Letters to Sports: USC fans reaching their breaking point with Lincoln Riley
Lincoln Riley: worst coach ever!
Bill Agnew
Crystal Beach, Texas
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I figured out the reason for the USC football team's poor performance this season. A simple typographical error. The contract reads, "Transfer to Big TEN Conference," when it should read, "Transfer to Big SKY Conference."
Chris McDonald
Nipomo, Calif.
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Steve Sarkisian won last Saturday, Clay Helton won last Saturday, Lane Kiffin won last Saturday. All their teams had better records than USC. What do you think the real problem is?
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 started a PhD program during the Pete Carroll era. All of those years are a distant memory. Speaking for so many disgusted fans, we deserve better. Against Notre Dame, the collective moan in the Coliseum with yet another last-minute loss because of Riley's poor play calling 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 ones so he took the "hit" for those defeats. Moss is what was good about the USC program. May I suggest that Moss play for an Ivy League school, have fun in his final year of football, and get a prestigious MBA in the process. This much I know: Wherever Moss finishes his football career, the school will have a class athlete.
Mark Walker
Yorba Linda
What happened to the students?
It was crazy reading Ben Bolch’s article on who would be playing football for UCLA in 2025. For a minute I thought it was Major League Baseball free agency before I remembered this is college we’re talking about.
These are youngsters in college who are essentially looking to the highest bidder before deciding where to play next. We root for our alma mater but these are not students playing athletics. They are athletes who just happen to wear the letters of a college on their jerseys essentially in a junior pro league. “Root for the laundry” was never a truer maxim.
Bob Goldstone
Corona del Mar
Big disappointment
I would like to thank USC and UCLA for their success this inaugural season in the Big Ten. USC hastened the demise of the Pac-12 due to greed and UCLA followed suit like a little brother who has no choice but to follow his older brother. Mediocrity reigned for both schools, but worse than mediocrity is irrelevance, with 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? Used to be a time in high school sports that you played the kids that came from the neighborhood the school was in. Now it’s similar to the Division 1 college sports transfer portal where talented athletes regularly just transfer in because a particular school has become a powerhouse. Doesn’t matter where they’re from, just how good they are. Anyone can now build a “ringer” team and where’s the fun in that.
Mike Aguilar
Costa Mesa
Lakers could learn from Dodgers
The Lakers won a championship in 2020 then broke up the team. The Dodgers won a championship this year and they're 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 a possibility that the Lakers could hire Andrew Friedman to run the organization? He seems to have created a consistent winning model for the Dodgers as the Lakers muddle in mediocrity.
Dean Connor
Fontana
Rose Bowl request
As a longtime UCLA football season ticket holder, I applaud the plan to modernize the Rose Bowl. I wonder, though, why previous improvement projects have not addressed the lack of handrails on the stairways to the seats. The stairs vary in height, some reaching 11 inches, and are, for many of us, challenging to navigate. Must we wait until 2029 or later for this important safety feature?
Karen Mack
Los Angeles
Bet the Farm(er)
Congratulations to Sam Farmer for picking all 16 games correctly in the NFL last week. I almost wanted to contact him to go to Vegas with me for my week of March Madness fun until I saw he was only 8-8 with the spread picks. That's about my speed. Love the paper, keep up the good work.
Greg Monroe
San Diego
Editor's note: Sam Farmer picked all 16 winners in Week 13 of the NFL season and was 11-5 against the spread.
Remembering Lou
In 1984 while attending basketball at the Forum during the summer Olympics, my buddy and I had the pleasure of meeting Lou Carnesecca.
Perhaps it was due to our telling him that we were fans of Chris Mullin, but the sweater-wearing man made it his personal mission to walk 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 affable man — it was our treat that Carnesecca lived to be 99.
Ken Feldman
Tarzana
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
