THE REAPING: What the O.J. Simpson Murder Case Did to America

THE REAPING: What the O.J. Simpson Murder Case Did to America Page 4

by Steven Travers

  ****

  McKay would always say this was his most satisfying victory. It was the great turnaround, the dividing line, the demarcation point of the rivalry, and that first major step toward establishing the University of Southern California as a football tradition that people could look at and argue was maybe, just maybe, equal or even better than Notre Dame's. It was that little extra ingredient that their fans could point to and say, "Well, Alabama's great, and so is Oklahoma, but we play Notre Dame, we beat the Irish at their place, we win Heismans, we've got the edge."

  The 1967 USC-Notre Dame game was part of the greatest period in the inter-sectional rivalry's history. For McKay, who vowed to never be "beaten like that again" after the 1966 debacle, it set in motion a streak that had revisionists saying he had instead stated he "would never let them beat us again."

  From 1967 to his last year in 1975, McKay would only lose to Notre Dame once. That was against the 1973 national champions. Sometimes the games were close, sometimes they were blowouts. A couple were classics; games that those who saw them call the "best ever played."

  McKay's successor, John Robinson, would beat Notre Dame six of his seven years. From 1967 to 1982, the Trojans only lost twice to Notre Dame. South Bend, a place of intimidation, became a place of victory. USC dominated the Irish, at home and on the road. The mystique was gone, the fear replaced by confidence and accomplishment. While Robinson deserves the credit for going 6-1, it was McKay who turned the momentum around, and it was O.J. Simpson who gave him the power to charge that momentum.

  By the time USC had beaten Notre Dame in 1982 for the fifth consecutive year, a rivalry that had been fairly dominated by Notre Dame was now dominated by USC, and the all-time record between the two was almost even. In the pecking order of college football supremacy, Southern California had ascended to an equal historical footing with, and possibly even was now above, Notre Dame.

  But what made it all so great was the fact that USC's dominance came over Notre Dame during one of the greatest eras of their football history. It included the “era of Ara,” the Joe Montana years, and Dan Devine's national championship "green jersey" team. Notre Dame never went soft. They were a major power with a total shot at the national title most of those years. Both times they managed to pull off an upset over Southern Cal, they rode the wins (both in South Bend, 1973 and 1977) to the national championship.

  The McKay-Parsheghian years (1964-1974), followed by the Robinson-Devine era, did more for college football than any rivalry ever. Each game was nationally televised with ratings that went through the roof. Color TV was in. The colors of the two teams; USC's cardinal, Notre Dame's gold; sunny California, the Midwestern blue, gray October skies; pretty Trojan cheerleaders, and layer upon layer of tradition, polish, pride and mutual respect, filled the screens of America's living rooms. The game atmosphere was one like no other, with two private universities and their rich alumni bases going at it amid the pomp and glory of marching band music, student pride, and roaring, capacity crowds.

  From 1962 to 1981, almost every game had an impact on the national title race. One or both teams was solidly in the hunt for number one when they met in 1962 (USC), 1964 (Irish), 1965 (Irish), 1966 (Irish), 1967 (USC and Irish), 1968 (USC), 1969 (USC), 1970 (Irish), 1971 (Irish), 1972 (USC and Irish), 1973 (USC and Irish), 1974 (USC and Irish), 1975 (USC), 1976 (USC), 1977 (Irish), 1978 (USC and Irish), 1979 (USC), 1980 (Irish) and 1981 (USC).

  Notre Dame won three national titles after beating USC (1966, 1973, 1977). USC won five after beating Notre Dame (1962, 1967, 1972, 1974, 1978). USC knocked Notre Dame out of the national title hunt in 1964, 1970, 1971, 1978 and 1980. In the 1962, 1967, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1977 and 1978 games, the winner had the inside track and, indeed, did ride it all the way to the promised land.

  The beat went on under Robinson and Devine. The ratings were just as hot, the implications just as high, the rivalry just as intense, the national interest at a fever pitch. The national championship was decided or on the line at the time, in one way or another, in each of the five games played between 1976 and 1981.

  USC won in 1976 to give themselves a shot at number one going into the bowls. Both teams were unbeaten in 1977. When Joe Montana and the green-clad Irish won, it propelled them to the title. Both teams had a shot at it in 1978 at the Coliseum. USC won and finished number one. USC won in 1979 and hoped to ride the wave to the title, but a tie forced them into the second spot. In 1980, a probation-stricken USC ended Notre Dame's title hopes.

  USC’s two-decade dominance between 1962 and 1981 (five national titles, four Heismans) probably ranks as the greatest 20 year-dynasty in college football history, and their overall athletic department also had the most dominant run of all time in these years.

  “First of all, it was the middle of the greatest period of athletic dominance, under two athletic directors - Jess Hill and later John McKay - in the history of college sports,” stated Adrian Young. “The football team was the best in the nation. The Trojans dominated everything; baseball, tennis, track, swimming, you name it.”

  “It’s not a matter of life or death. It's more important than that.”

  The Trojans were a national power when UCLA was a mere commuter school in the 1920s, but when great African-American stars like Jackie Robinson, Kenny Washington and Woody Strode came along in the late 1930s, the Bruins replaced California and Stanford as USC’s main conference rival. Games between two integrated teams before packed Coliseum throngs were social statements a decade before Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier.

  In the 1940s, UCLA arguably had a better decade than the Trojans. When Henry “Red” Sanders took over as the head football coach at UCLA in 1949, he was asked about the rivalry with Southern California.

  “It’s not a matter of life or death,” he said.” It's more important than that.”

  In 1954, UCLA won their first and only national title in football, but as heated as the USC-UCLA game was in the 1950s, something changed in the 1960s. The rivalry intensified even more under coaches Tommy Prothro and John McKay. The Bruins were a national power, the City Game almost always was for the Rose Bowl, and usually had national title implications, sometimes for both sides. But the 1963 Rose Bowl win over Wisconsin and the national championship that came with it had upped the ante at Troy.

  “This was the era of the Bruin-Trojan basketball rivalry when Lew Alcindor was at UCLA,” said Young. “UCLA was at its peak in football, so the rivalry between the two schools has never been more intense. It was a time when USC and UCLA represented social progress during a time when much of America was still segregated.”

  The "wilderness years" in which USC had always lost at South Bend and never finished number one had lowered expectations. The Trojans had become a program that shot for the Rose Bowl and considered that their ultimate goal. Under McKay, just getting to Pasadena was no longer enough. Now, they had a whole laundry list of goals, which included beating both the Bruins and the Irish, getting to and winning the Rose Bowl, and going undefeated with a national championship to top everything off. As unrealistic as these yearly goals may be, it did not take long for USC fans to consider it their "birthright." The fact is, in 1967 there were still plenty of old-timers from the Jones era who still thought it their birthright. Their influence had carried over to younger alums who had never seen Jones's teams. But McKay basically created a football Frankenstein like none other. The 1967 Notre Dame game was its power switch.

  The success of the 1967 Trojans was a tremendous accomplishment for McKay. The team was ranked seventh coming in, but they had to replace 11 starting seniors while breaking in a running back. On top of that, they had to break in not one but two quarterbacks fighting for the job. But the fact that a number of players had been ineligible for the one-point loss to Purdue in the previous year's Rose Bowl had, along with the 51-0 fiasco, created lowered expectations. O.J. very quickly had heightened those expectations.

  Earl McCullough was a speedster
left end out of Long Beach Poly High. Defensive end Tim Rossovich from St. Francis High in Mountain View was a terror. Defensive back Mike Battle, who had played with Fred Dryer at Lawndale High, made up for a lack of great size through sheer football attitude. He and Rossovich bordered on mental instability between the lines (and sometimes off the field). Adrian Young was an All-American. Ron Yary came out of Bellflower High School, establishing himself as one of the greatest tackles of all time. McKay did not like to play the "low expectations" game of Parseghian, Rockne and former Trojans coach "Gloomy Gus" Henderson. He called it the way it was. While this was his natural tendency, the reality of the L.A. sports market might have played a factor. A coach at Alabama or Notre Dame could say anything and his season would be sold out ahead of time. McKay needed to build enthusiasm in order to sell tickets.

  “The 1967 Trojans were one of the best teams ever, and we set the record for most first round draft picks from any school in a single year,” recalled Rossovich. “Ron Yary was the first pick by Minnesota. There was myself (Eagles), Earl McCullough (Lions), Mike Taylor (Steelers) and Mike Hill (Bears), plus Adrian Young was drafted by the Eagles like me. He was my best friend and co-captain, but he was pissed off that I was chosen in the first round and he was not. I was 6-5 or 6-6, 220 or 225 pounds, but Adrian didn't have that kind of size.”

  “The 1967 team was special,” said Ron Yary, winner of the Outland Trophy that season. “Blocking for O.J. Simpson was something you don't appreciate until you play against him. I didn't get a chance to watch him run when I was blocking. You don't keep your eyes on him, and of course my job was pretty much, in that era, making the holes for him to run through. We lived and died in a seven-hole system, not like runners today where the hole develops as the line explodes. The running back runs to daylight. When we played the one hole to the right of the center, 10 people were in there and you had to dig 'em out. In the new era if a guy's in the center he'll be slanted, the guard stays with him.

  “The direction of the line was designed for O.J. Simpson. He was the type of runner; he was restricted in his day by the holes in the blocking scheme. A five- or seven-hole run outside of it. He was a runner with great athletic ability, but in his day he didn't gain as many yards as he'd gain in a more wide-open modern offense. He'd pick up more yards than he did, but he was an incredible running back and once he was in the secondary, you knew he was gonna get more than the average running back. It would take the defensive backs to chase him down.”

  “In 1967 we really kind of put USC on the path to what they became, what they are now,” recalled Adrian Young. “We brought in some great assistant coaches around that time. Mike Giddings left to go to Utah or Utah State, then Dick Coury came in from Mater Dei, and with him started that Mater Dei connection. We already had a Bishop Amat connection. It was important for McKay to get the best players from Catholic programs in Southern California, to deny Notre Dame this talent pipeline.

  “O.J. Simpson had the most incredible ability to change gears and his work ethic was excellent, on par with Garrett's. Garrett was a hard worker at practice, he was inspirational. I was a freshman and Garrett was the running back on the varsity, and every time he took handoffs he would run 45 yards extra, and this became a tradition. You said, ‘Do that, no excuses,’ and O.J. followed that.

  “O.J. was strong, with strong hips and legs more so than a really big upper body. He could turn and go any direction and knock over a defender, or glance off them like Jim Brown, whose ability he had. The '67 team had swagger all around because we worked every practice as hard as we could. When I was a sophomore, that team was as good but lacked the work ethic of my senior year. That team worked as hard as Coach Goux would push them, and it was most inspiring.”

  “O.J. Simpson was our star tailback both years,” said quarterback Steve Sogge (1967-1968). “At times I thought they should charge me admission just for the pleasure of having him in the backfield to hand off to, or pitch or throw to him. He was a phenomenal athlete and the hardest-working player I ever played with. He certainly made my job easier than it would have been without him.”

  As the season went on with USC ascending to the number one position, Simpson put up the numbers and piled up the accolades. Pro scouts drooled over his power, speed and peripheral vision. He was versatile and lacked what McKay called "blinders."

  "They see what's in front but can't see what's at the side," he said. "The great ones see the color and numbers of an opponent's jersey. O.J. is the only man I've known who can come back to the huddle and tell who made the key blocks."

  "It was great to have O.J., not only because he was so good, but because he was so modest," said Sogge. "We all felt very close to O.J., and we were happy that he got such publicity. We never had a morale problem. We were such a closely-knit team because O.J. was such a fine, fine person."

  Opposing players were in awe of his ability but had only praise for his demeanor. He congratulated opponents on good hits, called them by their first names, never spiked the ball, never got in people's "faces."

  Sportswriters were equally impressed. Many stated simply that he was the "nicest," the "most gracious" and the "easiest to talk to" of any athlete they ever dealt with. Simpson gave of his time, whether the writer was with the Los Angeles Times, Sports Illustrated, or the student newspaper of that week's opponent. Despite having grown up in a ghetto, Simpson quickly belied questions of his intelligence, which had been raised because of his mediocre high school grades.

  Simpson displayed intellect, articulation and ease of language. He showed humility and intelligence on a wide range of subject matter. It was a complete reversal of the caricature that USC's detractors had made of him coming in. It dispelled all the myths about his character.

  O.J had sustained a slight injury but recovered in time for the UCLA game. In terms of college football games where everything was on the line, the 1967 City Game ranks with all other so-called "games of the century." The combination of the pre-game hype, the special circumstances, the excitement of the game itself, and the results of the season based on its outcome, makes it one of the greatest games ever played at this level. Few if any pro games match it, for that matter.

  Some would call Red Sanders’s statement that the USC-UCLA game is more important than “life or death” over-hype, others sacrilegious. But the City Game is indeed one of the very best college rivalries in the country, and the 1967 match-up its greatest. It met all expectations and then surpassed them. The old saw is that "Hollywood couldn't write a better script." The truth is, the script at the Coliseum on November 18, 1967 was Oscar-worthy.

  First, there was the Heisman campaign. Gary Beban was the pre-season favorite. As a sophomore he had engineered a stirring 14-12 "gutty little Bruin" win over Michigan State in the Rose Bowl. Now a senior, he was the perfect Heisman contender; smooth, polished, poised on and off the field. He was the epitome of what UCLA had become: first class all the way.

  O.J. had entered the season a heralded junior college transfer. Heralded, for sure, but still a J.C. transfer. The idea of a J.C. transfer winning a HeismanTrophy was, if not ludicrous, certainly never contemplated. In all the years since, it never happened until Auburn’s Cam Newton won the award in 2010. No other J.C. transfer has ever even been a serious contender in his first year.

  The benefit of 20/20 hindsight now sheds light on the fact that O.J. should have won the 1967 Heisman in a runaway. Juniors had won it before, but the strong predilection of voters then was to award it to a senior. The argument that says quarterbacks are more favored, and that race could have been an issue (Beban is white) does not hold up under scrutiny. Simpson had a spectacular year, but so did Beban. It was UCLA, not USC, who was ranked first in the nation coming in to the game. Beban's thunder was loud and proud!

  Folks had not yet seen O.J.'s performance in two Rose Bowls, his record-breaking senior year, or his Hall of Fame pro career. In retrospect it seems impossible that a future NFL "tax
i squad" player would win a prestigious award like the Heisman over a legitimate American legend. Of course, voters did see what O.J. did that day, which really makes one wonder, "What were they thinking?"

  Aside from the Heisman race, the game was for the national championship. Whoever won would be number one, there was no doubt about that possibility. Notre Dame, Alabama, Michigan State; the "usual suspects" of the past few years were out of the picture by November 18.

  Of course, while it was "for the national championship," that really meant that it would be for the opportunity to win the title, and that opportunity would come in the Rose Bowl. This meant that it was for just that . . . the conference title and with it the Rose Bowl, too. Then again there were all the usual nuggets of this game: city pride, bragging rights, family versus family, brother versus brother, husband versus wife, office boasts, schoolyard shouts, neighborhood yelling, the whole nine yards. The closeness of two schools in the same city playing for such a thing gave it an aura unavailable to any other rivalry. Even if Cal and Stanford played for such stakes (they never have), while they are close geographically within the region of the San Francisco Bay Area, neither is in San Francisco.

  The fact that two teams in the same city could attract the kind of players to make both national contenders, each with Heisman favorites, says as much about the wealth of athletic talent in California and the L.A. Basin as any other statement. It also demonstrates how, if one of the programs gets the hammer over the other and gets everybody, then no team in America can hope to match up with them. But in 1967, the difference between them was thin.

  "Never in the history of college football have two teams approached the climax of a season with so much at stake," wrote Paul Zimmerman in the Los Angeles Times.

  "It was not too many years ago the Trojans owned this town," wrote Jim Murray in the Times of the fact that UCLA had won eight of the preceding 14 match-ups:

  Cotton Warburton, Erny Pinckert, Johnny Baker, 'Antelope Al' Kreuger, Doyle Nave, Jim Musick were heroes.

  There was a time USC used to beat UCLA twice a year. When Howard Jones left the scene momentum and the uncertainties of the war years helped conceal the fact USC's athletic program was as bankrupt as Harvard's. A succession of comic opera searches for a coach who could wear Jones' halo ended with the University hiring somebody who was standing there all the time but not before big names were tossed about.

  In 1949 Red Sanders came to UCLA from Vanderbilt and proceeded to show the West how backward its coaching techniques were. He beat Southern Cal 39-0 and later a Rose Bowl-bound USC team 34-0.

  USC hired its own jester type in 1960 - cherubic, cigar-smoking Johnny McKay … It was UCLA's move and they brought up Sanders' assistant, Tommy Prothro.

  UCLA promptly stopped being the movable object. USC began to look on occasion as the resistible force.

  They put on another one of their cobra vs. mongoose matches Saturday. UCLA's will motor eastward from a complex of soaring architecture that looks more like Camelot than a campus. Southern Cal, which has begun to cave in old buildings around its school to drown out its trolley car past, is only a short punt away. More than the Rose Bowl is at stake. The town is. The Trojans want it back.

  McKay the brooder also yearned to shut up those critics who had taken to saying that UCLA coach Tommy Prothro was smarter than he was.

  "Well, we pushed 'em all over the field in 1965, but we fumbled on their one, seven and 17," McKay responded to media speculation that Prothro "had his number." "I guess he planned that."

  Prothro, however, was hard to dislike. He was a class act. Before the game, McKay unleashed Marv Goux.

  The fiery Goux urged the Trojans to "win one for John." He held up a photo of McKay, dejected as he left the field after losing the 1966 UCLA game.

  "Listen, listen," Goux said in fistic rage. "The worst thing in life is to be a prisoner. Never. I would rather die. We've been prisoners to those indecencies over there for two years. Today's the day we go free."

  It was almost identical to Kirk Douglas's rhetoric in front of the gladiators who he urges to initiate a slave rebellion against the Roman Empire in the Stanley Kubrick classic, Spartacus. This was not an accident. Goux had played one of those gladiators in the film.

  Goux's speech did not center on the so-called "big issues" of Rose Bowls, Heismans and national titles. He spoke of pride in the city of Los Angeles. He hit closer to home than he would using any other tactic. McKay countered Goux by telling him that the walk back to the locker room after the game would either be the longest or the shortest of their lives.

  Tommy Prothro made no effort to downplay the game's importance or his team's chances behind Beban, who he said could win using the "run, pass, fake or call." Beban was indeed an expert audibler.

  "There's something about the way he manages things out there that gives everyone confidence," said UCLA fullback Rick Purdy. "You just know whatever he calls is right."

  When asked, however, Beban shrugged and called himself "ordinary."

  Pro scouts called him "self-assured" on the field, though. He was a "gamer," not judged by statistics but by wins and losses.

  USC's first nine games had revealed that O.J. could run between the tackles, dispelling any question that he was strictly an outside breakaway threat. His pre-game comments contained glowing praise for his line.

  The game this time would feature plain, old-fashioned football excellence, and none of the hi-jinx that had marked many USC-UCLA contests. No UCLA students rented a plane to strafe the USC campus with blue and gold paint. Nobody at USC sealed a UCLA sororities' doors with brick and mortar. Nobody at USC planted dynamite in the UCLA bonfire. No nuts planted a bomb under the ground of the end zone, as had happened in a previous year. On that occasion, the police had gotten wind of it and dug it up. It turned out to be a smoke bomb. The culprits in that case finally confessed after a yearlong investigation.

  UCLA, despite having a Heisman-quality quarterback, won with swarming defense. McKay used a mathematical formula to grade out position-by-position. When he was done he saw that both teams were exactly even.

  "It's gonna be a helluva game," he said. Despite unbeaten UCLA having taken over the number one ranking late in the season, USC was considered a three-point favorite. The "it" factor was their tougher schedule, but the Bruins had beaten Tennessee, who would finish second in the AP poll. They had also beaten Penn State, but the Stanford game had been a narrow margin.

  "We've been good when we had to," said Prothro.

  "We've had to be good," McKay countered.

  Despite Goux's exhortations, UCLA players demonstrated more on-field theatrics, jumping around "like thieves trapped in a corridor," according to one observer. McKay was once described as a man who watched the game looking like "a commuter waiting for the 5:15 to Larchmont." His teams reflected his businesslike demeanor on the sidelines.

  90,772 packed the old stadium. They enjoyed the added bonus of beautiful November weather. A huge national TV audience got the full treatment of sun, color, and, believe it or not, that season for the first time, the USC song girls. They have long been regarded the as most beautiful and classiest of college football cheerleaders. Other colleges have taken to dressing their hotties in skimpy outfits that more resemble something worn by strippers or porn stars. USC's girls wore sweaters, not bikinis. They could actually dance.

  In 1967, a student vote had been taken allowing for female cheerleaders to replace the worn out old male yell leaders who had long handled sideline chores. According to unconfirmed lore, USC had never gone to female cheerleaders even though they were popular at high school and college sporting events long before 1967. A wealthy donor had given handsomely to the school under the proviso that the only women allowed on the field would be band members.

  When the thing finally started Beban, who had bruised ribs, engineered a long drive topped by Greg Jones's 12-yard touchdown run. Marv Goux grimaced at the "indecency"
of it. UCLA's "swarm" defense trapped O.J. throughout the first quarter. It looked like the Trojan phenom had met his match. If so, then so had his team.

  USC’s defense saved the day early, though. Pat Cashman stepped in front of Jones, picked a Beban pass, and raced 55 yards to tie it, 7-7. Prothro later said it was a new play that he had called. It was a "stupid play," he said, one that he took the blame for because Beban had not practiced it enough. Cashman blitzed Beban in the second quarter, and his painful ribs showed in his face as he made his way back to the sidelines. Still, he had gotten his team into field goal territory, but Zenon Andrusyshyn missed.

  A USC reverse handoff to McCullough netted 52 yards followed by a 13-yard pass to "the Pearl," as he was called (a reference to Baltimore Bullet basketball whiz Earl "the Pearl" Monroe). O.J. ran it in from 13 out. One writer said the noise was as loud as the Normandy landings.

  After the half, Beban was effective, but Andrusyshyn was not. Tall Bill Hayhoe blocked his field goal try. The Bruins held, though, and on the next possession Beban directed a tying touchdown drive, hitting halfback George Farmer from 47 yards out.

  Cashman had overstepped on the play, guessing Beban would try the same "stupid" pass he had intercepted earlier. He got burned. UCLA controlled the line of scrimmage. Beban probed patiently until he had them inside the "red zone." Then 6-8, 254-pound Hayhoe sacked him. Andrusyshyn began to enter the pantheon of all-time goats when his field goal try was blocked.

  Beban later said he was confident despite the missed field goals because "we knew we would score again." He was right. In analyzing this game, one can make a strong case that UCLA was indeed the better team. If they were the better team, then they were the best in the country. That being said, the game often rides on special teams and they were found wanting. They also did not have O.J.

  The teams battled in the pits. Then Beban took over again. He nailed four straight passes covering 65 yards. Dave Nuttall hauled in the last for the score, but Andrusyshyn was having one of the worst days in kicking history. Kickers dread such a day. They have nightmares about it.

  Up 20-14, he kicked a low one. Hayhoe got his hand on it again. McKay told the press that even though Hayhoe was tall, the purpose was to get Andrusushyn to rush, which he did.

  "I call that brilliant coaching," McKay would say.

  For every goat, there is a hero. In a game in which O.J. and Beban worked with equal brilliance, and Beban's team was a little better, O.J. was the difference. Amid the tensions and noise of a one-point game in the fourth quarter; with everything that can possibly ride on a college football game at stake; with fans in the stands looking at each other and saying, "This really is more important than life of death," O.J. separated himself from normal. He entered the shrine of immortality.

  Toby Page was in at quarterback. He was ostensibly the starter, but hurt a lot, so he and Sogge both played. His plan was simple: hand off to O.J. Simpson. The big tailback was utterly winded. He carried twice to little effect, picked himself up and thought that at least, on third-and-long, he could "rest" for one play.

  In the huddle, Page saw O.J.'s hangdog expression. He decided to try something that might net seven or eight yards for a needed first down. O.J. did not seem to have it in him at this point in the afternoon. At the line of scrimmage, Page saw both of UCLA's linebackers eagerly anticipating his predictable play selection. He audibled: "23-blast."

  "That's a terrible call," O.J. said to himself. But Page had called for O.J.'s favorite play. It meant running between the tackles, not always the best method for gaining eight yards, but it caught the Bruins flat-footed. O.J. took the handoff, hit the line, juked, and ran to daylight!

  It was the most memorable run of his career, pro or college. It is probably the most famous in USC history, and one of the most well remembered in collegiate annals. Guard Steve Lehner and tackle Mike Taylor opened the hole. Center Dick Allmon knocked down a befuddled Bruin linebacker. O.J. headed towards the left sideline, benefited from another block that eliminated two Bruins in one fell swoop, then swerved back up the middle. McCullough hung by his side like the Marines protecting their flank against an invading army. O.J. was off to the races.

  All the commentary about the game could not match Prothro's priceless, exasperated lament to an assistant coach while the play was still in progress: "Isn't but one guy can catch Simpson now," said Prothro as McCullough whizzed by him stride-for-stride with the ball-carrying O.J., "and he's on the same team."

  It was a variation on something Phillies' manager Gene Mauch said when Willie Mays had hit a home run over the fence, just beyond the outstretched glove of one of his outfielders.

  "The only guy who could have caught it," mused Mauch, "hit it."

  O.J.'s dash beat UCLA, 21-20. It ranks, among all-time moments in the game, with "the Play," the famous returned-kick-lateral-through-the-band run that gave California an improbable 1982 win over John Elway and Stanford. Sports Illustrated gave it its front cover: "Showdown in L.A."

  "All on one unbearable Saturday afternoon is strictly from the studio lots," wrote S.I.

  In the locker room, Beban's ribs looked like an "abstract painting," but he had passed for over 300 yards. Simpson's foot was swollen and grotesque, but he had rushed for 177 yards.

  "They should send the Heisman out here with two straws," wrote Jim Murray.

  Beban graciously visited the Trojan locker room, a practice O.J. also did regularly throughout his career.

  "O.J.," he said, "you're the best."

  "Gary, you're the greatest," replied Simpson. "It's too bad one of us had to lose."

  "Whether that run earns Simpson the Heisman Trophy and moves coach John McKay's Trojans back as the number one team in the nation remains for the voters to decide later," Paul Zimmerman of the Times added. "But the witnesses will remember this as one of the greatest."

  "Whew!" wrote Murray.

  "I'm glad I didn't go to the opera Saturday afternoon, after all. This was the first time in a long time where the advance ballyhoo didn't live up to the game.

  "The last time these many cosmic events were settled by one day of battle, they struck off a commemorative stamp and elected the winner President.

  "On that commemorative stamp, they can put a double image - one of UCLA's Gary Beban and one of USC's Orenthal James Simpson. They can send that Heisman Trophy out with two straws, please."

  While O.J.'s extraordinary record does lead one to the conclusion that he should have been the Heisman winner, Beban, playing in pain and matching Simpson's performance, was enough to sway the voters to him in the Heisman balloting. He would have traded it for the Rose Bowl and the national championship. He goes down in history as one of the worthiest opponents ever to lace up his cleats against a Southern California football team.

  "I have always said that the 1967 game was easily the highlight of my athletic career," Simpson was quoted in UCLA vs. USC: 75 Years Of the Greatest Rivalry In Sports. "It was far beyond even when I ran on the 4x100 world record team at SC and even more than the 2,000 yards. I never felt more elated or joy after any athletic event than I did after that game . . .

  "In 1966, I attended the game as a junior college recruit for USC and saw how intense the rivalry was. I watched UCLA make a fourth quarter comeback and win. I remember thinking to myself that I would show them the next year.”

  Before his 64-yard run Simpson was "tired," having told Toby Page to "give me a blow. It was third and seven, and we had a passing play called. But he switched to a running play at the line of scrimmage. I was so surprised," said Simpson.

  When Page did that, "UCLA went into pass mode on defense . . .” he continued. "When I broke outside, I could hear McKay yelling for me to go, and I was trying to zigzag. I was tired and knew that I didn't have that burst . . . I was so oblivious to the crowd. I just remember that I almost collapsed when Earl McCullough hugged me in the end zone."

  "To this day that USC-UCLA game was the biggest college fo
otball game I've ever seen," said Steve Bisheff on The History of USC Football DVD.

  "When you sat back and looked at it, the game was everything you ever dreamed of," said Beban. "It was O.J. over there, he was established, and me, we received so much attention. It was bigger than anything we ever dreamt of, for the city, the Rose Bowl and the national championship."

  "We went into formation and I had told our quarterback that if we walk out and they don't got a guy on Simpson, then run the blast and give it to Simpson," said McKay of the 64-yard touchdown burst. "People always asked me was I afraid somebody would catch him, and I say the only guy who could've stopped him was on our team, Earl McCullough, an Olympic caliber hurdler."

  "There was nobody gonna stop him that day," recalled broadcaster Stu Nahan. "The determination in his eyes, the moves he made, he was just; I don’t think I ever saw anybody run like that."

  "It wasn't just me who missed him," said UCLA linebacker Don Manning. "A couple other guys had him but missed 'cause he's so shifty."

  "There was still a lot of time left but Beban was hurt, he had injured his ribs, and they never scored," said Bisheff.

  "When the two best players on the field play the best they can, it's just a magnificent game and everybody produces, you have a 21-20 game that goes down in history, and why shouldn't it?" said Art Spander, who was with the Santa Monica Evening Outlook.

  "The rest of the game was just like a blur," said Simpson. "I kept waiting for Gary Beban to bring UCLA back to take the lead, but it never happened."

  "We came into the game confident," Beban said in UCLA vs. USC: 75 Years Of the Greatest Rivalry In Sports. "We were number one in the nation and we had beaten USC for the last two years. We were playing in a game that few college football players ever get because of opportunities that we created for ourselves.

  "When we came on the field we had to cross the track that was filled with TV cables, and we felt the energy of the Coliseum immediately. You could tell it was going to be a special day.

  "I never saw O.J.'s run because my ribs were always being worked on when I wasn't in the game. But when we came back, we still had 10 minutes. We still had time to score and we assumed that we were going to score.

  "The seniors hadn't lost a game on California soil in our college careers. We were a relatively undefeated team - just two ties and three losses in three years - and we had always beaten SC in our careers. We didn't have a defeated attitude at all; we just assumed we would score.

  "In the end we were disappointed. It was the end of the season and the end of a college career for me. We had gotten so close. But still we had gotten so far. That game was the best of the series. Everything in college sports was on the line: the city championship, the conference title, the Rose Bowl and the national championship. Even the Heisman. There was nothing else you could put on the table. This was the pinnacle of college football.

  "What else could you ask for?"

  “The 1967 UCLA game was wonderful,” said Rossovich. “They came in number one and I think we were number two, and it was not just for the Rose Bowl or bragging rights for L.A. It was for the whole ball of wax; the national title, the Rose Bowl, who was the best, the Heisman Trophy, it all came down to that. It was close, 21-20 on a blocked extra point.

  “People think that in a game of that magnitude it's different, the intensity level is higher, and once or twice the on-field intensity is amped up, but it's a big question and hard to answer except for the fact that it's your job, it's what you're there for. You're responsible, and if you have any integrity and care about your reputation, if you care about what you do, you want to be respected by your opponents. You want them to have to look over their shoulder at you. It comes down to what they do best, I can do best and better, and after you dump somebody on their back you lift them up and slap them on the back and say, ‘Nice play.’ The next time they're gonna be looking for you and saying, ‘Where is he?’

  “Beban passed for something like 303 yards. I was right in his face but he still completed passes. He was a wonderful athlete. He didn't have the size or the arm for the NFL, but at the college level he was amazing.”

  "We're sitting in the film room and we have a secondary coach named Dick Coury, and we're watching UCLA kick the extra point," said assistant coach Craig Fertig of Andrusyshyn’s blocked kicks, "and Coach McKay says, 'Run that back,' and we said, 'Why run that back, an extra point?' and we run it back three or four times, that's what Coach Corey pointed out, was that Zenon Andrusyshyn, the first soccer-style kicker we ever saw, kicked with a low trajectory, and we put a 6-9 guy . . . a defensive end in that gap."

  “Coach Coury had a sharp eye and noticed that UCLA's Zenon Andrusyshyn was a soccer-style place-kicker and he kept putting Bill Hayhoe in front of him, and Zenon's kicks kept getting blocked, and that was the difference in a 21-20 win for us,” added Young.

  “. . . We get to play UCLA, we got to play a team that was ranked number one and if we win we could get to number one against them. It was almost a relief to have our destiny still in our hands, plus so much else was riding on that game: the conference title, the Rose Bowl, the Heisman Trophy between O.J. and Gary Beban, and the usual bragging rights in Los Angeles.

  “This is one of those games, like the 1966 ‘game of the century’ between Notre Dame and Michigan State, or the 1969 Texas-Arkansas game, that re-defined college football. Color television was becoming pretty regular, and this made the games a brilliant kaleidoscope, a pageant. Old school announcers like Bud Wilkinson were fading out and being replaced by guys who would become synonymous as the ‘voices’ of college football, guys like Chris Schenkel who'd say ‘. . . and here come the Trojans,’ or Keith Jackson.

  “The country got a full dose of California sunshine and the USC-UCLA game had the added attraction of both teams wearing home colors, which made it brighter, and that was the first year we had song girls because a wealthy donor had refused to give to the school so long as we had females on the field other than in the marching band, but I guess that guy died that year.

  “I think that game was pretty even. Some have said UCLA out-played us but we benefited from Beban not being 100 percent. He had sore ribs and had to leave after I tackled him, he came off the field and after O.J.'s touchdown put us ahead he was not at 100 percent to lead a comeback drive.

  “To this day I'm a hated guy over in Westwood because I tackled Beban and he was hurt. Once I was introduced to a woman and when she heard my name she just turned away from me and called me a dirty SOB, but like the tackle made by one of the McKeever twins against Mike Bates of Cal back in 1959 - McKeever was exonerated when Cal sued, if you can believe it, but the tape showed it was legit - mine was a clean hit, it was just part of the game, and that's the truth.

  “We won and that was what propelled us to the national title, but Beban was voted the Heisman. At the time I thought it was wrong, politics plays a part in what happens. Frankly I was an All-American but others were as good, but I was on the right team with good PR. My focus was always on enjoyment of game, playing the game for the thrill of it.

  “But that 1967 team was inspired. An example was Pat Cashman. At the end of the year he was hurt and told not to run sprints, but he said, ‘I want to run.’ He then intercepted an important pass against Beban. That spirit was why that team excelled. We had the proper chemistry and the whole team had respect for each other.

  “We beat UCLA, 21-20 to propel us to the national championship,” said Battle. “They were really good! That George Farmer kid got behind me for six. I couldn't believe he could run that fast. Gary Beban was great. We were lucky to get out of their alive.”

  The promised land

  USC students of the late 1960s and early 1970s would purchase their season tickets before the first game. The package would of course include the home non-conference games and Pacific-8 match-ups with Cal, Stanford, Washington, et al. The UCLA ga
me and the Notre Dame game (in even years) cost a little more than the other games. Then they would notice something really great: a Rose Bowl ticket. Before the season had started.

  With McKay, it got to be a running gag. He had the advantage in Pasadena because it was a "home game for USC." It was "on USC's schedule."

  From 1967 to 1970, the Big 10 sent Purdue, Indiana, Ohio State and Michigan. The Pac-8 just sent USC. Pencil 'em in. When USC had lost to Purdue on January 2, 1967, then-recruit O.J. Simpson told a disappointed player who would be returning not worry about it, he was coming and they would return, and this time they would win.

  Prior to the 1968 Rose Bowl, McKay was questioned by the sporting press about his tremendous schedule: Texas (national champs in 1963 and '69), Michigan State (Rose Bowl in '65, number two in '66), Notre Dame (defending national champs), Washington at Seattle, and of course number one-ranked UCLA!

  "I told my scouts when I saw that schedule to go out and find me someone who was six-foot one-inch who weighed 205 pounds and could run the 100 in nine-four," said McKay.

  Simpson scored both touchdowns and gained 128 yards in Southern California's 14-3 win over Indiana. He was named the MVP. His 1,543 yards led the nation. The game clinched another national championship for McKay, but the victory had none of the Hollywood dramatics of the City Game.

  "The idea is to win, isn't it?" McKay asked rhetorically.

  “Indiana played us in the Rose Bowl,” said Rossovich. “They were coached by John Pont, and we handled them, 14-3. The Big 10 was going through a period in between the dominance of the 1940s and '50s, and before the great rivalry of Woody Hayes at Ohio State and Bo Schembechler at Michigan. Our conference was better and we demonstrated it. That game was a long time ago, but I know against Indiana we played good defense and pounded it out. That was our way, the way our guys did it. If O.J. didn't go wild, we only gave up 87 points all season. He didn't need to do all that much. It was pretty much a defensive struggle. When you give up less than a touchdown a game, you're gonna win most of them.”

  "It was a big deal to us, the players, a feeling of satisfaction of a job well done; having accomplished something like that," said fullback Mike Hull of the 1967 national title, "and even though I have a Super Bowl ring, I wear the national championship ring."

  “It was as much a game of redemption as it was a game of glory because we'd lost to Purdue the year before, and of course I totally blame that on myself,” stated Rossovich of his missed field goal in the 1967 Rose Bowl. Finishing number one in 1967, he said, “was a double blessing.”

  Afterwards, USC's defense was compared to the Minnesota Vikings' "Purple People Eaters" and the about-to-be three-time World Champion Green Bay Packers. Not bad company for a college team.

  In the days prior to the "coming out early" rule that allows non-seniors to declare for the pro draft, Simpson's return for his senior season (1968) was a given. He was expected to have one of the best years ever. He did not disappoint.

  Against Minnesota in Troy's opening 29-20 victory, Simpson ran for 236 yards and 367 in total offense.

  "Don't ask me to describe him," said Golden Gopher coach Murray Warmath. "Everyone already has. There is really nothing more to say."

  "Simpson is better than Red Grange," wrote Leo Fischer, sports editor of the Chicago American. "I've seen them all. On the basis of his performance against Minnesota, far from the worst defensive team in the country, I think Simpson is the greatest."

  Simpson dealt with a leg bruise just fine in a 189-yard effort against Northwestern. McKay gave serious thought to not playing him. He "blamed" the writers for his decision to use his star rather than listen to their back benching.

  "He approaches a hole like a panther," Northwestern coach Alex Agase said after his team's 24-7 loss to USC. "Then, when he sees an opening, he springs at the daylight."

  "Simpson's the greatest back in college and the greatest I've ever played against," said Northwestern linebacker Don Ross.

  "He's better than Keyes - although we have to meet Keyes and Purdue next week," said Wildcat end Mark Proskine.

  Game three was another interesting match-up with the emerging Miami Hurricanes, led by the irrepressible Ted "the Stork" Hendricks. Sports Illustrated thought it an interesting enough intersectional game to give it major coverage. 71,189 showed up at the Coliseum to see it.

  Stories about Hendricks were already becoming part of his lore. He apparently enjoyed "dismantling" cars. He was unable to even catch O.J., though. The USC star had studied game footage of Hendricks's wild, arm-flapping style, and his desire to penetrate before a runner could get out in the open. O.J.'s studiousness paid off in a 163-yard performance. His two touchdowns fired an easy Trojan win, 28-3.

  Sogge, the man everybody thought just "handed off to O.J.," showed that he had an arm (after all, he was a baseball catcher) by hitting on a variety of efficient passes. O.J. still had 38 carries and felt pain from his hips to his feet.

  Stanford was ranked 18th behind sophomore quarterback Jim Plunkett. 81,000 people showed up at Stanford Stadium. Stanford's players had, "O.J. Who?" and "Squeeze O.J." painted on their helmets.

  The walk from the locker room into the stadium runs a gauntlet past Stanford rooters who take free verbal shots at the opposing team. Their commentary is often biting and obviously partisan, but for the most part just part of the game. A disturbing trend, however, began to develop during O.J.'s senior year. It would continue into the 1970s. Stanford fans began to use racial epithets.

  "N----r lover," some yelled at Coach McKay, because he had as many black athletes on his team as anybody in the country. It was a disgusting "performance" coming from a student body and fan base at one of the country's top academic institutions. It was further shocking considering the fact that, with the war at full throttle, Stanford had made its anti-war sentiments well known, establishing itself as a "liberal" institution.

  The whole ugly scene was carry-over from the 1920s and '30s, when USC had past Cal and Stanford as the dominant West Coast power. Jealousy and recrimination had always marked the Berkeley and Palo Alto schools' attitude towards their southern neighbor. As USC continued to become the dominant "glamour school" in the state, if not the nation, those left behind found that class envy and lies were easier to toss about than genuine praise for a great program. McKay was incensed. He developed a personal disgust with just about anything to do with Stanford after that. To the credit of the Stanford players, who like athletes at Cal are not representative of the student body in general, there were no reports of racial epithets on the field.

  O.J. carried 47 times for 220 yards to just shut 'em up.

  "I guess O.J. Simpson showed us on a couple of those runs why he's the man," said Stanford tight end Bob Moore after O.J.'s three touchdowns led Troy to a 27-24 win over the Indians.

  The adrenaline of the crowd taunts and the atmosphere no doubt combined with O.J.'s "homecoming" to his native Bay Area to elevate his game and shake off his injuries.

  "I felt kind of squeamish running early in the game," he said, "but I felt better as the game wore on."

  "I think what probably happened is we ran the injury out of him," said McKay. "If we had only run him 30 times he'd probably still be hurting."

  Inexperienced writers listening to this looked at each other as if to ask, "Is this guy serious?" The older L.A. corps just shrugged it off as a McKay quip with a touch of sarcasm. The polls after the game installed the Trojans back into the number one slot they had finished 1967 in.

  "We knew that Simpson would be coming at us, but there was nothing we could do about it," said Washington coach Jim Owens after O.J.'s 172-yard effort in a 14-7 USC win. "He is one of the greatest backs ever to play football. Because of his size and speed, he probably improvises better than any runner I've ever seen."

  Oregon managed to hold O.J. to 67 yards, but USC won at Eugene, 20-13. Games at Oregon and Washington have always been a little bit of a problem for USC, espec
ially when played late in the season. Fog, rain, mud and crowd noise often marks the contests, making life difficult for a favored team playing a scrappy underdog.

  "O.J. doesn’t like playing against a quick team like ours," said Oregon's George Dames.

  O.J. classily gave full credit to the Ducks' and their speed.

  "When I would get ready to turn the corner, somebody would come up from behind to throw me down," he said.

  "O.J. Simpson probably is the greatest back of our time," said California coach Ray Willsey after Simpson ran for 164 yards and two scores in a 35-17 victory before 80,871 at the Coliseum. "USC beat us by 20 points without him last year, so I guess we're about 40 down this year going in."

  Cal was making a bit of comeback after a decade in the doldrums, despite the fact that half the student body at Berkeley in those days equated athletic competition with bourgeois capitalist pigs! Lineman Ed White was an All-American who would star for the Vikings, and the Golden Bears roughed O.J. up. He had a bruised thigh, a twisted knee and a sprained ankle when the game was over.

  "You name it, and I've got it," he stated. O.J. said that Cal hit him harder than any team he had ever played. "Maybe it's time to retire," he added with a smile.

  Oregon State, led by Bill "Earthquake" Enyart, came to L.A. in a game that would decide the Pacific-8 Conference championship. Enyart scored first and it was 7-0, Beavers. Sogge controlled a game-tying touchdown drive in the fourth quarter. O.J. broke the defensive battle with a 42-yard run capped by a Ron Ayala field goal to put Troy ahead for the first time, 10-7.

  USC held. With seven minutes remaining O.J. broke a 40-yard touchdown run for a 17-7 lead. That was the winning score in the 17-13 win. O.J. had 47 carries, including an incredible 21 in the final quarter (despite the L.A heat, his injuries and obvious fatigue) for 138 of his 238 yards.

  Oregon State coach Dee Andros said afterward that not only was USC deserving of the Rose Bowl berth they earned that day, but also of the number one ranking. The next week it was UCLA. This time it was all Trojans. O.J. carried 40 times for 205 yards, caught three Sogge passes, and scored three times. He broke six school records and two NCAA marks, including the season rushing record with one regular season and one Rose Bowl game still left to play. The 28-16 win made USC 9-0, firmly in the number one spot. Joe Theismann and ninth-ranked Notre Dame were headed to the Coliseum the next week.

  This game was indicative of what the rivalry is all about. Just when one team thinks they have the other's number, things turn around. Having beaten the Irish soundly in South Bend, unbeaten and riding high towards back-to-back national championships, led by a record-breaking Heisman horse; why, the Trojans were just full of themselves!

  Parseghian had a tremendous team, as usual. Without a bowl game in their future, their hopes for a national title hinged on beating USC, and then in turn the Trojans beating Woody Hayes and Ohio State on New Year's Day.

  82,659 watched the Irish gladiators hold O.J. to 55 rushing yards. Theismann (who changed pronunciation of his name from Thees-man to Thys-man as part of a school PR campaign to promote his candidacy for the rhyming Heisman) made his first bid for the award.

  A sophomore, Theismann started slow by getting intercepted, but quickly shocked Troy and their fans by turning the affair from a USC coronation into an upset-in-the-making. He led Notre Dame on three touchdown drives and a 21-7 halftime lead. The tables of 1964 were turned, but one thing remained the same: a patented second half USC comeback, something that McKay and his school were becoming known for and would expand upon in the next two decades.

  The star for USC was not O.J., but Sogge, who stepped up and made short passes when he had to in rallying his team to a 21-21 tie.

  "Deep down in my heart," Theismann said after the tie, "I think we should have won it. We had them on the run."

  "I'd rather play until midnight," said McKay. "I just don't like a tie."

  O.J. expressed a desire for "sudden death overtime," which in those days was used only in pro football play-off games. It had resulted in incredibly exciting affairs, most notably the 1958 NFL title game between the Colts and Giants at Yankee Stadium, and the 1962 AFL championship between the Oilers and Dallas Texans (later Kansas City Chiefs), played on a Houston high school field.

  The tie was enough to drop Troy to number two heading into the Rose Bowl, but O.J. ran away with the 1968 Heisman Trophy. Now just one game, one team, and one coach, separated he and the Trojans from back-to-back national titles. Woody Hayes's Ohio State Buckeyes, a tremendous sophomore-led team with no losses or ties, took over the top spot and were waiting in Pasadena.

  Other than the 1962 USC-Wisconsin game, the 1969 Rose Bowl had more riding on it than any previous one in the post-war era. Hayes was in his element; still fully convinced of the superiority not just of Ohio State but Big 10 and Midwestern football as a whole. USC's wins over the "best" Midwestern team, Notre Dame, not to mention victories over Indiana, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Northwestern in recent years, had apparently not dissuaded him from his oft-aired opinions.

  Woody was set in his ways. To him California was even more "out there" in 1968 than it had been when he was bringing his Bucks to Pasadena in the 1950s. He saw the protests on the streets of California cities, which included L.A., San Francisco and Berkeley; the love-ins, the Haight-Ashbury scene, the "Summer of Love," and the acid rock music - it was all un-American to him. He could not for the life of him understand how a football team could be exposed to the physical proximity of such things and still have the desire to win.

  Hayes admired McKay and his great athletes, but he felt he had the edge when it came to toughness. In 1968-1969 he had a point, but his theories were found wanting in later seasons.

  Woody's previous forays to Pasadena had discombobulated him. The January weather was too hot. He thought it boiled his player's blood or something. This time, he had the Buckeyes practice in their field house with hot blowers to simulate the Mediterranean weather they would deal with.

  When the team came out to Los Angeles, he put tight restrictions on them. He did not want any "Hollywood influences" that might resemble bikini-clad girls, frolicking at the beach, wild night club scenes, or even exposure to lush plants and fauna, which he thought would "mellow" his men too much.

  He practiced the team hard all week, a relatively new practice for a game that coaches had always thought of as a luxurious reward for a season well played. Visits to restaurants were monitored so as not to overindulge his players. Hayes and his staff carefully controlled the annual “Lowry’s Beef Bowl,” a prime rib extravaganza that is a traditional pre-game ritual.

  Woody wanted the national championship for his program, his conference and himself. He knew USC posed an enormous challenge to this desire. He was relentless in his pursuit of it. It would be incorrect to say that McKay took the game anything but seriously. He wanted it just as badly. He no longer approached it with the laissez faire attitude of the 1963 Wisconsin contest, when the team’s “where’s the party?” attitude practically allowed a 42-14 lead to slip away before holding on, 42-37. He saw in Woody a natural rival, in many ways his opposite number in terms of approach, style, offensive strategy and overall philosophy. Woody was a strict disciplinarian. McKay was of course the "little white-haired man" who instilled fear in his charges. Marv Goux was a martinet figure. But their exhortations had SoCal panache attached to it; flare, a touch of humor and wit. McKay and his staff dealt with off-field issues such as hair length, curfews, partying and the like in the L.A. manner. Woody was Columbus, Ohio all the way.

  It was not Richard Nixon vs. Dr. Timothy Leary. It was a little more like "the Greatest Generation" vs. "the Age of Aquarius," although nobody ever accused John McKay of being a free love-advocating hippie.

  Woody's plan was to give USC's defense the outside lanes, utilizing his strong inside running attack and the efficient, curl-in passes of quarterback Rex Kern. The 1968 Buckeyes may not have beaten som
e of the other strong teams of the 1960s, namely the 1966 Notre Dame Fighting Irish and Michigan State Spartans, but in terms of the complete package they may well rate as the decade's best, when one compares the records and their performance from the season's beginning to its end.

  They were young and promised only to get better, which was scary. Kern was a sophomore as was their tremendous All-American safety, Jack Tatum. Woody had recruited great black athletes, as Duffy Daugherty had done a few years earlier at Michigan State. His team was fully integrated with the very best possible talent available.

  Ohio prep football was legendary. Paul Brown had coached at Massillon High School. A number of Massillon players dotted Woody's roster. They were loaded. Other stars included Jan Hayes, Jim Otis, Jim Stillwagon, Leo Hayden and Jim Roman.

  "I measure a good back by how many men it takes to bring him down," Woody said in typical Midwest-speak, "and O.J. certainly qualifies in this." Woody, however, qualified his statement by saying that he did not fear "a damn thing" about USC.

  As with the previous year’s game, more than 100,000 fans were on hand at the Rose Bowl. The two teams battled it out in the trenches, but in the second quarter O.J. showed why he was the very best. First, USC drove into the "red zone," setting up Ron Ayala's 21-yard field goal. Later in the quarter, Simpson went wild. His 80-yard touchdown romp is, aside from the 64-yarder versus UCLA, one of his best-remembered runs. At 10-0, the Trojans could taste another national championship.

  "Now we knew he was for real," Ohio State tackle Dave Foley said of O.J.'s run, as if it had taken that take to convince them. Either way, Ohio State went into high gear.

  "That run was beautiful," said Ohio State defensive tackle Paul Schmidlin. "I was pursuing all the way so I had a clear view of it. The run was simply great and it was just what we needed."

  "We decided we'd better wake up," said fullback Jim Otis, "or this guy was going to blow us off the field."

  Ohio State did "wake up," and quickly. They engineered drives behind Otis's power running between tackles. Before the half was over they had tied the score at 10-all. It had taken the air out of the confident Trojans, deflating the partisan L.A. crowd.

  "Tying before the halftime gun was a big lift for us," said Rex Kern. "It gave us the momentum, and it took that away from them."

  The third quarter was "blood sport," with Ohio State breaking through to take the lead for the first time on a late-quarter Jim Roman field goal, 13-10. When Sogge fumbled deep in his own territory, the tide had turned. Ohio State converted the turnover into the game-winning touchdown. Kern would hit Ray Gillian for a touchdown. Sogge connected with Sam Dickerson, but it was over. The final score was 27-16. It was a game of mistakes. Ohio State played a perfect game. USC lost three fumbles, two by O.J. Sogge was intercepted twice.

  "It wasn't a game for girl scouts and cookie eaters," said McKay, adding that despite O.J.'s 171 yards gained, eight passes caught for 85 yards, a 20-yard kickoff return, and an 80-yard touchdown romp, his two fumbles had detracted from his performance. Some critics expressed concern over O.J.'s running style, in which he would carry the ball with one hand when in the open field. Woody, however, had only high praise for the Trojan legend.

  "It was damn near inhuman for a guy to do that," he remarked of the touchdown run, in which O.J. had cut behind eight Buckeye defenders in a sprint for glory. Steve Sogge said he thought the team was "complacent." Some "experts" conceded that if the team played six times USC would get some wins, maybe even a majority of them, but Ohio State earned their place in history.

  “If O.J. had not had a bad game we'd have won a second straight national title in 1968, but he lost three fumbles, I think, in the loss to Ohio State at the Rose Bowl,” recalled Battle. “The 1968 team had a lot of people talking dynasty and ‘all-time this’ and ‘best ever’ that, at least until the Rose Bowl defeat, but I think the '67 team was better. I was on the defense and we only allowed 87 points all season.”

  “We played Ohio State in the 1969 Rose Bowl with a chance to get back-to-back national championships,” said Sogge. “It was one of the most ballyhooed games in college football history, and is still shown regularly on the classic college football station. It's one of the all-time most famous games ever.

  “They were outstanding and we were not overconfident. Most of our games were not outright blowouts. We went down to the wire in most of our games. Anybody who played for John McKay played their hardest all the time. It was not a letdown scenario. One team has the edge, then the other team adjusts and counters the initial advantages, and realistically at the end of the game the best team usually wins. They had a great team and played better than we did, winning 27-16 to finish number one.”

  Just as Beban came into the USC locker room in 1967, O.J. went over to congratulate Ohio State, telling several of them, "You're the best team in the nation and don't let anyone tell you differently."

  He told reporters that coming off the field for the last time as a Trojan was "strange," but that, "I can't help thinking how much the school and the other guys have done for me."

  Ohio State of course won the national title.

  In addition to the Heisman, O.J. set national records for yards gained in a season (1,880 in 1968) and in a career (3,540, more than any three- or four-year careers prior to his). He scored 36 touchdowns. O.J. had combined junior college and USC statistics that have never been approached: 90 touchdowns and 5,975 yards. None of that mattered to him in the locker room, where he fought back tears, acknowledging Ohio State's greatness but questioning his mistakes.

  "I've never seen a better college football player," said Georgia Tech's Bobby Dodd of O.J., "and I've seen them all."

  Mike Garrett said as soon as he saw O.J. that he was "bigger and faster than me and has more moves."

  "Simpson was all speed, very fast, all speed, world class speed," said Mike Hull, "and very gregarious, and very outward and very talkative. And engaged all the time, but he really depended more than anything on his speed."

  Simpson was also an Olympic-quality sprinter on USC's national championship track team, running a spectacular 9.4 100-yard dash. By the time he left, the media was strongly recommending that in the 100 years that college football had been played through the 1968 season, O.J. was the greatest player who had ever lived. This of course took into consideration such stalwarts as Jim Thorpe of Carlisle, Red Grange of Illinois, Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis of Army, Doak Walker of Southern Methodist, Billy Cannon of Louisiana State, Roger Staubach of Navy, or a host of other contenders. He was the future of football, the new breed, something never quite seen before.

  When Simpson won the Heisman, he went above and beyond the call of duty in praising his teammates, his coaches, and above all else, his linemen! His performance at the news conference with his San Francisco wife, Marguerite at his side, won over the sporting press.

  “I want to emphasize that this is a team award, and the guys on the team won it as much or more than I did," Simpson said. This is a truer statement than many people realize. The Heisman is very much a team award, and is won by a program. Credit is due even to that school's sports information department. It is much less individualistic in nature than the professional Most Valuable Player awards. The Heisman is a major factor in upgrading a program's prestige among the press, recruits and the historians judging their place in the pantheon of greatness.

  The Trojans of 1967-1968 will be remembered in many ways as being "so close and yet so far." They could have been back-to-back national champions, as the 1931-1932 teams had been. When one considers the 1969 team, which went undefeated but missed a national title despite winning the Rose Bowl, the mind wanders to the prospect of three straight titles. This has never occurred in the Associated Press era (1936-2014).

  O.J. played on teams filled with talent. The Trojans had so many players go into the NFL during O.J.'s career that it was a remarkable accomplishment for McKay to could keep the ball rolling year after y
ear. After the 1966 team had five players drafted, the 1967 team had 11 players chosen (five in the first round). O.J. had to say good-bye to all of these stars, yet he was able to lead the next year's team to within a few fumbles of a second straight title.

  His senior year team, the 1968 Trojans, had eight players picked. O.J. was the first player chosen in the 1969 NFL Draft, making USC the first school to ever give the draft its first selection two years running (Ron Yary, 1968).

  O.J. Simpson was of course the name everybody remembers, and this of course is now a wistful thought in light of his tragic life. O.J. represents so many things. He was part of the true turning point in USC's football history. He also is a bookend of American race relations; the first really marketable black celebrity who brought people together, whose trial ended up driving a wedge between those same people. His great feelings for USC, his oft-stated comments that USC had done "so much" for him could only lead people to speculate that if USC had not done so much for him, if his life had not been so successful, if fate and circumstance had not taken him to Los Angeles at just the right time, to Hollywood, the movies and easy celebrity; then he never would have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, as many have speculated was really how it all went down on that June night of 1994. USC itself has had to come to grips with O.J. He cannot be ignored. He is part of the school and its legacy. The school can at least honestly assess its role in his life and conclude that whatever happened, there was nothing that they should have done differently.

  Juice

  When O.J. was at USC, his initials became a catch phrase. A popular chain of orange juice stores came into being. They made a tasty concoction of oranges and ice cream, calling it "Orange Julius." It quickly was shortened by patrons to "O.J." Whether the store was named after the player or the player was named after the store is a bit confusing to this day, but the "Juice" part stuck. Simpson occasionally signed his autographs "O. Jay Simpson," but newspaper headlines quickly threw in the "Juice" appellation when describing USC's winning ways.

  His glib media personality had shown through when he was asked if he was born with football talent. Smiling at Coach McKay, he stated that as the "little white-haired man" liked to say, "I was taught it all."

  Marguerite had been 16, attending a rival San Francisco high school when she met then-17-year old O.J. Simpson. After he won the Heisman she said that he was "a beast . . . A terrible person" in high school. She had given herself credit for turning O.J. from a disinterested high school student into a man who could get into USC and then handle that school's academic curriculum. O.J. revealed that Marguerite was expecting. He contemplated that the child's name might be Heisman J. Simpson. Questions of his professional career engendered controversy when he expressed the desire that a California team draft him, and that he would rather play in the National Football League than the American Football League. His top preferences, based on these criteria, obviously limited it to the Los Angeles Rams, a championship contender, or the San Francisco 49ers, who were on the mediocre side.

  "If it weren't California," he told the press, "my second choice would be New York, Chicago, or Dallas."

  O.J. was already thinking about a career in the movies, television and commercials. He had stars in his eyes. Big cities and media capitols - L.A. or New York preferably - had his attention. San Francisco was of course his hometown.

  The NFL and AFL merged in 1966. The next season (1969) would be the last year of the AFL-NFL split, to be replaced by the AFC and NFC in 1970, with several old NFL teams moving over to the AFC. The 1969 NFL Draft included teams from both leagues. Unlike the years of the “war” between the two leagues in the early 1960s, a player could not choose between the NFL team that drafted him, and the AFL team that drafted him, as Joe Namath had done when, in 1965 he chose New York over St. Louis, giving the AFL credibility.

  The system was based on the worst records in their leagues. The Philadelphia Eagles of the NFL and the Buffalo Bills of the AFL were the two contenders in the so-called "O.J. Simpson Sweepstakes." Simpson had little love for the City of Brotherly Love. The prospect of Buffalo was too bleak for him to contemplate.

  Buffalo was the worst of all possibilities. For a guy from San Francisco who had tasted fame in Hollywood's shadow, it represented a "cow town" with a cow's nickname (actually a Bison); a small city with little nightlife, little diversity, little press attention, an archaic old stadium (War Memorial) and, worst of all, abominable, freezing cold weather.

  Wait, that was not the worst thing of all. The Bills had O.J.'s rights because they were in fact the very worst team in pro football. They had no quarterback (Jack Kemp, once a star, was at the end of his road), no defense, no blocking, no talent, no offense. The "unfairness" of the nation's best player, the number one pick, having to go to the worst team, was discussed ad infinitum by the media.

  O.J. took his hits from the press. Many posited the notion that a poor black kid from the projects should be happy to get paid, much less receive the highest bonus since the NFL-AFL began the merger process; the by-product of exorbitant money paid to Joe Namath (who panned out) and John Huarte (who did not).

  It was the first dent in O.J.'s previously adorable public persona, but he was smart and quickly made the most of the situation. He changed his tune when he realized Buffalo had the pick and was going to take him.

  "Sure, I always wanted to play in the National Football League," he said. "But if there was any disappointment about being drafted by Buffalo, it's over. I know I should accept things as they are, and I'm anxious to get started. It's a great honor to be drafted number one. I'm awfully proud of that."

  O.J. was all about business when the time came, further damaging his reputation as a "holdout" and a "money grubber." When it was all over, the half-million dollars he secured from Buffalo was more than Namath had gotten from the New York Titans (now Jets). O.J. secured fringe benefits and commercial endorsements. In his early 20s the kid from Potrero Hill was worth between $900,000 and $1 million. His picture was plastered everywhere. Even before starting in the pros he began his foray into the movies. Sports Illustrated ran a long "expose" of his life. He represented an entirely different sort of black athlete.

  Until O.J., black athletes were compartmentalized into "groups." Elston Howard, the 1963 American League MVP with the Yankees, was a "company man." He lived in the suburbs with his presentable family, never complained, never held out, and fit right in to the Yanks country club Republican atmosphere. Howard was too milquetoast to sell much beyond Yahoo chocolate milk.

  Curt Flood, the Cardinals' All-Star center fielder, was a rebel with a cause. Intelligent, introspective and artistic, he challenged baseball's "reserve clause" and infuriated the Establishment with the statement, "I'm a slave. A $90,000 a year slave, but still a slave."

  His teammate, superstar pitcher Bob Gibson, was the natural progression of Jackie Robinson. Whatever society said Robinson was not supposed to do, Gibby did do, and on his own terms. That could mean throwing at the head of the other team's high-priced white superstars, then glaring in with a "what the hell you gonna do about it?" look.

  Cleveland Browns running back par excellence Jim Brown did sex scenes with blond bombshells in the movies. He was determined to show himself as the epitome of "black power." Brown was the "threat" that every slave owner felt about well-endowed black men left to have their way with the white women.

  Cassius Clay, a.k.a. Muhammad Ali, was a loudmouth, a Black Muslim, a draft dodger, frightening to many whites. Actor Sidney Poitier was cultured, beautiful and sophisticated, but the modern "black lingo," applied to him then, would not have been "real."

  Reggie Jackson had many of O.J.’s qualities; looks, intellect, media savvy. He was as great a baseball slugger as O.J. was a running back, was almost the same age, and ushered in a new era of big dollars that made black stars like he and O.J. Simpson not just highly-paid athletes, but men who had a certain “ownership” of the very business of sports
. But Jackson was not as likable as O.J., with teammates, fans or managers.

  Then there was Mike Garrett, the philosopher-running back who preceded O.J. at Southern Cal. He had a little bit of Curt Flood's artistic sensibilities and Elston Howard's need to be accepted, mixed with a little bit of urban L.A., but his pro career, while reasonably successful, never approached OJ.’s Hall of Fame status.

  O.J. took some of what these pathfinders had, then expanded on it. The times they were a-changin' by 1969. When he entered the AFL, he was bound and determined to make the most of his opportunities athletically, monetarily, socially, racially, sexually, and artistically. O.J. thought of himself as a kind of black Renaissance Man.

  More than anything, however, O.J. represented the first truly marketable black man in America. What Hollywood and Madison Avenue were looking for was a black Frank Gifford. That was O.J. Like Gifford, a USC star of the 1950s, he had grown up poor. He had superior athletic ability. Despite his background, he was a natural public speaker, interviewee, and on-camera spokesman. He had charisma, a great smile, and full-blown sex appeal. What separated O.J. from all the previous black celebrities was his crossover appeal. He indeed could "act white," a put-down phrase that really just means that he could carry on an intelligent conversation and glibly discuss issues. However, his on-field grace and "Age of Aquarius" style made him a "groovy Negro," a hero to "his people." In the age of the Black Panthers, he was a breath of fresh air.

  All of O.J.'s off-field charisma would go for naught unless he lived up to his billing on the field. In his rookie year (1969) that was problematic. The Bills were terrible. O.J. showed signs of brilliance, but for the most part the running back's facts of life were made painfully obvious to him: no blocking, no yards.

  In O.J The Education Of A Rich Rookie, he wrote, "The most striking contrast between college and pro ball was between the head coaches. USC coach John McKay was dapper and witty, always breaking up meetings or press conferences with wry jokes. He was the kind of man who could make you feel close to him without using a lot of speeches; just a few words from him could let you know what you had to do - and also make you want to do it. coach John Rauch presented an altogether different appearance."

  Simpson struggled again in 1970. Jack Kemp had retired and was elected to a Buffalo-area Congressional seat that year. The Bills were determined to make the changes necessary to build a success around Simpson. They drafted well, using a succession of high picks based on poor records. Arkansas quarterback Joe Ferguson would come to the team and lead them to respectability. A new stadium would be built to hold 80,000 rabid rooters.

  O.J. worked hard and proved himself to be a leader. He led his team out of the wilderness. By 1971, he was one of the best running backs in the now fully merged NFL. In 1972 he established himself as the best. In 1973 he made a serious bid to be the best who ever lived. Statistically he was, breaking Jim Brown's all-time single season record and surpassing 2,000 yards for the first time (in a 14-game season). He ran for over 200 yards in the snow and ice of Shea Stadium on a freezing December day to break the 2,000-yard mark in the season finale, putting the Bills into the AFC Play-Offs. O.J. went way out of his way to include his blockers in any discussions of his record-breaking performance. He saw to it that they were photographed, interviewed and lauded for their contributions.

  O.J. became the highest-paid player in the league, and one of the highest-paid in sports. He enjoyed the beginning of the free agent period in sports (although not yet in football), which ushered in a new era of big money. He was part of the jet set popularity of pro football, a western New York black version of "Broadway Joe" Namath. He was a drawing card at the turnstiles and in the executive suites of the TV networks negotiating the league's broadcasting contracts, including the incredibly successful Monday Night Football franchise.

  Throughout the 1970s, O.J. was the premier player in the NFL, quite an accomplishment since he played in the heyday of the Raider-Steeler and Cowboy-Redskin rivalries; the era of the undefeated Dolphins; and marquee names like Roger Staubach, Terry Bradshaw, Ken Stabler, Fran Tarkenton, Franco Harris and Jack Lambert.

  White fans had worshipped him in college. USC became vastly more popular as a school and a football team because of him. Now, a nation of fans of every color fell in love with him. There was a time, around 1976 or so, when the question of whether O.J. was better than Brown was a legitimate one. O.J. moved into second place on the all-time rushing list with a chance to pass Brown. But all the hard hits began to take their toll. In the late 1970s he slowed down. He orchestrated a trade to his hometown 49ers, but his talent was gone and the team was awful. It was a melancholy period for an all-time great, but he handled this adversity with class.

  His short tenure with the 49ers also marked perhaps the most significant relationship of his life. Al “A.C.” Cowlings joined San Francisco’s roster in 1978. There are few if any two people who have played sports with each other as long and as far as O.J. Simpson and Al Cowlings.

  Cowlings grew up with O.J. in the projects of Potrero Hill. They ran in the same gang and played youth football together. When O.J. went all the way across town, to north beach to attend Galileo High, Cowlings went with him and played on the football team. They were teammates on the national champions at City College of San Francisco. In 1968 they both played for John McKay at USC. In 1969, with O.J. off to Buffalo, Cowlings came into his own, earning All-American honors as a tackle on the unbeaten, Rose Bowl-champion Trojans’ famed “Wild Bunch” defense. In 1970 he again joined forces with O.J. in Buffalo. Finally, they re-united in their hometown of San Francisco in 1978.

  In the end, Jim Brown's status never changed. His single-season record had fallen to Juice, but not the career mark. Brown had also led his team to NFL titles. O.J. sadly never played in a Super Bowl. Runners like Walter Payton and Barry Sanders have passed many of his marks (which Brown accomplished in a short career, choosing to become a Hollywood action star in the mid-1960s).

  But O.J. never fell from the perch of public exposure. As a player, he became synonymous with the Hertz rental career agency. Running through airports in a full suit, carrying a brief case, little old ladies would shout in the popular Hertz commercials, "Go, O.J., go!”

  O.J. landed legitimate roles in many films during his off-seasons, including The Klansmen and The Towering Inferno. After retiring he starred in The Naked Gun. He was a frequent guest on TV shows, memorably hosting Saturday Night Live with a faux Traveler circling around to the background sounds of “Conquest,” while he delivered his monologue. He was a regular in the "Superstars Competition" in Hawaii. He had a stint with Howard Cosell and Gifford in the Monday Night Football broadcast booth (two Trojans espousing the merits of their alma mater). For years he enjoyed steady work as a Sunday pro analyst and sideline reporter.

  As a broadcaster, O.J. was tolerable but not in Gifford's league. As an actor he had looks and screen presence, but the intangible qualities of celluloid stardom, the question of whether "the screen loves him," was answered with an unfortunate "no." He was not embarrassing, but he could not establish a great career in films. Whether he took it seriously or not has been debated. Some say he took offense to those who made fun of his comical roles in films like The Naked Gun when he tried to prepare for the part in Brando fashion.

  O.J. had the life. He had money, a sweet pad in the best neighborhood in L.A., women, fame and respect. What he seems to have lacked, or lost somewhere along the way, was integrity of the soul. This is a tragedy, because either he once had it and allowed it to slip away, or it was all a façade from the beginning. When it all went bad, McKay just said, "That's not the man I knew."

  The Marv Gouxs, the Craig Fertigs, the Adrian Youngs; the teammates who knew him at USC, and indeed players and coaches (particularly Buffalo's Lou Saban) in the NFL; they all knew the same man. He had the work ethic, the willingness to sacrifice, the desire to reach out and help people because he was admired and could use his
position for good. He gave credit where credit was due.

  Getting it right

  In 1962, former Vice-President Richard Nixon ran as a Republican against California’s incumbent Democratic Governor, Edmund “Pat” Brown. A large number of Nixon’s campaign staff came from the University of Southern California.

  Nixon may well have attended USC in the 1930s instead of Whittier College, if he could have afforded it and if family emergencies had not necessitated that he stay near his home. In fact, he courted his wife, Patricia, when she was a student there, attending Trojans football games at the Coliseum.

  USC had a well-deserved reputation as a Republican, even a Right-wing university. The school had its racial codes. There was a certain amount of “gentleman’s agreement” over Jewish membership in its fraternities, but the university had produced the first black attorneys and doctors on Los Angeles around the turn of the century. Its first football All-American, Brice Taylor in 1925, was black. The atmosphere O.J. Simpson found in the 1960s was inviting.

  While an old Nixon hand, Herb Klein, was a Trojan, the true genesis of the Nixon-USC connection started with H.R. Haldeman. Haldeman attended USC before transferring to UCLA, then headed the “miracle mile” office of advertising giant J. Walter Thompson. Two of his key employees were students at USC, Dwight Chapin and Ron Ziegler.

  Both had been very active in the Students For a Democratic Society (SDS), a strongly Republican campus organization that dominated USC politics. They were recruited off the campus to work on Nixon’s 1962 gubernatorial race. Chapin became Nixon’s appointments secretary before getting caught in Watergate. Ziegler was the White House press secretary. Through them, a steady flow of USC Republicans came to work on Richard Nixon’s 1968 Presidential campaign, in the Nixon White House, and in GOP politics.

  These included White House aides Herbert “Bart” Porter and Gordon Strachan; Inauguration organizer and later aide to Robert Dole and Ronald Reagan, Michael Woodson; “dirty tricks” operative Donald Segretti; his colleagues Tim Elbourne and Larry Young; Henry Kissinger’s aide Mike Guhin; Gerald Ford’s aide Byron “Red” Caveny; political operative Mike Paulin; California legislator John Lewis; Congressmen Dan Lungren and C. Christopher Cox. Another active college Republican of the era, Barry Keenan, involved Jan & Dean singer Dean Torrence in a harebrained scheme to kidnap Frank Sinatra’s son, using the profits to . . . fund his Senate campaign! Then there was Robert Kardashian, a politically active fraternity brother like most them at the KA house, who was student manager of the Trojans football team. He befriended O.J. Simpson before a career in the law, while becoming the father of reality TV star Kim Kardashian.

  Chapin, Ziegler, Porter, Strachan, Elbourne, and Young were connected in one way or another with Watergate, but Segretti was the most infamous. In the book and movie All the President’s Men, journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward quoted Segretti referring to the “USC mafia.” Segretti has never entirely denied saying it, but states that Bernstein misappropriated his use of the term, that it is a “racist” description, and gives no credence to its use.

  The Nixon-USC connection said a great deal about the university, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. It was probably the most conservative institution west of the Mississippi River, if not the entire nation, and would remain so at least through the Reagan years, when students would chant “Reagan country” during rallies. The USC that O.J. Simpson entered in 1967 was wealthy, mostly white, heavily oriented towards fraternity life, and catered to the children of business and industry. Its student body was heavily populated by rich kids from Newport Beach in Orange County, and San Marino, a tony enclave near Pasadena. Girls at USC were disproportionally blond and incredibly beautiful, the image of the Beach Boys’ iconic “California Girls.”

  USC was the alma mater of the conservative film star John “Duke” Wayne, and still reflected his anti-Communist politics. While campuses at Berkeley, Stanford, San Francisco State, Michigan, Columbia, Kent State and many others erupted in protest over the Vietnam War, USC remained, with the exception of a few isolated incidents, quiet and peaceful.

  Across town at more-liberal UCLA, black basketball star Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) noted that handsome white frat boys would give him the “Pepsodent beach boy smile,” then call him by the “N-word” behind his back. While no doubt such incidents occurred with the numerous black athletes who played football for John McKay, or other sports for the Trojans, there was little reported racial trouble. A few years later, several black football players got into a near-brawl at a white fraternity house, but it was broken up without great incident. Certainly O.J. himself always expressed the feeling that he was accepted and welcomed by the Trojan family.

  Los Angeles and Southern California – a region that USC has always reflected – was quite unique, shaped by disparate forces. First, the trans-continental railroad connected the country not with Los Angeles, but with San Francisco. The easier route, through deserts and flatlands, would have connected the line through Arizona, Nevada and Southern California, to L.A. Instead it traversed the dangerous Rocky and Sierra Mountain ranges, because Abraham Lincoln, its main promoter, refused to let it be built through the South by slaves, and used by the Confederate Army.

  San Francisco had access to fresh water and grew into a major city. Northerners from Boston and New York who had Union sympathies populated it. Displaced Southerners, on the other hand, tended to immigrate to Los Angeles. Thus did L.A. begin to take on a more conservative, evangelical persona than the bawdy Barbary Coast of San Francisco.

  Eventually, an aqueduct was built to bring in fresh water to Los Angeles. This along with two world wars and the annexation of the San Fernando Valley to the city, grew Los Angeles. But nothing shaped L.A. like the Los Angeles Times and the Chandler family. They were rabidly anti-Communist, partisan Republicans, and despised the unions. The Times engaged in tremendous boosterism, literally recruiting “Republican farmers” to populate its warm lands. Prior to World War II, Los Angeles and the state of California was one of the most Republican regions in America.

  By the 1960s, the newspaper was run by Otis Chandler, a handsome young ex-Stanford track star. He turned them into a world-class paper, but reduced the Republican partisanship. But Los Angeles, unlike liberal San Francisco, remained a business-friendly, Republican city. This was reflected in their strong support of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the building of the private Dodger Stadium on a plateau overlooking downtown. It was also reflected in the Republican nature of the University of Southern California.

  By the late 1960s and 1970s, there was a growing sense that Los Angeles “got it right,” in a sense, when it came to the nagging national problem of race relations. Nobody reflected the smiling face of this new, successful racial diversity, façade or not, better than O.J. Simpson. There were fissures in this image, most notably the atrocious 1965 Watts riots, but no blacks attacked the USC campus. Many made note of this. USC, despite its white wealth and conservative image, was a fan favorite among south-central blacks and east L.A. Latinos. Black stars like Mike Garrett and O.J. Simpson shined for Troy. John McKay, a laconic, cigar-chomping, conservative Republican Catholic good ol’ boy from West Virginia, was an unlikely Moses of progressivism when it came to providing opportunities for blacks. He built his program on this dynamic, returning the Trojans after several decades below their 1930s status, back to the top of the heap.

  Across town, UCLA basketball coach John Wooden was a much different personality from McKay, but the dynasty he built at Westwood had a very similar foundation. Sports-crazed Los Angeles featured a number of prominent black stars on its popular college and professional teams. While this image of society was just a small sample size, it was still very public and left the impression that this was friendly place for minorities.

  In the 1960s, Los Angeles truly went “big league,” and not just because the Dodgers came and built the best stadium in baseball. L.A. replaced Chicago as
the second most populous city in the United States, but its larger metropolitan area - Greater Los Angeles – represented one of the largest regions, in terms of both sheer size as well as numbers of people – in the world. Its importance politically, culturally and economically was as great as any place anywhere.

  This region was roughly encompassed from San Clemente in the south to Riverside and San Bernardino to the east, to the San Gabriel Mountain range in the northeast, to Ventura in the northwest, all lined by an endless strand of mythic beach communities such as Malibu, Santa Monica, Marina Del Rey, Playa Del Rey, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Long Beach, Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, and Laguna Beach. Outlying cities such as San Diego, Palm Springs and Santa Barbara were still part of the general media marketplace. The music of The Mamas and the Papas, The Righteous Brothers, and The Beach Boys told the story of an iconic California dream.

  Aviator and industrialist Howard Hughes built the Southern California economy, which grew with World War II and the Cold War, by helping to create an enormous Military Industrial Complex that basically ran from the Santa Monica airport to the Long Beach shipyards, with additional heavy industry in Orange County. The Pacific Rim became the most important area of trade and shipping. Jet travel made access to once far-flung California convenient. Athletically, the 1960s and 1970s in L.A. and the larger state of California, were the greatest any region has ever experienced, far eclipsing the “golden age” of New York City in the 1950s. The 1960s and 1970s without question remain the greatest years in the history of Hollywood (built largely by the growth of film schools at USC and UCLA). TV programs like The Beverly Hillbillies and Adam-12 popularized L.A. life and landmarks, glamorizing a police department considered the most honest in the world.

  Playboy magazine emperor Hugh Hefner moved from chilly Chicago to a mansion near the UCLA campus. Millions of American men looked at photos of topless honeys frolicking in the sunshine of the Playboy Mansion. High school boys saw images of Hef’s beautiful girlfriend Barbi Benton, a student at UCLA, and decided they too would find such a girlfriends at USC or UCLA. Hefner also promoted black jazz artists in his magazine and on a popular TV show called Playboy’s Penthouse. Pictures of gorgeous Playmates mixing socially with black impresarios inflamed some in the South, but for the most part gave an aura of easy, cool acceptance.

  Politically, Southern California ruled. It was the age of Richard Nixon, elected President in 1968, and of California Governor Ronald Reagan (1967-1975, later President, 1980s). Orange County rose in population and influence, its John Birch conservatism tempered by racial moderation and beautiful, bikini-clad girls. As with Playboy, attractive people provided a sheen of glamour to a region as rabidly anti-Communist as the Deep South, but not as racially insensitive. In 1973, a former UCLA track star named Tom Bradley became the first black Mayor of Los Angeles.

  Meanwhile, the rest of America seemingly went downhill. The biggest reason was race. Between the end of World War II and 1967, American blacks made steady economic and civil progress. They were increasingly successful in sports and entertainment, but through education advanced in all walks of life. Despite rampant racism, specially in the South, blacks advanced primarily because they were, for the most part, nuclear families (mother, father, children) who attended Christian churches. Faith and the family dynamic girded them through the most difficult obstacles.

  Two things broke up the black family. First, the election of Democrat Lyndon Johnson in 1964 ushered in massive entitlement programs. LBJ was a Texan with a racist reputation, but he idolized the New Deal of President Franklin Roosevelt. He envisioned a second one. LBJ tasked a young New York liberal named Daniel Patrick Moynihan to study the so-called “Negro problem.”

  Moynihan came back with a startling conclusion. In essence, he told President Johnson that blacks had progressed steadily from World War II, through the 1950s, and into the early 1960s. Left “alone,” for the most part, there was no reason they would not continue to progress. Moynihan advised a controversial plan, called “benign neglect,” which in essence mirrored former President Harry Truman’s admonition “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

  Moynihan’s report was the last thing Johnson wanted to hear. Blacks had traditionally voted Republican after President Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. The South was 100 percent Jim Crow Democrat. Every member of the Ku Klux Klan was a Democrat, often an elected one. But the New Deal brought a large segment of inner city blacks into the Democratic fold with a host of “programs,” mainly checks given to blacks in the form of “relief.”

  By the 1960 Nixon-John Kennedy campaign, the black vote was roughly even. JFK expressed little more than disdain for the plight of blacks, despite urging by his brother Robert to pay more attention. Kennedy said that he never experienced the Great Depression, so insulated by his father Joseph’s illegal bootlegging money was he. Nixon, on the other hand, grew up dirt poor and, as a law student at Duke University, argued on behalf of black civil rights with his Southern classmates. Nixon was a friend of Jackie Robinson, who grew up in Nixon’s old Congressional district. But when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was jailed in Birmingham, Nixon was advised not to interfere lest he lose his large base of white support. Kennedy managed to get King out of jail, thus engendering his grateful support, not to mention Robinson’s. It was a major turning point in black politics.

  With the Vietnam War started, President Johnson needed a second political front. In 1964, support for the war was strong, so LBJ’s embracing the liberal cause of civil rights created a huge coalition that resulted in a massive victory over conservative Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater. In 1964-1965, Johnson initiated the Great Society, a far-reaching array of voting rights, welfare entitlements, socialized medical care, and other Big Government programs unseen in any capitalist nation. While most of the voting rights legislation was necessary and good, helping to undo injustices in the South, the welfare state created was a disaster on par with some of the worst mass crimes ever committed. It had the almost immediate effect of literally breaking up African-American families, in which black fathers, oft-rendered useless appendages by government checks, left their families, never married the mothers of their children, and had little or nothing to do with the lives of their children.

  Within a few shirt years, the inner cities of America exploded in high crime and vast poverty. Riots broke out in Los Angeles, Newark, Detroit and other cities. The assassination of Dr. King in 1968 created a terrible new dimension, the militant wing of the Civil Rights Movement. The Black Panthers, the Black Muslims, and other radical elements – black and white – emerged to wreak havoc.

  While all of this drove America to the breaking point, the anti-war protest movement, the hippies and the drug culture unleashed a cancer on society that today appears to have destroyed the United States. What was spawned on the world in the 1960s has spread and metastasized ever since, and today appears to have done to America what the Soviets and other foreign enemies could never do.

  As for the blacks, probably the greatest casualty of the Great Society, any chance they had of overcoming its effects was destroyed in 1967 by the “Summer of Love.” Driven largely by the influence of rock ‘n’ roll into the culture, the Summer of Love was a worldwide phenomenon with a central geographical base: San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Its influence would spread across the globe.

  While much of the music by The Doors, Buffalo Springfield, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and many others was extraordinary, drug use was epidemic. It would lead to the cocaine addictions of subsequent decades, and along with the attendant “sexual revolution,” immoralized the youth, resulting in AIDS, gay marriage, abortion on demand, and pornography on a massive scale.

  Nevertheless, many of the middle class white kids caught up in the drug culture had families to help nurture them back to health. Most of the blacks did not have this support system, especially after it
was eroded by the welfare state. The Mafia had already targeted them when they entered the drug trade after World War II.

  Now, with no place to turn, enormous numbers of young blacks stayed on the streets to live useless lives of drugs, prostitution, and crime. Incredibly, despite this being a curse laid upon their heads by the Democratic Party, to this very day blacks seem mesmerized by welfare checks, unable to see this plain fact. They continue to vote for the party responsible, in many ways, for re-enslaving them, by upwards of 90 percent.

  In addition to rampant inner city crime, big cities, particularly New York, were beset by corruption and union strife. Movies of the era such as Serpico, Midnight Cowboy, The French Connection, and Dirty Harry depicted once-elegant metropolis as now being dirty and immoral, their days of greatness gone.

  In the South, terrible racial turmoil marked the 1960s, spilling over into violence and hatred threatening the very Union once preserved by Abraham Lincoln. A mere 20, 30 years after winning the greatest war in history, attaining heights of glory unseen in all of world history, achieving economic prosperity and a leisure class completely defying 200 years of Socialist dogma, leading to huge architectural achievements and the landing of a man on the moon, the United States of America was ready to capitulate in the Cold War and abdicate its role of world leader. This was an epic fall from grace.

  Through the darkest days of two horrendous decades, the 1960s and 1970s, one city appeared immune to this cancer: Los Angeles, California. There were, of course, bumps on the L.A. freeways. There were the riots of 1965, the first real indication that the L.A.P.D. was not quite the same as that depicted on Dragnet or Adam-12.

  Alabama Governor George Wallace liked to point to the riots as an example of liberal, or Northern hypocrisy. But by the 1970s even the conservative L.A. Times was giving voice to the underserved black and Latino communities.

  The Manson family killings (1969) also put great fear in the hearts of elite Los Angelenos populating Beverly Hills and the Hollywood hills. Watergate and a disastrous end to the Vietnam War ripped the last vestige of pride from America. The 1970s were little more than a laugh track of bad hair, embarrassing clothing styles, and unimpressiveness, but L.A. was “the place.” Just as the L.A. Times replaced the New York Times as the finest newspaper in the world, Southern California in the 1970s and especially in the 1980s – when the Los Angeleno Reagan presided over eight years of peace and prosperity, and the 1984 Olympics came to his hometown – overtook New York as the most important and influential city of them all.

  L.A. was hip and happening. The hippest aspect of its panache was its supposed mastery of race relations. On the surface, at least, its highs schools and colleges were a happy blend of white, black, Latino and Asian kids in a diverse, fair world. L.A. sports teams at all levels most notably reflected this.

  While O.J. Simpson was a hero in Buffalo during the 1970s, Los Angeles still retained their “rights” to him. He remained a loyal, notable Trojan alum, and every off-season kept his hand in acting, which included roles in The Klansman (1973), The Towering Inferno (1974), Roots (1977), and Capricorn One (1978). Perhaps above all other figures, he was the face of a new, accepted black America. White women by the tens of thousands expressed the “O.J. exception.” If there was a black man they would readily sleep with, it was the handsome, charismatic superstar.

  Not unsurprisingly, this dynamic was of no good value to O.J.’s marriage to Marguerite. She raised his kids while he played football, acted in movies, took broadcasting assignments, and was give a free lunch from one end of America to another. The most beautiful women in the world threw themselves at him. He accepted their advances freely and with no regard to the fidelity of his marriage.

  Then, in 1977, he met Nicole Brown.

  Lust

  Among the Seven Deadly Sins, the most common may be the sin of Lust. O.J. had an eye for the ladies and they had it for him. His first wife bore him children. She was attractive but simple. When he hit the big time she did not adjust to his place in the world. O.J. found other women and quickly made a practice of it without regard to morality. Unfortunately, this makes him no different from about 80 or 90 percent of professional athletes, who have a coterie of strippers, porn chicks, groupies, gold diggers and "star f-----s" throwing themselves at them in every hotel room from Coronado to Coral Gables.

  In 1977 he met a blond bombshell waitress from Orange County. What separated her from the others - the blonds, brunettes, and redheads - is one of the mysteries of love, but O.J. fell for her. He and Nicole Brown were married. They had children of their own. All reports were that his kids were the apple of his eye, although his children from the first marriage found problems with the new developments.

  Nicole Brown’s mother, Judi, was a lovely German girl from Frankfurt. She was the secretary for the fiscal director of the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes in 1954.

  “All I ever heard about, from other women in the office, was Lou Brown,” she recalled.

  Lou Brown was the paper’s circulation manager, and incredibly popular with all the ladies in the office.

  “Who is this guy?’” Judi asked herself. “Let’s see if I can catch his eye.”

  Lou did notice her. He was staring so hard at her he bashed the company car.

  He was married with three kids, but that marriage was on the rocks. He and Judi moved in together, and before they were even married, had two children, Denise (1957) and Nicole (May 19, 1957), known as Nikky. Later a third daughter named Mini was born.

  “Like her mother, Nicky would grow up to be a young beauty who immediately and romantically turned the head of a young man who was married, a man who had three young *children, and whose reputation as the focus of women’s attention was substantial,” wrote Sheila Weller in Raging Heart.

 

‹ Prev Next ›