Letters: One W isn't wonderful for Trojans fans

Sept. 6, 2019 3:18 PM PT

Definitions of insanity: Hoping that Clay Helton won’t look like a deer in the headlights and that Lynn Swann will make the right decision.

Jack Saltzberg

Valley Village

Trojan football! Just as good as last year!

Jack Von Bulow

Temple City

Reflecting upon a dismal 5-7 season, Clay Helton stated he would in essence become CEO of the team overseeing “situational mastery.” Nine months later, on the very first play of the new season, his Trojans mastered illegal procedure by situationally having two players wearing the identical jersey number on the field at the same time which resulted in a penalty negating a long kickoff return.

While the focus on accountability is commendable, his level of sheer incompetence and in-game ineptitude remains staggering.

Yes, he’s the CEO all right: Coaching Errors Omnipresent (Costing Every Outcome).

Steve Ross

Beverly Hills

With JT (Joint Tear) Daniels out, I am requesting USC to refund moneys paid for the five remaining home games ($940). However, as they say in Indianapolis, good “luck” with that.

David Marshall

Santa Monica

I hope the 90 or so players on the USC football team read Dylan Hernandez’s column Monday. They should be delighted to discover that their season is over and their coach is toast. The players, along with many fans, will also learn that the Trojans have been playing in “a pig of a stadium” for many years.

Perhaps this bulletin-board material will incite players and coaches alike to prove your paper’s most disagreeable writer is full of hogwash.

Richard Jewell

Los Feliz

My family has had USC season tickets for over 50 years and I’m glad our new seats are on the same side as the new massive tower so I don’t have to look at it and be reminded how USC sold out to the donors and stuck it to those of us who had our old seats removed!

Many of us in Section 203b (Tunnel 4 for you real Trojan fans) tried to bond with those around us, talking about the people we use to sit next to and how we watched their kids grow up, season after season.

Renovation removed all our seats and we all paid a little more to have seats close to our original location. But now piped-in rap music was playing over the band and the sound system for announcing the game was inaudible. But those tower donors had catered food, multiple televisions, and beer and wine, something you won’t find at OUR concession stands.

The Trojans won, but it felt like a huge loss. I have some old Coliseum seats in my front room I’d rather sit in!

Judy Thomsen

Glendora

Westwood woe

Q: What are the chances that Chip Kelly and the Bruins win more than three games without changing QB?

A: Slimski and Noneski

Alfred Harvey

Ventura

After what is now becoming the annual opening game loss for the UCLA football team, my wife reminded me that our required donation to the Wooden Athletic Fund to maintain our seats at the Rose Bowl has coincided with two, going on three of the worst years of football we’ve seen in the 34 years we’ve supported the program. There may be fans who don’t blink an eye at the annual cost for season tickets, but the seats, WAF, parking, food and travel are a significant investment for us, one we’ve been proud to contribute in the past, win or lose.

Adding to our frustration are the quirks and cryptic communication style of Chip Kelly, which may play well when the team is improving and winning, but are annoying and off putting when they are doing neither. He represents a university and program with a storied history, and is paid handsomely to get over himself.

Eric Forseth

Murrieta

As Bruins football season-ticket holders since the 1950s, we gave up many years ago because our cheap family plan seats were in the end zone sunshine. We couldn’t see the game and we sweltered. However, we continued to purchase tickets for individual games a couple of times a year.

But when they stopped serving alcohol in the stadium, the experience became unbearable. The fans tanked up before each game at tailgate parties on the beautiful golf course. Fans entered the stadium drunk. Scary drunks cussed out the coach and players. Sick drunks barfed on us. Unsteady drunks fell on us.

It was the drunks, not the team or coach or lousy record, that made television so nice.

Sally Cook

Camarillo

The arduous 27-mile journey to the Rose Bowl is too much for UCLA students and fans. So sorry to hear that the Bruins’ lease with the Rose Bowl runs through 2044.

In the long run, the new stadium at Hollywood Park is the ideal future home for the Bruins. Maybe A.D. Dan Guerrero can negotiate a buyout on that lease, as he has had much experience buying out the many coaches he has fired.

Mike Anderson
Sherman Oaks

It’s the law

Before you publish articles in regard to shifting or sharing blame for Tyler Skaggs’ overdose death it is suggested you research your theory beyond quotes from third persons with no basis in the law. A failure “to monitor your own employees” is a stretch far beyond the civil law in California, where respondeat superior liability is defined by civil instruction 3701.

The law requires that the person acting illegally was: 1., the employee or agent of the employer, and, 2., the person was acting in the course and scope of the employment at the time the harm was caused. A team employee illegally selling or providing drugs on the side is never going to be in the course and scope of employment, by definition under the law more than a “somewhat rogue act.”

Kevin Park

Mission Hills

I am disappointed to read that Brad Ausmus had to Google to learn what fentanyl was. Has he been living in a cave? As MLB is drafting players barely out of high school, it seems imperative that teams’ coaches and staff be completely conversant on drugs of all kinds. Those young players are now their responsibility as they spend months in their care. Surely team management should recognize this and expand their mentoring beyond athletic skills.

It takes a village and only trying to find out how Skaggs got the drugs is completely insufficient.

Mary Berkley

Riverside

Work of Art

In reading Andrew Greif’s documentation of Art Briles’ new job, I found one aspect to be sorely lacking: any note of contrition from Briles. The word “redemption” gives the impression that the subject seeking this would realize his past shortcomings and accept responsibility. Quite the opposite in this story. Briles, according to this article, feels he did nothing wrong while at Baylor, overseeing a football program that experienced an astounding number of sexual assault accusations during his tenure.

If the L.A. Times had the intent of providing free positive PR to Briles and Mount Vernon, mission accomplished.

Mark Gordonson

Pacific Palisades

Time for NFL

The difference between NFL owners raising the same child who’s throwing a tantrum in a candy store:

Jerry Jones: Stop it! I told you only one piece!

Child: (continues screaming)

Jerry Jones: OK. I’ll buy you the candy store.

Dean Spanos: Stop it! I told you only one piece!

Child: (continues screaming)

Dean Spanos: OK, no candy. You’ve got one minute to get in the car, or find your own way home.

Dave Eng

Thousand Oaks

I have been a faithful reader of The Times’ sports section for many decades, and I can’t remember a better-written or more moving article than Rich Ohrnberger’s description of his life in the NFL and the events that led him to retire. Well done.

Aaron Allan

Topanga

The Times Wednesday headline “Goff Lands Record Deal” left me with two thoughts. Isn’t it time for Jared to focus more on football, and isn’t it nice that he has a music career to fall back on?

Thomas Cook

Redondo Beach

On the radio

I just read Arash Markazi’s column on the late Joe McDonnell. Markazi refers to 1993 as the infancy of talk radio. Hmmm! I guess that in the mid-1970s, Bud Furillo, Superfan (Ed Beiler), and Bud Tucker (all on KABC) and the like were talking about housekeeping or something else!

Jack Wolf

Westwood

While I am certainly no fan of the “How ‘Bout Them Cowboys!” radio program (also known as the Will Cain Show), I must thank ESPN for the decision to move Mason & Ireland’s time slot. Now when I’m driving to and from lunch, I don’t need to flip between 570 and 710. I’ll listen to Roggin and Rodney, and know I’m not missing anything interesting on the other station.

Brian Lipson

Beverly Hills

Just the facts

Today I woke up to a miracle in the L.A. sports journalism world!

Buried on the last page and in the last paragraph of “The Day In Sports” I found 12 lines about the previous day’s WNBA action; one- or two-sentence descriptions of three games that went on in the wildly entertaining battle for seeding positions for the upcoming playoffs in the only pro basketball league playing right now.

I looked out the window in my kitchen and, I swear to God, I saw a pig flying by.

Jon Roe

Los Angeles

He is outta here!

Come back, Mike Scioscia! All is forgiven!

Ron Reeve

Glendora

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