first Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day in 1923. (Later that calendar year, the Trojans moved into the new Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.) Henderson—who got his nickname because he talked up USC’s opponents so much—won 45 of 52 games in six seasons as head coach beginning in 1919, but five of his seven losses came against California, which was the West Coast power at the time. In search of a new coach in 1925, USC wooed Knute Rockne, the Notre Dame legend. Rockne decided to stay in South Bend, but recommended Jones, who coached against him while at Iowa, for the job at Troy.

In sixteen seasons as “The Headman,” the no-nonsense Jones built USC into a dynasty. The Trojans won 121 games on Jones’s watch, including all five of their Rose Bowl appearances, and were national champions in 1928, 1931, 1932, and 1939.

“The Thundering Herd,” as Jones’s teams were called, also began long-standing rivalries with Notre Dame in 1926 and UCLA (as the University of California, Southern Branch, had recently been renamed) in 1929.

1) “The Thundering Herd” at practice in 1933. USC went 10-1-1 that season and shut out eight of its opponents. 2) Dr. Henry Goddard (second from left) pictured in 1955. In 1888 and 1889, the twenty-two-year-old Goddard and co-Coach Frank Suffel guided USC to its first two victories. 3) Howard Jones coached the Trojans for sixteen seasons beginning in 1925. “The Headman” built USC into a national power.

Jones’s teams produced many of the famous names that helped shaped USC’s football history: guard Brice Taylor, the school’s first All-American in 1925; quarterback Morley Drury, “The Noblest Trojan of Them All”; and running backs Russ Saunders and Erny Pinckert, the men after whom the bronze statue of Tommy Trojan was modeled. And there was a nondescript lineman named Marion Morrison, who soon would be known around the world as John Wayne.

The Jones era produced enough highlights—like a 16–14 victory at Notre Dame in 1931 that earned the Trojans a downtown ticker-tape parade on their return to Los Angeles—to fill a history book of its own. But USC football was just getting started.

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USC’s first football team in 1888: Front: (left to right) Harry Lillie (end), Charles Carpenter (end), Arthur Carroll (quarterback), Frank Lapham (tackle).

Middle: Elger Reed (center), Frank Davis (tackle). Back: John Norton (guard), Harvey Bailey (halfback), Will Whitcomb (halfback, captain), James Edward Young (guard), Frank Suffel (coach), Elmer Hall (fullback).

Not pictured: Thomas W. Robinson (halfback).

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above Marion McKinley Bovard was inaugurated as USC’s first president on October 5, 1880. The next day, the university officially opened its doors. opposite Thomas Davis was captain of the 1914 team.

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1) This letter from Dr. Henry Goddard recounts the origins of football at USC. 2) A USC football team from the 1890s (note the rugby-size football on the ground).

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1) Before John Wayne was John Wayne, he was Marion Morrison at USC. Morrison was a backup tackle for USC in 1925 and 1926, but a shoulder injury kept him from making a bigger impact on the football field. 2) Howard Jones instructs his troops during practice in 1926. Note tackle Marion Morrison standing in the middle in the background. 3) Morley Drury, “The Noblest Trojan of Them All,” kicks during a 33–0 victory over Occidental in the season opener in 1927.

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above Guard Harry Smith earned All-American honors for the Trojans in 1938 and 1939. opposite Action from the 1939 Rose Bowl between USC (in the white jerseys) and Duke. The “Iron Dukes” outscored their opponents 114–0 during a nine-win regular season, but the Trojans won, 7–3, on a touchdown pass late in the fourth quarter from fourth-string quarterback Doyle Nave to second-team end Al Krueger.

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opposite Tennessee was undefeated and unscored upon in the 1939 season until USC overwhelmed the Volunteers, 14–0, in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day 1940. above Quarterback Ambrose Schindler carries the ball against Tennessee in the 1940 Rose Bowl. Schindler was named the Player of the Game after running for one touchdown and passing for another in the Trojans’ win.

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1960-1975

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three Dominance Early in John McKay’s second season as head coach in 1961, USC scored a touchdown in the final minute to pull within one point of No. 1-ranked Iowa at the Coliseum.

McKay eschewed the certain tie, however—this was long before the days of overtime—and went for a potential winning two-point conversion. The try failed, but the tone was set: USC played to win.

And under McKay, the Trojans almost always did win.

The following year, USC went 11-0 and won the national championship. It was the first of twenty-one consecutive winning seasons for Troy and the first of four national titles with McKay at the helm.

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There was another big clue to the Trojans’ dominance under McKay during the loss to Iowa in 1961. USC amassed 220 yards on the ground that day, fueling its coach’s full-time shift to the I formation.

In 1963, McKay turned to sophomore Mike Garrett to be a starter at running back, and Garrett began USC’s legacy of I formation tailbacks. “Iron Mike” won USC’s first Heisman Trophy in 1965, and fellow tailback O. J. Simpson soon followed with the Trojans’ second.

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Simpson’s Heisman came in 1968, but it was in 1967 that he engineered one of the most famous runs in college football history: a 64-yard touchdown scamper in the fourth quarter of a showdown against top-ranked UCLA. That run not only lifted the Trojans to a 21–20 victory over the Bruins, but it also gave the Trojans the national championship (which back then was voted on before the bowls).

Still, it might not have been the most thrilling victory of the era: In 1964, USC rallied from 17 points down at halftime to stun top-ranked Notre Dame, 20–17, at the Coliseum. Ten years later, the Trojans fell behind the fifth-ranked Irish, 24–0, in the first half at the Coliseum, then roared back to win, 55–24.

McKay left USC following the 1975 season to coach the NFL’s expansion team in Tampa Bay. But one of his former assistants, John Robinson, would continue the longest sustained period of success in USC’s football history.

1) Under Head Coach John McKay from 1960 to 1975, the Trojans won four national championships and five Rose Bowls. 2) Tailback Anthony Davis carries the ball against Notre Dame in 1972. Davis accounted for an astounding eleven touchdowns in three career games against the Irish, with six of his scores coming in this 45–23 romp.

3) Mike Garrett bursts through a hole against UCLA in 1965.

Garrett rushed for 1,440 yards that season and became USC’s first Heisman Trophy winner.

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above Practice makes perfect: a handoff drill—for the benefit of photographers, at least—circa 1961. opposite Head Coach John McKay with linebacker Eddie King in the mid-1960s.

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The Trojans smothered the Bruins, 14–3, at the Coliseum en route to the national championship in 1962.

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The First by

Mike Garrett

as told to Jim Gigliotti

I

’ve always said this about Coach McKay: He treated everyone equally—like dirt!

That told me I would have an opportunity to make it at USC. Being a black kid from East LA, it was important for me to know that everyone was treated equally. All I had to do was play and perform, and everything would work out. Nothing was going to be rigged, nothing was going to be racial. I was going to have a chance.

Coach McKay was a tyrant, but he was an equalopportunity tyrant. And I just loved him, because as he pushed me, all he did was make me grow. He couldn’t push me enough, and I couldn’t work hard enough. It was just a perfect situation for me.

One day, before my senior season in 1965, Coach called me into his office. It was after spring practice, but it was before fall ball. He told me they were going to push me for the Heisman. I said that was terrific. He said, “You deserve it.”

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The night before the Heisman announcement, George Ambrose, the school’s sports information director, told me that if he called me the next morning, I had won. So I had to decide before I went to bed if I was going to stay awake all night and wonder about it, or if I was just going to go ahead and get some rest. I finally came to the conclusion that I had done everything I could to win, so I figured I might as well get a good night’s sleep.

I got a call the next morning. George told me Dr. Topping (USC President Norman Topping) wanted to see me in his office. And I said, “I won?” George said, “Yes, you won it.”

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It was as big a deal to win the Heisman then as it is now.

But they didn’t fly all the finalists to New York and have the thing televised, like they do now. But you know, I kind of liked my way better. Can you imagine the thrill of going to sleep wondering if you’d won the Heisman Trophy, and then getting the phone call the next morning telling you that you had?

We went to New York and spent a couple of days doing promotional things. One day, it was to talk to some high school kids. Another day, we met former Heisman winners and their families. Being a kid from the ghetto, and wanting to be successful and all that, getting to New York was pretty amazing. The first time I’d been on a plane had only been several years earlier, for a recruiting trip to Utah. But other than that, the only other times I’d been on a plane were with USC, traveling to different games.

I’m proud of the fact that I started the line of great I formation backs at USC. For a running back with vision and great desire, the I formation was ideal. As you lined up, you could see all the way from one side of the field to

the other side. You had everybody in your sight. You could attack and run with reckless abandon.

What many people don’t realize is that the I formation originally was designed for the quarterback to roll out and have options to pass or run. But after quarterback Pete Beathard went to the pros (following the 1963 season), Coach McKay started running me more from the I. Coach McKay was wonderful. He was tough, but he also was caring. There was no doubt he was the man in charge, but he also was fair to everyone. I follow his management style every day.

Mike Garrett became USC’s first Heisman Trophy winner in 1965 and was an All-American in 1964 and 1965.

1) Mike Garrett addresses the Los Angeles Coliseum crowd before his final home game, a 56–6 win over Wyoming in 1965. 2) Mike Garrett poses with his Heisman Trophy in 1965.

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1) All-American linebacker Damon Bame (making the tackle) and the Trojans ascended to the top spot in the Associated Press poll after dropping Navy, 13–6, to improve to 8-0 in 1962. 2) Athletic Director Jess Hill (center) in 1960. Hill lettered for Head Coach Howard Jones in 1928 and 1929, coached the Trojans from 1951 to 1956, and served as athletic director from 1957 to 1972. 3) Tailback Mike Garrett (1963–1965) had the vision and instincts to make the Trojans’ I formation work.

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The scene at the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day in 1963, when the national champion Trojans beat Wisconsin, 42–37. Unranked at the beginning of the 1962 season, USC won all eleven games in John McKay’s third year as head coach.

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Team of the Decade

2001-2009

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Six Team of the Decade Pete Carroll had been out of coaching for a year when he was hired as USC’s head man in 2001. Carroll had never been a head coach in college before, but his unbridled energy, charisma, and passion for football proved to be a perfect fit at Troy. He embraced USC’s rich tradition and history and soon added a chapter of staggering success.

Carroll’s second USC team opened the 2002 season ranked No. 18 in the country and beat visiting Auburn, 24–17, at the Coliseum. From that point on, the Trojans remained among the Associated Press’s Top 25 teams for every game through the end of Carroll’s final regular season as coach in 2009— a remarkable string of 103 consecutive games. That streak included a span of twenty-seven consecutive games over the 2003 through 2005 seasons at the top of the poll. More importantly, the Trojans finished the 2003 and 2004 seasons at No. 1 to win their tenth and eleventh national championships.

In all, USC won 97 of 116 games in Carroll’s nine seasons as coach. The Trojans went to a bowl game each year during his tenure, and they won seven of them, including six of their record seven consecutive trips to BCS bowls beginning with the 2002 season. USC finished ranked among the Associated Press’s Top 4 each year from 2002 to 2008 and won at least 11 games each of those seasons. And under Carroll, the Trojans dominated traditional rivals Notre Dame and UCLA, winning 8 of 9 games against both the Irish and the Bruins.

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1) The Trojans were perennial championship contenders during Pete Carroll’s reign as head coach from 2001 to 2009. USC won seven conference championships and two national titles in that span. 2) David Ausberry (9) and Ronald Johnson (8) celebrate Ausberry’s 15-yard touchdown catch in the fourth quarter of USC’s 49–17 rout of Illinois in the 2008 Rose Bowl Game.

The USC teams of the early 2000s featured high-powered offenses guided by the likes of Heisman Trophy–winning quarterbacks Carson Palmer (he won the award in 2002) and Matt Leinart (2004). But they also had aggressive, ball-hawking defenses that annually ranked among the nation’s leaders in takeaways and produced future NFL stars such as safety Troy Polamalu and linebacker Clay Matthews.

Carroll eventually returned to coach in the NFL (following the 2009 season), but not until after he helped USC forge one of the most dominant decades in college football history.

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1) Justin Fargas ran for 715 yards and seven touchdowns for USC’s Orange Bowl champs in the 2002 season. 2) In 2002, Carson Palmer became the first USC quarterback to win the Heisman Trophy. 3) Pete Carroll, pictured with former All-American defensive back Ronnie Lott (left), embraced USC’s past after he became head coach in 2001.

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opposite Wide receiver Keary Colbert in action during the 2004 Rose Bowl game against Michigan. above Safety Jason Leach returns an interception 25 yards for a touchdown in USC’s 61–32 romp over Hawaii in 2003.

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1) All-American wide receiver Mike Williams scores one of his sixteen touchdowns for USC in 2003. This one was a 4-yard strike from Matt Leinart in USC’s 47–22 victory over UCLA. 2) USC’s defense swarms Arizona State during a 2004 game. The Sun Devils entered the game ranked fifteenth in the country but were no match for the top-ranked Trojans. 3) Reggie Bush rushed for just 10 yards on six carries, but also scored on a 96-yard kickoff return in a 47–22 victory over UCLA in 2003.

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USC players salute their fans and the Trojan Marching Band at the 2004 Rose Bowl. Top-ranked USC dominated No. 4 Michigan in a 28–14 victory.

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We Are Family by

Troy Polamalu

as told to Jim Gigliotti

O

ne of the first things that Pete Carroll did after becoming head coach in 2001 was invite all the players over to the Coliseum one evening. It was 11 o’clock at night, or some time really late. We all walked into the middle of the field, and there was a rope lying on the ground. Coach Carroll told all the offensive guys to line up at one end of the rope and all the defensive guys to line up at the other end of the rope. And then he had us play tug-of-war.

I don’t remember who won the tug-of-war—it was probably the defense!—but that’s not important. What’s important is that after we played, Coach brought us all together and said, “Fellas, if we all pull in the same direction, nobody can beat us.” And I think that really hit home with a lot of the guys who were there that night.

You see, until that time, the USC teams I played on were extremely talented—we were as talented as any team in the nation—but our record didn’t show it. We didn’t pull in the same direction. Too many people were NFL centered and not centered in the moment, and that was one of our biggest weaknesses. But Coach Carroll changed all that.

He brought us together as a family—a Trojan Family.

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The Trojan Family is real. It means a lot, and it means different things at different times. In my sophomore season at USC in 2000, for instance, I talked with Ronnie Lott—a unanimous All-American selection at defensive back for the Trojans in 1980—the entire year. We talked before every game, and he always had some encouraging words for me.

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I’m the brother-in-law of Khaled Holmes—a USC center from 2009 to 2012—so I got to watch him a little bit. I talked to a few of the players because of Khaled and my relationship with him.

To me, though, it was mostly Coach Carroll who embodied the family aspect. Everybody on our team came together under him, and he created a lot of energy. He created an environment in which we all had a lot of fun. We all had a great time playing football, and we all had a great time being around other teammates. That’s what the Trojan spirit means.

After we played the tug-of-war game at the Coliseum that night in 2001, Coach brought us all together, and he had us get in really, really tight, so that everybody was squished up against each other. And he told us to turn around. We turned around, and we just saw an empty Coliseum. It was completely dark. He said, “On November 17, when we beat UCLA, I want everybody here so we can celebrate this together.” And on November 17, we shut out UCLA, 27–0.

We hadn’t been to a bowl the previous couple of seasons, but that win got us into a bowl game. And then, the next year, we played in the Orange Bowl, a 38–17 victory over Iowa. We finished the 2002 season ranked No. 4, but we were definitely the hottest team in the country at the time. One thing the NFL teaches you is that you’ve got to peak at the right time, and I don’t think any team was hotter than we were down the stretch. We were rolling really strong. For sure, there was a sense that big things were coming.

Troy Polamalu was a team captain and All-American in 2001 and 2002 and was named USC’s Most Inspirational Player in 2002.

1) Troy Polamalu went on to become a first-round pick by the Pittsburgh Steelers. 2) Polamalu returns an interception during USC’s 29–5 win over Penn State in the 2000 Kickoff Classic.

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1) Players walk through the Coliseum tunnel past a reminder of their team’s Rose Bowl legacy during the 2003 season. They would add another Rose Bowl victory with a 28–14 win over Michigan. 2) Head Coach Pete Carroll embraces linebacker Lofa Tatupu after USC steamrollered Oklahoma, 55–19, in the 2005 Orange Bowl. 3) Wide receiver Chris McFoy runs after a catch at California in 2005. USC won, 35–10, for its thirty-second consecutive victory.

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Wide receiver Dwayne Jarrett leaves Washington State defenders in his wake in a game in 2005. Jarrett amassed 200 yards on eleven catches in USC’s 55–13 victory.

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Behold the Glory of Troy!

This official and exclusive illustrated history is the one and only authorized chronicle of Trojan football, specially commissioned and created by the University of Southern California for the cardinal and gold faithful. This comprehensive, definitive, one-of-a-kind collectible dates back to the very beginning of the program and celebrates more than a century of USC’s greatest moments, games, championships, players, coaches, awards, and traditions. Featuring in excess of 300 images—many never before published—as well as twenty original essays contributed by an all-star roster of the most decorated and beloved Trojan greats, this singular treasury is the ultimate keepsake for the truest of Trojan fans.

Fight On!