U$C

Recently, the NCAA has imposed a two year bowl ban on USC. In it's report, the NCAA recited among other things "a profound lack of institutional control" within Heritage Hall the home of USC Athletics and the private fiefdom of Athletic Director and SC Heisman Trophy winner, Mike Garrett. Mike holds the purse strings and the "Kim Jong-il-like" power of a $75M+ annual budget. Obviously, this picture of Mike was taken during happier times. Today, Mike's not smiling. He's angry! Not at himself but at everybody else.

Since 1993, it appears that Mike has been playing the college athletic game by his own rules. Or as my young researcher, Danny, has voiced over the years, "SC's program is the present day version of the U (University of Miami under Jimmy Johnson in the '80s)." And that is not a compliment. It is the anti-Paterno method of college athletic governance. The U was defined by thugs, no rules, no academics, winning games and filling up the coffers. Kinda sounds like a modern day SC.

As long as Mike won games, his accomplice, University President Steven Sample, looked the other way. Well now with the NCAA sanctions coupled with Sample's timely retirement, Mike has become more vulnerable and even more testy with the media than normal. His normal distaste for the media on a good day, goes something like this, "No comment. Don't bother me." Then tells his people, "Don't talk to that guy. He's the press."

Recently, as the NCAA story broke, the media asked Mike about the report. Mike said with a full bank of microphones in front of him, "Everybody wishes they were all Trojans." Regarding the penalty, Mike said, "...we're (SC) bigger than life."

Sadly, Mike appears to be yet another victim of monumental hubris. There is his reality which is always right. And your reality which is always wrong. His behaviour is strangely similar to, of all people, Saddam Hussein before "shock and awe". I fear the conclusion of Mike's story will end similarly to Saddam's. In a dark place, alone, pathetic, dreaming of the past while still defiant.

Undoubtedly, Mike's past has caught up with him and it has sullied the reputation of SC. A fine University. Hopefully, the new incoming President, CL Nikias, will have the gumption to "clean house" in Heritage Hall, start anew and bury the ghosts of Mike Garrett and his kind. Hear that Lane Kiffin?

As TJ Simers of the LA Times wrote, "Another day passes without SC demanding Mike Garrett's resignation. Shameful."

Mike, you're 66 years old, it's time for you to move on from your alma mater and put your Tommy Trojan bobblehead away.