<p>I'm impressed by the empathy and good sportsmanship demononstrated by all of you towards Shogun. </p>
<p>Some could have been cute and posted that USC is no longer the Shogun of College Football.</p>
<p>Some could have been cruel and posted that USC stands for Unanimous Second Choice for the Associated Press rankings. </p>
<p>But your compassion ruled the day and you were silent.</p>
<p>My hat's off to all of you.</p>
<p>aspen,
just took my mid to Los Angeles International Airport and the place was overrun with slow speakin' orange clad people with the outline of a white bovine creature adorning all articles of clothing: hats, shirts, sweatshirts, jackets. They all had huge grins too (actually some of them looked hung-over and they weren't smiling). (Exactly where do people buy burnt orange leather jackets?) It was quite odd, because for the last few months every fifth person in Southern California was wearing USC gear (football jerseys, sweatshirts, ball caps) and flying USC pennants from their car windows and flagpoles. Haven't seen anyone wearing crimson and gold today...
Both football teams were great though and the game was exciting till the end.<br>
My daughter has a number of friends who attend the University of Southern California, and USC does NOT stand for University of Spoiled Children ;)
(Shogun may be removing the USC flags/pennants/bumper stickers from the house, car, motorhome at the moment.)</p>
<p>GO NAVY! BEAT ARMY! :)</p>
<p>I waited and waited but no one chimed in to Shogun. It can't be me either. MY USC lost it's bowl game as well. So no comment..... :P</p>
<p>First, game was great to watch, more so because Texas won. I was very disappointed in Leinart, after the game he actually made the comment on air that "USC had the better football team". Sounds like someone who's attending the University of Spoiled Children. What a stupid, ungracious thing to say. To Reggie Bush's great credit he went to the Texas locker room and congratulated his opponents. I also liked Vince Young's whole attitude - he's well-spoken, and seemed to be having a lot of fun.</p>
<p>Both USC and Texas have pathetic graduation rates for their athletes. Army and Navy both rank very high, as does Penn State (86 percent). For some reason Notre Dame also has a very high graduation rate - I can only think that it's because athletes there probably take basketweaving and and advanced basketweaving for their courses.</p>
<p>From the Mercury News:</p>
<p>"But neither USC nor Texas has much to celebrate.</p>
<p>The Trojans may have won 30 straight games over their past three seasons. But USC graduates only 56 percent of its players -- and that's after the NCAA altered its formula to accommodate college and university presidents who wanted the data to better reflect the mobility of today's students from campus to campus.</p>
<p>USC's numbers rank it sixth in the Pacific-10 Conference, behind Stanford, Washington, Oregon, arch-rival UCLA and Washington State. It should be embarrassing to USC alumni, coaches and administrators that barely half of their team's players can expect to earn a degree by the time they finish their academic careers.</p>
<p>Texas fans' faces should be an even deeper shade of red over their team's academic record. Only 40 percent of Longhorn football players graduate from Texas, the worst rate (by far) in the Big 12 Conference."</p>
<p>Go Army! Sink Navy!</p>
<p>As my brother and sister said who graduated from USC both undergrad and grad said "pay your fee, get a B".</p>
<p>That was mean of me, I apologize. I forgot, it was my dad that said it because it was the only school they could get into and he had to pay for it. This was 25 years ago and I assume USC has changed a lot since then.</p>
<p>It really was a great game and I have to admit feeling a touch of pain for shogun and his son. But then again, the White Sox won the World Series, the Bears are in the playoffs, the U of I basketball team is still undefeated so all is good in my home. :D</p>
<p>Personally, I hope to get a good night's sleep tonight! After 2 awesome games (triple overtime, 4 missed field goals!) at the Orange and Rose Bowls - I've been up too late (east coast time). With no skin in either bowl, it was just great football! I am, however, planning a good party to watch the Redskins sink the Bucs this weekend to avenge our loss earlier this season!</p>
<p>Big green,
Finally, we have consensus on the issue of graduation rates for college athletes! I too was a little put off by Matt Leinarts remark, but he is pretty young after all (told my daughter to stay away from his ilk
) Hey, isnt this his fifth year as an undergrad??? Also, in a post-game interview with another USC player, a junior I believe, a journalist asked Will we be seeing you on this team again next year? The player mumbled something about checking with his agent! I was shocked. Maybe he should read President Jimmy Carters new book, Our Endangered Values. ;)
On the other hand, the talent and athleticism of top tier teams is pretty entertaining.</p>
<p>GO NAVY! BEAT ARMY! :)</p>
<p>P.S. graduation rate for female varsity athletes at USNA is 85 percent :)</p>
<p>First of all, it was 34 straight games, not 30.</p>
<p>Second of all, my son turned down Berkeley, UCLA, and UC San Diego to go to USC---he fell in love with the campus (walking through it you wouldn't have a clue you were in south central LA :) ), and obviously from the schools he turned down he had the grades and SAT scores that would hardly place him in the category "couldn't get accepted anywhere else"</p>
<p>Thirdly, USC has one of the largest contingents of ROTC units in the nation--Army, Navy, and Air Force are represented on campus (daughter turned down an Army ROTC scholarship there)-patriotism runs high on that campus as well as free thought.</p>
<p>Fourth, A heck of a lot of football players at USC turn pro before they graduate, and a lot of them don't---we can malign the fact that they don't stay and finish college---but thats a fact of the system---I don't see anyone doing much to change it.</p>
<p>Fifth---my son is not a spoiled child--he is up to his eyeballs in student loans that he will have to pay back on his own. Every private school has their share of rich kids---but also quite a few not so rich.</p>
<p>Sixth----that was a great game in which a great team lost to a great player with a strong supporting cast. As in any single game, it could have gone either way with different calls, a working tape review moniter, yada yada yada---but the Longhorns won and on that night in that game they deserved to win. Texas is an awesome team, but Matt and company will still be the team that accomplished more until Texas matches that 34 game streak, two national titles back to back, and two heismans back to back. As a Trojan fan, I can see it no other way :)</p>
<p>seventh---Matt Leinert is an extraordinary young man who has been the model of humility and understatement for the last 3 years that he has led that team---stick a microphone in front of anyone's face after an emotional and gutwrenching loss and see if you like everything that spills out of their mouth.</p>
<p>eighth--from a 2003 article at (UCLA no less :) :</p>
<p>"Already the average SAT score for freshman entering USC is higher than the average score for incoming freshmen at UCLA or UC Berkeley. USC, with a smaller student body than UCLA, claimed 150 national merit scholars, compared to UCLA's 94 last year. Since 1998, USC has jumped from 41 to 30 in the U.S. News and World Report's rankings of the country's best colleges. UCLA has remained around 25 in that time." </p>
<p>"USC is also improving in the area of diversity. An institution with a reputation of being elitist has a student population whose demographic make-up more closely reflects California's diversity than does UCLA's student body. Administrators at USC aggressively pursue top black and Latino students, while UCLA admissions officers read applications where, in compliance with state law, the race box is blacked out."</p>
<p>ninth:</p>
<p>"Equally important is the academic excellence that today's USC students bring. USC accepted fewer than 32 percent of applicants for a place in the 2002 freshman class. Most graduated from the top 10 percent of their high schools. The 2002 entering class' SAT score average is 1319 and GPA average is 3.9. But USC students are more than academic high-achievers. There have been more Trojans in the Olympics than any American university, and over 60 percent of the university's students volunteer in community-service programs in neighborhoods around campus and throughout LA." </p>
<p>The 20 foot flagpole in front of my house still proudly flies the flag of our nation, the flag of West Point, and USC cardinal and gold. </p>
<p>sorry, I am not in the best of moods--all of Southern California is observing 3 days of mourning.......</p>
<p>hi shogun,
the essential question is: Do you own more USC or USMA spirit wear?</p>
<p>(Are you serious about the flagpole??? :eek:</p>
<p>and in 2005 for USC's class of 2009:</p>
<p>"He also congratulated the students and read some statistics about the class of 2009. Sample mentioned that the average GPA was 4.05 and SAT score was 1368, 18 points higher than last year and "more than Berkeley or UCLA."</p>
<p>enuff said.</p>
<p>usna09mom"</p>
<p>I have enough license plate frames, t-shirts, stickers, flags, sweat pants, sweat shirts, pennants, pins, glasses, mugs, jiggers, etc...from both schools to open my own gift shop!</p>
<p>And yes, you should see the flag pole (its in addition to the house flags on the garage.)</p>
<p>Iam trying to figure out where I can go to get a mural put on the sides of the motorhome. Trojan warrior on a horse on one side, Black Knight on the other! (Just kidding)</p>
<p>shogun,
stop, I'm choking on popcorn...you're too funny! :)</p>
<p>usna09mom,</p>
<p>Do you realize how hard it was to get those 72" mega-speakers on the roof so I can hear "Conquest" as I pull into my driveway each night, and "The Army Goes Rolling Along" when I pull out in the morning??????</p>
<p>LOL You just had to pour salt on that open wound didn't you Aspen you sly dawg. Now Shogun is all a dither and needs his pieces picked back up & put back together. He's prolly wearing black as I post.....</p>
<p>Shogun: Sorry. I couldn't resist stirring the pot and tweaking USC a bit. Having gone to Dartmouth I don't get to celebrate or mourn many Bowl games but I'm still depressed whenever we lose to Harvard. </p>
<p>And I did avoid any reference to Trojans and holes in the Trojan defense.</p>
<p>Shogun: I apologize if I have been responsible in any way for putting you in, as Jamzmom describes, "a dither". When I made my initial posting, I had no intention or expectation that I would stir things up(That's my story and I'm sticking to it).</p>
<p>By the way, I forwarded a copy of your "Tribute to USC" posting to the director of USC's fund raising program so that he/she can be sure to add you to their exceptionally loyal parent mailing list. I also may have let it slip out that you're related to Bill Gates.</p>
<p>Sorry, Shogun/ didn't mean to upset you. My husband and I are CAL people. But it is rather strange that my daughter applied to USC 4 years ago as a safety school with a 3.4 and 1000 SAT and got accepted! Go figure!</p>
<p>Sorry, Shogun/ didn't mean to upset you. My husband and I are CAL people. But it is rather strange that my daughter applied to USC 4 years ago as a safety school with a 3.4 and 1000 SAT and got accepted! Go figure!</p>