Like father, like SCum

Ex-trojan Marc Tyler fumbles away the game, on National TV, in his first-ever contest as a Pro

What an ominous debut.

With Green Bay driving for a game-tying Touchdown in the final minute of their tight match-up in San Diego, Marc Tyler got barely touched by a defender, and coughed up the ball — and the game — to the Chargers.  A National ESPN audience got to see first hand how mentally soft and undisciplined another u$c product is upon entering the League.

Tyler is the trOJan who got busted for spitting in the face of an innocent co-ed, and also, for getting shitfaced and announcing proudly to TMZ that at u$c the athletes get PAID TO PLAY.  Since Marc’s Dad is former Bruin, Ram and 49er Wendell Tyler, one has to wonder how the acorn could fall so far from — and yet so near to — the tree.

Wendell was a great Bruin and an upstanding citizen, whose only problem was fumble-itis.  Wendell was a stellar Running Back for the Rams, but when ex-trojan honk John Robinson took the helm, the first thing he did was get rid of Tyler.  Wendell does not hold a grudge, though.  When I asked Wendell about this at a UCLA event, the very mature Tyler told me that he is actually thankful that Robinson dumped him, because Wendell ended up on San Francisco, where he won a Super Bowl.

It appears that son Marc got none of Wendell’s CLASS, and none of Wendell’s keen decision-making ability (like where to attend college), but he got all of Wendell’s butterfingers.

Speaking of deciding on where to go to school, UCLA Coach Jim Mora weighed in on recruiting yesterday, by saying that at least when you choose UCLA, you go to a campus that “doesn’t have murders a block away.”  Good for Mora!  Since Mora is an outsider to The Rivalry, I didn’t know if he would truly catch on and embrace it.  Well, it appears that he has.  Although he denies meaning this comment as a reference to the South Central scum hole that IS u$c, there is no doubt that he did.  There were recently two gang-related murders of foreign students right next to sc’s campus, and, in 1992, a trojan football player got shot in the arm by a stray bullet from a nearby gang shooting.  Obviously, Mora is well aware of sc’s scuzzy surroundings, and is casually reminding the Country’s recruits about the inherent danger of attending a school right smack in the middle of a war zone.  Nice!!  Apparently, trojan fans are all up in arms over the comments.  I suggest they lower their arms, or risk getting a through-and-through bullet wound, like their player did in ’92.

Speaking of thugs, there was BIG NBA news yesterday, that actually involved a Bruin and an ex-trojan, and also changed the entire landscape of the Powers of the League.  The Lakers, who already had signed Hall of Fame Point Guard Steve Nash and talented forward Antawn Jamison this off-season, completed the remarkable upgrade by adding Center Dwight Howard to the roster.  These moves instantly put the Lakers back at the top of the NBA Power Rankings, alongside Miami and Oklahoma City.

It was rumored that they would have to give up Pau Gasol AND Andrew Bynum to make this 4-team trade work, but they managed to pull off the deal while surrendering ONLY Bynum.  So the Lakers wll start Kobe, Artest, Gasol, Nash, and Howard this year — that’s 3 Hall of Famers and 4 All-Stars — enough to compete with any team in the league.

This transaction also made some strange bedfellows:  It threw together a Bruin and a trojan on Howard’s former team.  Bruin Arron Afflalo and ex-trojan Nikola Vucevic are both now on the roster of the Orlando Magic.  Afflalo will probably start, and Vucevic will likely collect splinters in his ass, as a regular benchwarmer, so I guess it’s okay to root for the Magic this year… that is, if you GET The Rivalry as well as Jim Mora does.