Lincoln Riley: Worst Coach Ever!
Bill Agnew
Crystal Beach, Texas
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I discovered the reason for the USC football team’s poor performance this season. A simple typo. The contract says ‘Transfer to Big TEN Conference’ when it should say ‘Transfer to Big SKY Conference’.
Chris McDonald
Nipomo, California.
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Steve Sarkisian won last Saturday, Clay Helton won last Saturday, Lane Kiffin won last Saturday. All of their teams had better records than USC. What do you think is the real problem?
William Morris
Pasadena
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I am a USC alum who arrived in 1962 when the great John McKay took us to a National Championship! We were feared, respected and had swagger. My parents came to USC under Howard Jones and always shared their memories of a USC football powerhouse. My son entered a PhD program during the Pete Carroll era. All those years are a distant memory. Speaking for so many disgusted fans, we deserve better. Against Notre Dame, the collective groan in the Coliseum with another last-minute loss due to Riley’s poor play was the breaking point for this lifelong Trojan.
Judi Welch
Pacific Palisades
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Miller Moss played well this year. Unfortunately for him, all of his losses were close, so he took the “hit” for those defeats. Moss is what was good about the USC program. Might I suggest that Moss plays for an Ivy League school, has fun in his senior year of football, and gets a prestigious MBA in the process. I do know this: Wherever Moss ends his football career, the school will have a class athlete.
Mark Walker
Yorba Linda
What happened to the students?
It was crazy to read Ben Bolch’s article about who would be playing for UCLA in 2025. I thought for a moment it was Major League Baseball Free Agency before I remembered this is college we’re talking about.
These are kids in college who are essentially looking at the highest bidder before deciding where to play. We support our alma mater, but these are not athletics students. They are athletes who happen to wear the letters of a university on their jerseys, mainly in a junior professional league. ‘Carrot before washing’ has never been such a good maxim.
Bob Goldstone
Corona del Mar
Big disappointment
I want to thank USC and UCLA for their success this first season in the Big Ten. USC accelerated the Pac-12’s demise because of greed and UCLA followed suit like a little brother with no choice but to follow its older brother. Mediocrity reigned for both schools, but worse than mediocrity is irrelevance, for the Dodgers, Rams, Chargers and Lakers et al. Dylan Hernández’s December 2 column was right on the money.
David Cianchetti
Claremont
A different kind of monarch
Are the Mater Dei Monarchs really great? There used to be a time in high school sports where you played against the kids who were from the area where the school was. Now it’s similar to the Division 1 college sports transfer portal where talented athletes regularly transfer simply because a particular school has become a powerhouse. It doesn’t matter where they come from, but how good they are. Anyone can now put together a ‘ringer’ team and what’s the fun about that?
Mike Aguilar
Costa Mesa
Lakers can learn from Dodgers
The Lakers won a championship in 2020 and then broke up the team. The Dodgers won a championship this year and they are keeping the team together (including Teoscar hopefully) and bringing in more pieces. Who is smarter?
Mike Schaller
Temple city
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Is there any chance the Lakers could hire Andrew Friedman to lead the organization? He seems to have created a consistent winning model for the Dodgers while the Lakers muddle in mediocrity.
Dean Connor
Fontana
Rose Bowl request
As a longtime UCLA season ticket holder, I applaud the plan to modernize the Rose Bowl. However, I wonder why previous improvement projects have not addressed the lack of handrails on the stairs to the seats. The stairs vary in height, some reaching 35cm, and are challenging for many of us to navigate. Should we wait until 2029 or later for this important safety feature?
Karen Mack
Los Angeles
Bet on the farm(er)
Congratulations to Sam Farmer for correctly picking all 16 games in the NFL last week. I was about to contact him to come to Vegas with me for my week of March Madness fun until I saw he was down to 8-8 with the spread picks. That’s about my speed. I love the paper, keep up the good work.
Greg Monroe
San Diego
Memory of Lou
While attending basketball at the Forum during the Summer Olympics in 1984, my friend and I had the pleasure of meeting Lou Carnesecca.
Maybe it was because we told him we were fans of Chris Mullin, but the man wearing the jersey made it his personal mission to show us around and introduce us to Big East commissioner Dave Gavitt, Digger Phelps and several other basketball coaches. Like John Wooden – another great basketball coach and likable man – it was our surprise that Carnesecca lived to be 99.
Ken Veldman
Tarzana
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