During intermission I had a chance to catch up with my friend and former Register colleague, Cecilia Cuaresma, the self-proclaimed “BOSS of the sports world,” and a producer for ESPNU and aimsports.tv.

That’s her, pretending not to know me.

OK, now she knows me.

My time with Miss Cuaresma was cut short, however, because they were serving free food – the real reason people attend Pac-10 Media Day.

One bite of the corn was one bite too many. How do you mess up corn??? … Somewhere on that plate is chicken.

I decided to see what some of the other coaches were up to … like Washington’s Tyrone Willingham (middle) telling a reporter how good the Huskies are going to be.

Cal’s Jeff Tedford (middle) proclaimed there’s a fine line between a 10-win team and seven-win team. In other words, Cal has really been a BCS team the past six years. He also managed to sneak in the phrase, “chomping at the bit.” I like this guy.

I have to say, UCLA’s Brigham Harwell (right) was definitely among the best dressed players. I’m guessing The Register’s Mark Saxon (left) is probably asking him if it was true when his coach said he had straight A’s. The last time I did that was in the fourth grade.

Look at USC linebacker Brian Cushing (middle) on his third plate of food. There’s no way he had three servings of corn.

By this point, Carroll (middle) and Neuheisel were the only coaches left. Carroll told us that he once asked former UCLA coach John Wooden how his philosophy had changed from year to year and Wooden told him it didn’t, his players did. That apparently made Carroll feel “like a 10-year-old kid.”

I asked Carroll which USC team from the past six years was the best. “At the end of the season, Carson (Palmer’s) team was good, man,” Carroll said. “That was a good team. … But we were so good on defense … the year Matt (Leinart) won the Heisman, the last year Lofa (Tatupu) was playing.

“That team was so well-rounded. The defense was so spectacular at taking the ball away from our opponents. I don’t know how anybody could beat us. We just had too many weapons, too much firepower. Too many issues to deal with for the opponent.” 

Well, I’m still going with 2003, which included Mike Williams. I didn’t see Herschel Walker and Barry Sanders play in college, but the only player I remember being more dominating than Williams was Nebraska quarterback Tommie Frazier.

Neuheisel (middle) was the last coach to leave. He said he thought every conference team should play a non-conference powerhouse and two gimmes. He also mentioned that he and Carroll are trying to arrange for both USC and UCLA to wear their home jerseys when they play this season. Right now, no deal has been set because, by rule, each team would be penalized a time out each half.

I didn’t realize all USC-UCLA games until 1982 featured only home jerseys. Neuheisel told the story of how Arizona State that year wore the wrong color while playing at Arizona. The Wildcats ended up having to change into their white jerseys right before game time, only not all of their players had one available, causing some to wear practice jerseys. A rule was then instituted calling for the road team to always wear white.

I’ve worked with Neuheisel twice now and the guy is a charmer. He even said he would reward the beat writers by scheduling a road game against Hawaii in November sometime in the future. I’m not making this stuff up.

Before heading out I said goodbye to Miss Cuaresma. Why did this picture have to come out grainier than all the others?

And finally, five hours after I had begun, I’m crawling home through that sweet L.A. traffic. I wonder if this picture is illegal since I took it with my phone. Whatever.

PART I.

amaya@ocregister.com

Posted in: Cal • Football • UCLA • Washington |

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.