All Over the Place

Note: If you're looking for Kings-Ducks coverage, it's below this entry.

All the talk about his playing-in-Europe seminar for the column on George Contreras in Tuesday's paper didn't really leave space to discuss his new coaching job in Sweden after two years in Italy, but we did talk about it, starting with the obvious question: Why Sweden?
"I wasn't really looking to go back this year," said Contreras. "I thought I'd take a year off. ... Basically this coach from Sweden contacted me, and it just kind of appealed to me from the standpoint of not having imports, and really being grass-roots kind of stuff. I thought I could put my last two years of coaching freshman football to really good use.
"And the other thing, a little bit selfishly, is being down in Sicily, we are so far, basically, from mainland Europe. ... We'd seen Southern Europe, so this gives me a chance to be in the Northern part. Certainly a different culture, a different climate ... and from the travel-experience standpoint, I'll be able to easily hit a lot of Northern Europe.
And when I connected with Uffe Palmbrink" -- the owner of the Hasselholm Hurricanes, based in a city of 18,000 (including the surrounding district, the population is about 50,000) in southern Sweden -- " he's just a good guy. He appealed to me the way he's approaching thing.
"But it's definitely a different deal because of skill levels."
That desire to travel while in Europe is enhanced by a scheduling quirk Contreras calls "probably the only goofiness in Sweden" -- the Swedish American Football Federation shuts down for seven weeks in midseason so people can enjoy the relatively brief Swedish summer, and for the first six of those weeks, the team won't even practice.
"Then we come back for three weeks and it's the playoffs. ...
And from what I've heard from guys who have coached in Sweden, a couple of Americans I've met, it's not unusual that a lot of your guys don't come back. We come back in August, and August is Europe's summer vacation. So even though we're taking this time off so you can enjoy the outdoors, there's a good chance guys are still working, so when it comes to vacation shut-down time, then they're going to really take off."
Still, while he considers the chance to coach at more basic level "a good change of pace," coaching in Sweden does have one notable side effect when it comes to Contreras' coaching work in Ventura County: Because the Swedish playoffs run into October, he won't be coaching locally this year, ending 40 consecutive years of coaching high school football at some level.
There's one other reason Contreras is moving from Italy to Sweden, and it's simply to expand the whole experience of coaching in Europe.
"I had an enjoyable two years in Catania" -- the city in Sicily where he coached the last two years -- "but ... the second year became, 'This is where I work. Let's go to the same restaurant.' Not that it was bad; it just wasn't that adventure the first year was.
"And all the guys I've talked to who've coached over there, none of them have ever coached in the same town twice. They've always moved to a new experience, because it is a big experience. And the same thing with players."
So if it's 2010, this must be Sweden. In 2011, who knows?

And the 10-game win streak belongs to ... the Anaheim Ducks.
Anaheim maintained its home win streak -- which ties a club record set in February and March of 2008 -- by beating the Kings 4-2 on Monday night, ending L.A.'s club-record nine-game winning streak.
Anaheim did it in exactly the fashion Ducks coach Randy Carlyle had wanted -- by creating all kinds of traffic in front of the net to make life extremely difficult for Kings goalie Jonathan Quick -- although it was possibly the most innocuous shot of the night, a fairly routine attempt by Corey Perry with 1:30 left in the second period, that secured the game for the Ducks. It came just 24 seconds after the Kings had made it 3-2 on a goal by Anze Kopitar.
"It wasn't the hardest shot I've shot," said Perry, "but shooting the puck on net, you never know what can happen. If there's a rebound, there's probably someone coming down the slot, so it could be another scoring chance."
Kopitar called Perry's response to his goal "unfortunate.
"It was a huge goal for them going up just before the break with a two-goal lead."
The current streak has turned around the Ducks' fortunes. They were just 7-8-2 at home before reeling off their 10 straight wins.
"We just got off to a slow start at home, I guess," said Scott Niedermayer. "And it is important to play at home in this league."
The difference, Niedermayer suggested, is "probably initiating.
"I think when we get in trouble is we watch a little a little bit, and let the other team sort of dictate things. Hockey's a game that definitely takes some aggression, where you have to initiate, whether it's take checks, give checks, get in front of the net -- all things that are difficult to do. They're not fun. They hurt, and the rest of it, but we've been doing that here lately, and doing a better job of it."
Kings coach Terry Murray would not disagree.
"We rallied in the third period," he said, "but Anaheim brought their 'A' game here today and we just didn't match it.
"They were carrying the game. We were chasing in the first and second period, in particular. We didn't manage the pucks in the middle of the ice. Just two many teams, we let them come back at us with a lot of speed in the transition."
The Ducks set the tone with a flurry of early scoring chances in the game's opening minutes, although they trailed 1-0 after Oscar Moller scored at 12:31 of the first. Anaheim answered with goals by Teemu Selanne, Getzlaf and Saku Koivu.
"I think you have to remember the last couple of times we've played the hockey club across the hall," said coach Randy Carlyle, "we were on the second half of a back-to-back, and we didn't have the necessary energy, and they did. And tonight we had a lot of energy" -- Anaheim had been off since last Thursday's 6-4 loss in L.A. -- "and we felt good about the ability to skate with them.
"They're a good hockey team. Don't take anything away from that hockey club. They've earned everything they've gotten. But we can be more competitive than we were in the last two games against them, that's for sure."
The biggest flaw on the evening from the Anaheim perspective was the loss of center Ryan Getzlaf to a sprained left ankle in the second period -- an injury not only of concern for the Ducks, but for Team Canada with the start of the Olympic hockey tournament just a week away.
"We really haven't got an assessment other than he sprained his ankle," said Carlyle. "Right now, he's walking in a boot, and he'll be on crutches. He'll have an MRI (Tuesday), and that will give us a better indication of the severity of the sprain."
Said Koivu, "We've just got to cross our fingers right now and hope it's nothing bad."
Overall, it was a very big night for the Ducks' Olympians. Eleven of the 12 Anaheim points went to the skaters bound for Vancouver -- Perry had three points; Selanne, Koivu and Ryan Whitey had two, and Getzlaf and Niedermayer one each. The eighth Anaheim Olympian is goalie Jonas Hiller, who made 35 saves for the win.
The Kings were disappointed to see their win streak end, but tried to maintain a positive attitude about it.
"We are pretty happy with those nine wins in a row," said defenseman Drew Doughty. "I know tonight we are a little disappointed that we didn't play very well in the first two periods, but we cam to play in the third and we took it to them. We just have to learn from taht. We have to play how we did in the third every period."

It's a real something-has-to-give pairing tonight at the Honda Center: The Kings, winners of nine straight, against the Ducks, winners of nine straight at home.
Here are a few comments about the matchup from the teams' morning skates:

Ducks coach Randy Carlyle, on what the Ducks have to shore up based on their 6-4 loss in Los Angeles last Thursday:
"Well, I think our execution level, for sure. We don't get enough traffic in front of (goalie Jonathan) Quick. He's had it far too easy finding pucks. We've got to do a better job of that.
"We've got to do a better job of executing through neutral ice. They're a trapping hockey club; they're not any different than a lot of teams have taken on, and they've been executing their trap in the neutral ice as good as any team in the league."

Kings coach Terry Murray, asked how to combat the Ducks' desire to create more traffic in front of Quick:
"You just have to do a strong job in front of the net. And you're not going to eliminate it. They've got some great players over there. You've just got to try to limit the number of times they can get position. Your defensemen, your low tracker, they have to work very hard to get proper body positioning and we've got to get in some lanes up top with the defensemen. They've got some guys that are very mobile up there; they do a lot of rotating at the top, so they can find some seams. But we have to work hard on the checking part of the game."
"But that's hockey -- going to the net, battling hard. That's the exciting part of the game."

Anaheim's Bobby Ryan, assessing the Kings:
"Well, I think they're playing with a lot of confidence, especially in their own building. They're really rallying around Jonathan in net. It starts with him; he's been great. He's made some big saves at big times, and even when we came back in that game last week, he stood on his head at the end.
"And their forwards are playing with confidence. They're making plays all over the ice and getting to the net and creating havoc. You know, for any team to play against them in that kind of situation, where those guys are playing that well, it's tough. So I think for us to just keep it simple and play a simple home game is the key for us."

Back with more after the game.

EL SEGUNDO -- If you're wondering about the state of Kobe Bryant's ankle and his status for Friday's game with Denver, keep wondering.
Bryant did not make himself available to the media after the Lakers' practice Thursday, leaving others to opine or guess about his condition.
Phil Jackson said Bryant stayed out of practice and was "trying a variety of therapies" on the previously injured left ankle, re-aggravated in Wednesday's game with Charlotte when Lamar Odom stepped on it late in the second quarter.
He also said Bryant "sure wants to" play against Denver, but that would depend on his condition as of Friday. And Jackson said the thought of holding Bryant out of game action had crossed his mind.
"It occurred to me (Wednesday) during the course of that game," Jackson said. "I told him he did quite well during the game, even though his shooting was 2 for 12. A lot of those balls were dropped on him as the 24-second clock was running out. These kids are so used to just giving him the ball at the end of the clock and making him develop a shot.
But he kept us running the offense, his defense was good, and he did some real good things out there."
Odom, meanwhile, clearly will be surprised if Bryant doesn't play against the Nuggets.
"Kobe usually plays 82 games since I've been here," said Odom. "He has a broken finger and plays. So that wheel's going to really have to hurt for him not to play.
"If he's hurt, hopefully other guys can step up and play well. He's hard to replace."

Sunday's Q and A article with Cal Lutheran president Chris Kimball focused primarily on CLU-specific athletic issues. But we also discussed some bigger-picture issues. Here is that part of the conversation.

In general, what do you think is maybe is the biggest issue Division III athletics faces right now?
Let me answer that in two parts.
From the perspective of the NCAA, the biggest issue they're facing is this combination of size and identity, or philosophy, if you will. And there have been conversations about dividing it, and so on. That's really got people's attention. But with the prospect, and I'm not sure how immediate, but the expectation is eventually NAIA schools will come into the NCAA, that you're just going to have an enormous number of schools that makes doing postseason very complicated. And the range of schools -- big, small, public, private -- it's difficult to say that we have a single approach to policies, rules, philosophy and so on. And the NCAA has really asked the presidents to get involved in a kind of identity reflection process over the next couple of years.
So I think from the NCAA perspective, that is the official big challenge.
Now I would add, I think the other big challenge is the one that goes beyond athletics and affects all public education -- maybe particularly private -- and that is how many high school students and their families will be able to go to college, whether they play sports or not.
I think that's a national challenge. We're facing it here in California and probably to a lesser extent around here. That's the real big game, but that's kind of a macro level answer.

Is the NCAA really the best organization for Division III schools? There are such disparate elements within that organization.
I have to say, I've been pretty impressed with how the NCAA is able to compartmentalize Division III, and I mean that in a good way. So you've got your own rule book, essentially your own meetings, and so on. You can read about the D-I and D-2 stuff, you go to the same receptiosn, but it doesn't have much of an impact on your day-to-day business, other than, frankly, to be able to go to Linfield and have the NCAA pay for that is due to the March Madness TV contract for D-I. So we benefit that way from it.
But I think they do a good job of identifying the interests of the members at each classification. It means it's an emormous bureaucracy, but it's broken into those three chunks. Division II, I think, is still struggling where it fits between I and III. But I'm comfortable in the NCAA, and think actually it's a reasonably good vehicle for talking about these identity and philosophy questions.

There have been, at times, kind of separatist movements.
Well, one of the SCIAC presidents has been a leader in maybe staying in the NCAA but creating a new Division IV. That may get revived again.

Well if the NAIA comes in, I can see there really being some structural changes because they don't fit Division II or Division III.
That's right. You could see some comfortably going into II, but others might come this way, and then what do they do with their scholarship athletes?
You know, NAIA's a real opportunity here because there's so many in Southern California relative to the NCAA schools, where again, the Midwest, Northeast, you've got so many NCAA schools that a few more don't make much difference. But for us, if you suddenly say you've got Westmont, Azusa, Point Loma, Cal Baptist in your mix, that changes things pretty dramatically. So I think that's going to be an important issue for us out here.
But as you say, it's going to raise that issue of how important are athletics in Division III, and does everybody play off the same book or not.
And back in Minnesota, one of the great complaints from the Minnesota conference, the MIAC, generally private liberal-arts colleges and universities, was that across the river in Wisconsin, you had a conference of the Whitewater, Stevens Point, all of which were 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 students, and almost like D-1 schools in terms of the resources and so forth. So where's the level playing field there? That's less pronounced out here, I think.

But it does become an issue when you go into the playoffs. I remember going to a Division III World Series one of the years Cal Lutheran went, and they were one of the smallest schools there, but there was a real disparity between -- about half the field was schools of 5,000 or less, and about half was 10,000 or more.
Well, you look at the football playoffs this last year. Linfield, which is about our size, was in the final four. Then you've got Wisconsin-Whitewater, a big state school. Mount Union, they're a special case. And I forget who the fourth one was. [Wesley, Del., which has 2,100 students, plus 400 on a satellite campus. Mount Union has 2,204 students; Wisconsin-Whitewater has an enrollment of 10,700.]
But there's a world of difference, just as an institution, from a Whitewater to a Linfield, or a Whitewater to a CLU. Linfield and CLU, you'd say, OK -- roughly the same size school and so on. That I get. That makes a lot of sense. When you add such different kinds of institutions, that's when you start saying, well, do we really have the same philosophy?

And looking at the Division III football championship, five years in a row now it's been Mount Union versus Whitewater in the final. Does that say there's a structural problem with Division III playoffs, that you're getting the same schools every year?
I'll say it's not desirable. Let's put it that way. And in both of those cases, there are some special things going on.
I could point to my old school, Augsburg, in wrestling, a much smaller sport. It was Augsburg and Wartburg one-two every year until this last year for at least a decade. You can say the same kind of thing there, that the haves continue to be the haves. And I think in football, there's such a buildup of resources that once a team is entrenched, it can be hard to dislodge them. I think that, for Whitewater and certainly Mount Union, people know, and they have an appeal to them.
So, desireable? No. Structural problem? I'm, not going to go that far. Certainly [we] would like to find a way to give them a year off or two years off by substituting for them in that championship.
But the question you ask is exactly the kind of thing being asked at the NCAA level. There are some schools, like a Williams or a Calvin College, outstanding liberal-arts colleges, that are good at a whole number of sports. They may not win every year, but they're going to be in that top 10, and that is seen probably as a better model than a school that just dominates in one thing.

Some of the answers in The Star's Sunday Q and A with Cal Lutheran president Chris Kimball had to be severely edited for length, depriving some of his comments of their full depth. Here are more expansive versions of three of those answers. In Part II of this blog post, we'll have questions that weren't included in the print article.

How comfortable are you with what athletics means at this university, and its place in this university?
I've been involved with Division III athletics now for, 15-20 years. I was at [Division III Augsburg College] before, and as a faculty member, I was the faculty athletic rep to the NCAA and to the conference. So I got involved that way, including in discussions about philosophy, identity, appropriateness of athletics and so on.
And then, as I became administrator there and here, have had athletics reporting to me. So it's always been kind of close to what I've done. And given a lot of chance to talk, both internally at the schools and to other folks, about what's the appropriate place of athletics, particularly in Division III.
And as you may know, there's been a lot of stuff written in the last decade about Division III. Bill Bowen did a book, a massive study, on what happened to athletes, particularly in liberal arts colleges, in school and then after their success and so on. And a lot of that stuff put meat to what people have thought anecdotally about the importance of athletics.
One of the things that I think is not well understood by folks outside ... is how important athletics are to a university or college of our size just from a numbers point of view.
A hundred football players -- and we've got that many in our program -- out of 2,000 undergraduates is a big chunk. A hundred football players in a Division I school of 50,000, you may never see one in the street.
And you add other programs to it -- baseball, we've got 50, 60 players at least trying out -- and you add it up, and we're like most of the smaller colleges and universities in the country where you're maybe going to have as much as 40 percent of your entering class coming in planning to play a sport. And overall, you probably have a third or more of your student body involved in intercollegiate athletics. And then you add those other key pieces of intermurals and recreation on top of that, and you have almost everybody involved. And I think that's a good mission fit for what we say: Body, mind, spirit. And to have all of those active for people, I think, is great.
And one of the things I've always liked, too, is a student doesn't have to focus on just one thing. If they come here to play a sport, they're also going to get a degree; they can be involved with extracurricular activities, as well. I'd say by the same token, if a student here wants to sing in our choir, they don't have to give up everything else just to focus on that. And I think that's the advantage, too, of a place our size. And I think here we've got things in about the right balance, if you will: The number of students that are scholar athletes, we recognize each year, for high academic achievement as well as athletic participation, keeps growing each year. I think our coaches continue to be on board with recruiting people that are serious about their studies and will finish, is real helpful, too.
And we're also having some decent success on the field and the court and in the pool, which is helpful, too.

How have you find found the difference to be between the SCIAC and the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference [which includes Augsburg]?
That's a really good question. That one's bigger. Not every school participates in every sport, but generally you're going to have 13 to 14 institutions in it. The SCIAC much smaller, and then not everybody [is] participating. So I always worry that if somebody leaves the SCIAC or doesn't participate, we could lose our automatic qualifier. So that's always a little source of concern. The SCIAC is looking back and forth on maybe expanding, and I think in general, I'm supporting that.
So MIAC is much bigger than SCIAC. More structure to it, I guess. A full-time executive director, and a full-time assistant director who also did the PR-marketing, kind of organized the SIDs. And the SCIAC, much less. What, just a year or two ago getting Lorin (Huffman) in as a director.
SCIAC is more restrictive in some of its rules around things like recruiting -- even than Minnesota, which was more restrictive than some of the other schools out there. So it's a little different environment out there -- I think probably not seen as important to the institutions as it was to Minnesota.

And are you comfortable with that? Because some of your coaches sometimes chaff a little that the conference downplays some of the things that could make them more competitive on a national stage.
Yeah, I understand what they're saying. I'm probably less concerned about that if it's done equitably across the conference. There are some things where I wish the conference were looser, because I think we are here to give students -- including student-athletes, not just student athletes, but including them -- opportunities. So I'd be more flexible about transfer rules and so forth, but not to the extent that I'm going to knock the walls down to change that.
The SCIAC doesn't get a lot of respect nationally in many of the sports, so you'l get the AQ and nothing else. The only way we're going to change that is to be more successful out of conference, which comes to some of the rules -- if they're different, that's a challenge -- but also the cost of the travel, et cetera.
So, for example, in football, I think we are poised, if we do things right, to be a real conference contender every year in SCIAC. We also know, if you're going to go anywhere in the tournament, it's going through Linfield. Maybe Willamette, maybe PLU [Pacific Lutheran].
And the way it works, no matter where the seeds are, we'll stay West. [Because of travel considerations, the SCIAC champion is almost always going to be paired with the entrant from the Northwest Conference. The only exception might be if the SCIAC were to get an at-large entrant, as well, which has yet to occur.] And until we get a good stadium of our own, which I'm hopefully we will in a couple years, but until then, it will be up there. So you kind of know, based on where we are, that this is going to be a path. And I think that's more of a challenge than some other conferences have. And, yeah, sure, I wish that were a little less the case.
But at the same time, there are a lot of folks, including a lot of student-athletes in Southern California -- not to mention a lot of our other recruitment areas, Phoenix and so forth -- so I think it's part of, we've got that bigger challenge of persuading people that an independent, private university can be the right choice academically as well as athletically.
That may be the other difference between Minnesota and here. There, I think Division III athletics are better understood, and better understood as a high quality. And here, it's kind of D-1 or nothing. I don't think there's as wide a sense that, yeah, if you play football at CLU, you play a pretty good brand of football. It's entertaining to watch; you've got some outstanding athletes.
I don't think that's as widely shared. And, by the same token, you've got many more people here that think public universities are the way to go, because California's had a history of great public higher education. In the Midwest, they've had good ones, but not the caliber of California, at least until issues.
So I think there are general market issues we have as challenges. And as we work at that, I expect us to be successful nationally, even within whatever confines the conference.

Well, this doesn't figure to do a lot for inter-hallway relationships.

In his pregame session before Friday's game with the Clippers, Phil Jackson was asked whether he believed in curses, and turned it into a nice little shot at Clippers owner Donald T. Sterling.
Let's go to the tape:

Reporter: Do you believe in curses, or jinxes or hexes?
Jackson: No, I don't. I do think -- I'm of that generation that believes in karma. I do think there is karma in effect, ultimately, but I can't claim anybody else's karma. That's their own making. If you do a good mitzvah, maybe you can then eliminate some of those things? You think Sterling's done enough mitzvahs to eliminate some of those things?
Reporter: He's been an award-winning humanitarian, many times over.
Jackson: Yeah, but how about all those other incidents we have on file?
Reporter: This I don't know.
Jackson: OK, me neither.

Since I was already downtown for Pete Carroll's farewell, I decided to stick around and check in on the Kings for the first time in a while. What I saw was pretty representative of their recent state of affairs -- a 2-1 loss to San Jose. The Kings are 3-7 in their last 10 games; all seven losses have been by one goal, and in five of them, the Kings scored just once.
"That's a little frustrating," said Anze Kopitar, who had an assist on the lone Kings goal, by Randy Jones. "But ... if we keep playing with this intensity, like we did tonight, and getting chances, I think we're going to break through. We just need a couple bounces to feel better and get a little confidence."
So is this offensive struggle, captain Dustin Brown was asked, some kind of psychological thing?
"I think it's a scoring thing," said Brown.
"We were scoring a lot in the beginning of the year. And teams go through that as a collective. Sometimes it comes easy and you find the back of the net, really aiming. It seems as of late, it's been really tough for us to find that, even if we're getting the chances."
The chances were definitely there, particularly in the final period. After trailing 22-9 in shots at one point, the Kings ended up with 34 shots to San Jose's 36.
Looking for a positive, the Kings felt they'd played much better than in their previous loss, a 4-3 decision against St. Louis.
"I liked the effort here tonight," said coach Terry Murray. "I liked the compete. I liked the scoring opportunities tonight; there were a lot of them. We've got to get our scoring going. ... We're just coming up dry on the special-team area, and five-on-five." (Which doesn't leave a whole of other opportunities, of course.)
"I thought we played with a lot more intensity and energy, and were just competing all over the ice," said Kopitar, "winning battles.
"It's still important, but it's not good enough."
Goalie Erik Ernsberg, getting a rare start as Jonathan Quick was given a night off, agreed it was "a step forward.
"I think we played much better over all, especially in the third. Again, we came strong in the third.
"We've got to keep shooting, and eventually, we'll get the goals."
In the meantime, Murray isn't worked about the mental state of his team.
"That was a pretty good response here tonight," he said. "I liked it a lot. ... We've got to build on it and stay with it. Sometimes you go through hell, you've got to just keep going and come through the other side. ...
"There's a good attitude. The practice the other day and today, everything was good. There's lots of talking going on, on the ice and in the dressing room. I don't feel any sense of not finding a way to get it done. We're going to stay with it."

For the benefit of anyone who couldn't catch it live on TV or radio, here are a few notable quotes from Pete Carroll's farewell press conference at USC on Monday:

On USC's level of success during his last eight years:
"You all remember the wins. I can't forget the losses. I can't get rid of them, they stand so strong in my mind. ..
"Those were just gorgeous, gorgeous times in college football and here at USC. ...
When Mark (Sanchez) takes over, we go 12-1 with one of the great defenses we've ever seen in college football ... and we're disappointed, all off-season. What a wonderful world to be in. ... To have the expectations so high, and the standard so high that one loss squeaked out during the year just kills you.
"I never wanted to ever let on to anybody that we backed off those expectations, or they were too high for us, or too much. It was never like that. We were lucky to have a world surrounding us that the standards were so high, and just expected us to win every game forever."

On Sanchez' joking comment after the Jets' playoff game that he was opposed to Carroll jumping to the NFL, which echoed Carroll's comments when Sanchez left USC early:
"I want Mark to know I did graduate. At least my family's happy about that part of it. But you can see why we needed him so much and wanted him so much, just to see what he's done."

On how he felt about his time at USC:
"Unforgettable, and in the deepest of my hearts, the most cherished times of my life. I do not expect to be ever be able to top what we did in terms of these years together. That's not in my mind at all. I think we've lived just a beautiful time together. ...
"We'll be connected forever. That's what the (team) meeting was about -- we'll be connected, and I can't wait to get them in a couple years."

On what he's done about the current crop of recruits:
"Continue to send the message about this university. The guys I've spoken to (are) amazingly strong in their love for this university. And the class -- I can't mention their names, or maybe I can --" this drew a big laugh, and USC spokesman Tim Tessalone emphatically shook his head, because NCAA rules prohibit schools from naming unsigned recruits -- "The compliance office just went into a flurry up there. ...
"(It's) a little bit of a shock period here, for all of us, but to extend the message of this unbelievable university, this extraordinary stage to play on. USC wasn't just really hot when we've been here. It's been a great school and a great program forever. So this is the next step in continuing the greatness of the SC program."

His closing remark before taking questions:
"I hope the message will go out loud and strong how grateful I am for all these years we had here, and I'll forever love this time."

Injured Texas tight end Blaine Irby, the former St. Bonaventure standout, was so engaging in our conversation earlier this week that I wanted to pass along some of his comments that didn't fit into the column in the Jan. 7 paper.
In case you missed that story, Irby -- who was supposed to start this year at tight end -- has been sidelined since the third game of the 2008 season, when he dislocated his right knee in a game against Rice. His rehab is complete, but damage to the peroneal nerve -- which provides movement and sensation to the lower leg -- continues to keep his right foot from functioning properly, so he's been working as a player-coach, helping instruct the Longhorns' young tight ends.
Anyway, here are some of his thoughts:

On the play when he was injured, which is on YouTube if you really must see it:
I watched it one time. I wasn't able to watch it. I really wanted to watch it, and I'd always watch it, but right when the play would start, I'd look away.
Finally when I started walking, which was about maybe three months after my injury, finally I had the nerve to watch it.
And the thing that made me mad is I dropped the ball on that play. In the middle of me watching it, I remember I'm like, 'All right, how did I drop the ball?' And then the actual injury happened, and it kind of caught me.

On the support he's received since the injury:
Texas has been so great, Coach Brown and his staff. They've been so great to me since I've been hurt. And all my players and all my friends on the team have been behind me, and my family. ... Right after my injury, I think I was just a little mama's boy. My mom was down there for about two weeks taking care of me. ...
It's amazing to see how many people are behind you during times like this. I remember getting calls from coaches -- Coach Jon Mack, Coach Therrien, Coach Pep and all of them, and all of the players at St. Bonaventure. They'd call me up every day, 'Hey, Boog, how's the knee?' It's awesome hearing from people. Even parents are sending me cards, get-well cards. That helped me a lot get through the whole process of being injured. ...

On how he ended up at Texas:
People ask me that all the time, and I tell them I don't really know. When I saw them play in the national championship (at the Rose Bowl in 2005), I was real interested in them. I sent my tape out there, and they liked it right away, and they offered me.
I honestly had no idea. I knew that they were in Austin, and that was about all I knew. So I went out to Austin, and Austin's a great city. Everyone's been so nice. I've made so many good friendships over there, and so many good relationships.
I figured I kind of wanted to get out on my own, and kind of start a new path. It's been great so far. I have no regrets at all.
(Texas tight ends coach Bruce Chambers on recruiting Irby: "Bobby Kennedy is the coach on our staff that recruits California and Arizona. So he brought this tape to me, and it showed Blaine playing everything but tight end. He was playing fullback, he was playing linebacker, and the thing that I saw on tape that really jumped off the tape at me is that here's a kid that really had good size, was very physical, and could run. And then when I had an opportunity to look at the transcript, he was just lights out academically, and then when I had a chance to meet him, it was just a perfect fit, I felt, for us both athletically, academically, socially, all the way around.")

On the attention you get in Texas as a Longhorn player:
Honestly, I had no idea. It's crazy, because Texas football is the biggest and baddest in Texas. I remember when I got out there on my recruiting visit, my dad and I were in a restaurant, and somebody came up to me and started talking, and they knew everything about Texas football. It seems like everybody, even moms, knows more about Texas football than I do, and they bring up past players I relate to.
It's hilarious, but I love it at the same time, because so many people are around Texas football. The city of Austin with UT with all the sports. It's great just because there's so much support in the state of Texas. I remember we went to El Paso, and I met a couple of people that were big Texas fans. And going back to Arizona -- because I used to live in Arizona before I came to California -- it just seems like everywhere you go, there's at least one Texas fan there, and they know everything about you. They're big time fans. They'll give you the horn, or say Hook 'Em, and you give 'em the horns back.
It's been real fun. When I came there, I wasn't expecting that at all.

Of course, there can be a downside to that kind of scrutiny:
Oh, yeah. It's the old cliché quote: The eyes of Texas are upon you.
I mean, honestly, we've had a couple instances, with college football, with media and the technology, you've got to watch what you're doing. If you're with a group of people, or even if you're just with your friends, people can have a camera on their phone, and that can just go on YouTube right away, or be on Twitter.
So you've just got to be careful of everything you do. And you've just got to be smart.

On what he's learned from his experience:
It was a really hard process, but it's made me stronger as a person, and I feel like when I come back and play, I'm going to be stronger physically -- because I feel like my knee is stronger than it was -- but also mentally. I feel like I'm looking at the game from a different perspective right now, as a player-coach. I'm excited, but I've just got to be patient, and that's the hardest part. ...
I have faith that I'm going to come back. If I don't come back, I'll say, I'm going to be disappointed, but at the same time, it's not going to be the end. I've learned that football isn't everything.
This process has made me stronger as a person just because of the little things. I used to take a lot of things for granted, and now I appreciate the little things. ...
I've got faith. God's got a plan, and I'm just trying to take it one day at a time, you know. It's frustrating, but at the same time I'm enjoying a lot of different things. I'm actually studying to become a physical therapist now, or I'm going to start to. It's really interesting.
I'm excited to see what my knee can do, and when I come back, what kind of player I'm going to be.