Coach Carroll is as much to blame as Reggie Bush for USC mess
OPINION - It is virtually impossible to find a better and more composed liar today than former University of Southern California head football coach Pete Carroll...
It is virtually impossible to find a better and more composed liar today than former University of Southern California head football coach Pete Carroll.
In fact, Carroll, who left that post in earlier this year after a successful career that saw the Trojans win two National Championships and seven Pac-10 titles under Carroll, probably should have been seated in the Oval Office on Friday alongside the executives from BP who likely stammered their way through a plethora of lies trying to placate President Obama concerning the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Now the coach of the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks after taking a pittance ($33 million over five years) to return to the NFL — Carroll has failed miserably twice before as an NFL coach with the New York Jets and the New England Patriots — Carroll, no longer collecting his mega money in Los Angeles, hit the campaign trail spewing lies that no one could possibly believe.
“I’m absolutely shocked and disappointed at the findings of the NCAA,” Carroll, in an office, told the camera. “I never, ever thought that it would come to this. After nine years of working at the university and going and going through all the challenges and the accomplishments that people took part in, I’m extremely disappointed that we have to deal with this right now.”
WATCH FORMER USC COACH PETE CARROLL REACT TO THE SANCTIONS:
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Please, please, somebody shut him up already.
To begin with, Pete, you don’t have to deal with the repercussions now. The time for you to have dealt with was back in 2005. That’s when you allowed your best player — Heisman Trophy winning running back Reggie Bush – to come under the advice of an agent, according to the NCAA’s finding. Of all the infractions in the NCAA’s book governing them, this is the one that even some of the most casual fans of big-time football are aware of.
But Carroll, known to be on top of everything while he was at USC, pleads ignorance regarding the matter. As a result, the USC program – deservedly so, if I might add – has received what is comparable to the NCAA’s death penalty, pending an appeal that will likely fall on deaf ears.
While arguably the best college football program over the last decade will receive a two-year bowl ban, four years probation, vacate 12 wins from the 2005 season and lose program-killing scholarships, Carroll won’t have to deal with the stench he has left behind.
In a twist of juicy irony, he has already hacked one of his former Trojan players, having cut LenDale White, winner of two titles at USC while Bush’s backfield mate under Carroll. White, 25, who at times in his brief pro career with Tennessee, had been known to be as much as 50 pounds over his playing weight, arrived in Seattle around 225 pounds and was believed to be part of the answer to the Seahawks anemic rushing attack.
Carroll cutting White could have absolutely nothing to do with White’s ties to USC’s corrupted legacy under Carroll. However, White once told a reporter that his weight loss was the result of a diet mostly consisting of “Tequila.” Carroll no doubt looked at this and wondered what might come out of White’s mouth in the future that might further implicate him and became collateral damage.
USC is going to appeal this mess but don’t look for them to be victorious. Athletic director Mike Garrett, an African-American, responded with arrogance, after the report was leaked, saying the report was “nothing but a lot of envy.”
Stupid, no doubt. Garrett will almost certainly lose his job for this. But rather than be a loyal soldier, Carroll just chose to continue to insult people’s intelligence, playing stupid regarding the NCAA’s four-year investigation into his former program.
“The University didn’t know; we didn’t know. We were not aware of these findings,” Carroll claims. “The facts don’t match the findings. We were always out there to do things better than it’s ever been done before. The agenda of the NCAA Infractions Committee took them beyond the facts and the facts took them beyond the sanctions.”
Stop it, enough already.
