Author Steve Delson huddles up with a host of former players and coaches to present an oral history of the University of Southern California’s football team. Given that the Trojans have won 11 national titles and 38 conference championships while producing seven Heisman Trophy winners and 80 All-Americans, there’s clearly a lot of ground to cover. That’s probably why the look-back only covers the last 40 years of the program, which begins shortly after the O.J. Simpson years. Despite the school’s many football successes, this history doesn’t shy away from relating some of the darker moments and conflicts, including the school’s battles with the NCAA.
Here’s an excerpt from Cardinal and Gold:
[Recollection shared about Keyshawn Johnson, a junior college transfer in 1994 and perhaps the best wide receiver in USC history, by Shelley Smith, a Los Angeles-based reporter for Sports Illustrated]:
“Keyshawn grew up in South Central [Los Angeles]. He grew up right around the corner from USC. He would go to watch practice, and USC made him a ball boy. Ronnie Lott and other guys would bring him food because he and his mother lived in a car for a while. They would sleep in the cemetery, he said, because people didn’t shoot up the cemetery.
“So he grew up around USC and he always wanted to go there, but he changed high schools so often because of sports – and they moved because of gangs – and so he never really got the education. He’s been a con artist all his life. He thought he could just scam his way into any college that he wanted to go to, and he found out he couldn’t. He ended up at West Los Angeles College, a junior college. Then I remember he was trying to decide between Tennessee and USC. I said, ’Go to Tennessee because that’ll get you out of this environment.’ He said, ‘No, you don’t understand. USC is a family. I’ll have USC forever.’ He understood the legacy and the way they take care of their alums. So, you know, he was born to play there.”
