1. Quick insults of your school.
2. Quick insults of another school.
3. Compliments or insults to the writer of the piece.
4. Sodomy/Drug jokes.

Lengthy discourses on your view of society are fine and good. They also don’t belong on this website—that’s what political websites are for, and they’re more than happy to digest eight paragraph theses on the fallacies of altruism and the tragedy of the commons.

With that: you’re yellow carded.

Most of the mentoring programs and friendly, “I’m here to listen” style initiatives enable the very behavior/problems they’re trying to help. This is a fact. Just like the welfare system. People don’t see that, though because these programs were started with good intentions, because the policy-makers assumed the common person was responsible enough not to abuse the system. Unfortunately, the average person abuses the system.

Supporters of these programs (who would say I’m angry, a disenfranchised black man) stand back from a distance, make a lone appearance every once in a while, and think, this is working. They think it’s making a difference. But if you’re there every day, you see the problem up close and you recognize it beyond whatever excuses are made. So when someone like Pete Carroll thinks he can make a difference, it’s insulting to those of us who are/have been working to fix the problem. We fail not because we are incapable and not because we don’t know how to fix the problem, but because the very people who welcome Pete Carroll don’t listen to us when we tell them what needs to be done. They don’t listen because we tell them the truth, and the truth is unpleasant. They don’t want to hear that, so they want us to rally behind Pete Carroll and be nicer. Play basketball with drug dealers, don’t harass known gangmembers or obvious perps, etc.

Listen, I’ve put in my time. I sacrificed enough for a society that doesn’t seem to care, that wants to keep avoiding the truth because some know-it-all with a positive message thinks he can leave his ivory tower and fix the very problems people like him created. I’ve put my life into helping. But the middle class is disappearing. The ghetto is getting bigger. You can hate on me now, call me crazy, ignore what I’m saying, but more than fifty-percent of kids born to the lowest socio-economic classes are dropping out of high school. When your city, neighborhood, block, whatever, is ruined or is surrounded by ruin, don’t say, “What happened?” Don’t wonder what went wrong.

@ 36 – that’s a very valid argument. It’s equally possible that as a figurehead, he might open the door for people listening to the messages you’re espousing. But if teachers, preachers, and cops aren’t getting the message across, it may be a reach to think that Carroll can. Plus, the delivery you’re looking for is so completely at odds with his usual persona, it would be dismissed as hypocrisy from the get-go. Damned either way, I suppose.

@ 37. RE: your concerns. 1) Agreed. 2) Don’t care, don’t see that making me part of the problem. It’s a business, and having celebrities alongside is a revenue raising tactic like selling passes to high-roller alumni. 3) See comments above.

If you don’t want to support SC because you think Pete Carroll’s charitable activities aren’t up to snuff, that’s certainly your prerogative. I suspect that he’s doing more than Larry Smith, John Robinson, and Paul Hackett ever did, and they are – or were, in Smith’s case – good men, as coaches go.

1) Letting OJ Simpson talk to the team before the Orange Bowl: This was bullshit, plain and simple. Whether you believe OJ is innocent or guilty, he’s too controversial to be allowed to speak to the team. In fact, he’s a total piece of shit. Carroll should have shown some integrity (balls) and barred OJ from speaking to the team.

2) Allowing Snoop Dogg and other celebrities (almost all of whom did not graduate from SC) on the sideline: If you don’t understand what’s wrong with this, you’re part of the problem

3) Starting the “A Better LA” program but doing it with an utterly vague/weak stance on crime/gangs, discipline, and responsibility.

Because of these three things, I will not root for USC, despite graduating from there, while Pete Carroll is the coach

It is admirable that Carroll cares, but his methods–which are, as you, I, and everyone else who pays attention know to be successful for the Trojans–are not what inner-city youth need. The players he coaches have unusual talent. Using the same approach with dropouts, delinquents,

If Carroll would tell kids to get their ass out of bed, quit making excuses, reject the losers in their communities who convince them to join gangs and sling dope, stop abandoning pregnant girlfriends, etc. I’d have a greater appreciation for him. He could do this and should do this, but he doesn’t. He feeds the problem, IMO, because he doesn’t condemn certain behaviors that need to be condemned. There is nothing cool about gangs. Nothing good. Nothing. Men like Pete Carroll–if they want to be involved, which he does–must clearly speak out against these violent, criminal groups. Because, as hopeless as it may sound, there will never be any improvement in Los Angeles’ inner-city communities until a great majority of people in those communities reject the practice of tagging, reject gang membership, make education a priority, and decide to do whatever they can do to help improve society. There are people in those communities now who think like this, but there are not enough. Pete Carroll, in his outreach efforts, could help. He needs to change his message and delivery. If he can’t do that, then he needs to step out of the way.

Again, Carroll can’t fix this, but I’d like to hear him–since he is a pretty powerful voice–clearly condemn certain behaviors which are clearly proven to be detrimental to Los Angeles and society in general.

However, conflating your anger about social policy with your animus towards Pete Carroll has led you to make an argument that is complete balls. Utter tripe.

Go and take a look at the level of effort put in by the coaching staff at SC. Go and take a look at the level of effort put in by the players in practice, on the field. There’s hard work and personal discipline there, in spades. That program is the epitome of the old phrase, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

Is it easier to build a winning program with good players? Sure. But Miami and FSU haven’t been short on talented players lately and it hasn’t done them much good – someone has to get them pointed in the right direction and come up with a plan more complicated than “throw further, run faster, hit harder.”

Just because the tone of coaching at USC is not “sir yes sir!” doesn’t mean it’s a bad approach. I can shut up and work and get plenty done when the condition suck, but I do even better work when we approach shit conditions with a positive tone.

The success is what counts, not being miserable on the way there. And as a Scot steeped in cultural calvinism, I know from being miserable along the way.

Plainly you’ve got some problems with the way things are in Los Angeles, but trying to make a football coach as emblematic of the causes of generations of social dysfunction is to make a strawman of epic proportions. You might as well blame Pete Carroll for the increased price of oil because he drives a Range Rover.

You may have come up with your own solution, albeit inadvertantly. Perhaps a change of venue for you would ease your mind…and I might suggest the very place you seem to have taken a shot at: Miami of Ohio.

Oxford is a very bucolic setting; simply a gorgeous campus in a friendly small town, abutting a scenic state park. You won’t ever have to worry about the safety of walking the streets at any time of day or night, and your car and/or bike won’t be hassled. True, there is no ocean/beach to be had, but if you like being able to be outdoors, amid lots of mature, mixed deciduous trees and red brick, Georgian architecture you could do a lot worse.

The school is extremely highly regarded academically and is, if I remember correctly, the oldest university west of the Appalachian Mountains. It was, literally, a university when Florida still belonged to Spain.

The MAC may not be the PAC-10 athletically, but if you truyly enjoy real coaching, the football team has consistently offered it, which is why it is known as “The Cradle Of Coaches.” Weeb Eubank, Woody Hayes, Ara Parseghian, Bo Schembechler and Randy Walker, among others, all coached there.

Just a thought. Student or not, it is a nice place to be.

Obviously, Knox, there’s more to it than just star ratings, but since there’s been such a thing as star ratings, it’s fairly well-documented that the last six or seven (how ever long they’ve kept records) national champions (including Texas a few years back) have averaged top fifteen or better recruiting classes in the years prior to their victory.

I know there are plenty of arguments for and against these ratings, which I don’t care to argue, because with or without them, Pete Carroll has a superfluous amount of talent, more than any team he faces. I don’t see how anyone could argue that he is more of a coach than he is just a recruiter. He’s a lot like Bobby Bowden. Heck, he’s a lot like most of these guys. Personally, I’ve always been one to think it’s more impressive coaching when a coach goes 8-4 with a moderately talented team than it is to go 13-0 with a supremely talented team.

If we’re talking about superior talent alone being enough to succeed in college football, I would expect Notre Dame to do a heck of a lot better than they have been doing. You could probably add Oklahoma to that mix too, and Bob Stoops is considered a better than average coach.

As for strategies being more effective when you have superior talent, let’s just say that’s pretty darn obvious.

You claim that his strategies would fail if he didn’t have superior talent. Well, first of all, I’m not sure if that’s true, we’d have to see him use the same strategies with lesser player. More importantly, you develop strategies based on the players you have. If your qb is completely immobile, the spread is probably not a good offense to run.

Without more evidence for your claims, I find your arguments unconvincing.

i would agree with you that recruiting isnt everything and that to be successful you’ve got to have good coaching.

As for me, I’m tired of seeing this city go downhill. In fact, I’m so fed up I’m moving because I’m not sure it will get better. Those of you in NY, I’ll see you at the bar exam in July; I’m done being a lawya in dees parts.

Seriously, Johnnie, your hate for Pete Carroll (and USC real estate for that matter) is a little creepy. He just wants to win forever, that’s all.

Just sayin’.