HAVE A NICE TRIP, (U-S-)C YOU NEXT FALL

One ex-trojan admits receiving free luxury trips, including to Fiji, while playing for $C, a Pro player falls, thanks to a punch in the throat from another ex-trojan, and the current $C Basketball team ends their year in the first round of the Pac-12 Tourney, finishing a dreadful last-place campaign with a 2-17 Conference record in their hot-shot new Coach’s inaugural Season

 What a week for the trojans!  It started with an article/interview with u$c’s former Running Back Dillon Baxter.  Overhyped as a recruit, Baxter admits that he came to South Central U feeling that he had already “made it” to the big time.  He implies that he was virtually showered with luxuries, including one very special first-class, all-expenses paid vacation in the exotic locale of the Fiji Islands, all courtesy of AGENT Teague Egan.

Yes, this is the same trojan putz who got Baxter busted for accepting from Egan a golf cart ride across campus.  Baxter got temporarily suspended from the team for this rules violation.  At the time, I reported that Baxter had “put the cart before the (trojan) horse,” a headline which the Los Angeles Times promptly stole, one day after I received correspondence from a Times Sportswriter in reference to my article.  Plagiarism aside, it was a big story when Baxter got busted.  IF THEY ONLY KNEW that the golf cart ride was only the tip of the tentacle!  One little harmless, worthless cart ride to class (yeah, right, “class”), versus the thousands of dollars worth of air fare and hotel stays that Baxter was racking up, all on a CERTIFIED NFL AGENT’S tab.  And you think Egan didn’t have his hooks into several more players on the trojan team?  The cheating and rule-breaking was undoubtedly rampant, and all the while, there was basically NO compliance department monitoring this Egan clown?

So now you are asking, will the NCAA investigate these new ADMISSIONS from an actual trojan player, who has just announced to the Press that he received mega-benefits WHILE playing for u$c, from a legitimate Pro Football Agent?  Of course not.  U$c claims that Egan has already been looked at, and no further examination will be done.  So basically, they threw Baxter and Egan under the cart, while the bus, cruise ships, and luxury airliners fly on by undetected.

Meanwhile, another ex-trojan who got officially nailed by the NCAA for getting paid while at $C continues to display his complete lack of class and integrity.  This week, O.J. Mayo was suspended by the NBA, for thuggishly delivering a forearm punch to the throat of another player.  Mayo was reacting to a play where he got picked off nimbly by an excellent screen — totally a legitimate “part-of-the-game” move.  But Mayo got tangled up with the player while trying to extricate himself from the screen, and he responded exactly the way they teach you to at $C — he went after the guy in a fit of (roid?) rage, resorting to violence, using a vicious forearm shiv to the jugular.  Mayo was immediately ejected, and then the NBA watched the tape, and rightfully suspended him.  Maybe Mayo laid off the marijuana that he used to buy illegally and smoke, because this retaliatory behavior was anything but the mellow actions of a pot head.

And finally, today, speaking of horrible Basketball moves, the u$c Basketball team went down in flames, losing to Colorado in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament.  The trojans actually blew a 5-point lead in the final minutes, due to careless turnovers, poor shot selection, and a total lack of composure — all signs of lousy coaching.  The new head Coach Andy Enfield was the “flavor-of-the-month” when Pat Haden selected him, despite having anything close to a good resume, and this abysmal season didn’t do anything to keep the hype level high.  In fact, it was a disappointing, underachieving year, even for lowly, cellar-dwelling Troy, so now they have a few months to get the taste of that flavor out of their mouths.  In Enfield’s defense, his roster was horrendous, so let’s give him a few more years before we confirm that this hire was an epic fail.