 "Photo: Rachel Elias | Daily Trojan")
It was an epic journey of epic length, a battle of endurance or, well, another day at work for USC coach Pete Carroll.
It was a 15-hour work day - and that's shorter than normal - packed with about seven hours of interacting with game film, three hours of interacting with media and three hours of interacting with his players.
He hasn't taken a day off from football since the early summer, and the hours pile up just like the wins - 27 of them in his team's last 30 games.
"You can't do it if you don't like it," Carroll said. "And I love coaching this team."
Follow Carroll throughout his day, starting just after sunrise on a clear, crisp morning and ending well into the night, when campus was as calm as Carroll is energized.
"It's not going to be as exciting as you think," the fourth-year coach said when the day started.
That's what he thinks.
7:29 a.m.
His face about a foot from a 25-inch television, Carroll has been studying the third-down offense of Stanford, this weekend's opponent, since he arrived at his second-floor Heritage Hall office a little before 7 a.m. this morning. The internet-fed radio - KFOG, a "world classic rock" station from his home of San Francisco - blares over one of two laptops sitting on his desk.
"I'm looking at the splits of the wide receivers," he says while still keeping his eyes fixed on the TV. "They're not doing it the right way."
He's been watching the same play for the last 30 seconds, rewinding the tape and re-watching the play three or four times.
He receives a call on his cell phone from a coaching friend who still works in the NFL. While the radio is still playing and his eyes are still glued to the game tape, Carroll tells his friend (whom Carroll requested to remain anonymous) to take a look at an upcoming NFL opponent's third downs.
Carroll leaves the room and says, "You better follow me or you're going to miss stuff."
He quickly returns and continues to watch game film of Stanford against Brigham Young and San Jose State this season, along with the USC-Stanford game from last season. The method USC coaches use to watch film, called Avid, is a completely computerized system that allows coaches to sort plays by down, distance and game, among other categories. Avid lets coaches rewind, fast forward and choose which play very easily, much like a DVD.
7:53 a.m.
Carroll's administrative assistant, Christie Valine, arrives for work, and shortly after, operations assistant Greg Bukowski comes into Carroll's office. Carroll gives him some cash for breakfast; "I can hear the stomachs grumbling," the coach says.
Leaning back in his chair with his feet up on the television stand, Carroll keeps watching game film while humming to Eric Clapton's "It's in the way that you use it," which is playing over the radio.
8:01 a.m.
"Alright, moving on," Carroll says while he walks out of his office. He goes to a conference room down the hall to meet with defensive assistants Ken Norton, Jr., Greg Burns, Rocky Seto and Ed Orgeron.
In a windowless, brick-walled room with nothing more than a clock, a USC football poster and a 2003 NCAA rushing defense award plaque on the walls, the coaches begin to scrutinize the Stanford game film together, and Carroll writes notes on the dry-erase board on the wall. They notice the Cardinal receivers run similar routes on third down and between three and seven yards to go.
"It's repeated, repeated, repeated," Carroll says.
They continue discussing defensive strategy as if they're just talking sports for fun rather than doing work, and they notice many tendencies for Stanford's offensive formations.
"It can't be that easy," Carroll says.
Bukowski walks into the conference room with breakfast burritos, much to the delight of the coaches.
"Big play, Greg," Carroll says. "Play of the day."
Trading coaching jargon, the coaches conclude the Stanford offense might not be too difficult of a puzzle to figure out.
"It's too easy, it's too predictable," Carroll says.
Burns concurs: "You can tell they have some real tendencies."
Carroll chuckles in agreement.
The defensive coaches continue studying the Stanford offense's tendencies, and Carroll tells the coaches, "Dead plays have got to be dead."
"I haven't heard that all year," Orgeron responds sarcastically, jotting the phrase down on his paper while mumbling it to himself.
There are saints, zombies, bluffs, pirates and raiders in USC's play calling, which the coaches throw around like they are common words, yet, for these guys, they are. Carroll draws some defensive formations on the dry-erase board, but he keeps drawing over the same formation so that what was once clear has now become a mess of lines and circles that only the coaches comprehend.
"We can't be stupid about this because with their bye they'll certainly change some stuff," says Carroll, who's wearing a white USC polo shirt, khaki pants, white Nike shoes and eyeglasses that immigrate frequently between his eyes and the top of his head.
Carroll leaves the conference room to ask his Valine about game tickets for his wife, but quickly returns to the meeting room, where Orgeron has carried in a 24-pack of Diet Coke.
"I didn't know we were supposed to drink caffeine before noon," Norton jokes.
The coaches continue watching tape of Stanford's previous games, this time focusing on the Cardinal's offensive line. On one occasion, Carroll singles out one lineman, saying, "Oooh, big country." The lineman doesn't block anyone and awkwardly spins around looking for a defensive player to get in the way of.
With Carroll humming a song and leaning back in his chair, Burns discovers he can tell what route a receiver is going to run based on where the running back lines up.
"The bottom line is that the back never releases," Burns says.
9:08 a.m.
Every coach - both offense and defense - meet in another conference room, where Carroll sits at the head of the large table, and they discuss their plans for today's practice.
9:32 a.m.
It's back to the defensive conference room, where the coaches delve into Stanford's unusual tight end formations and how USC's linebackers will cover them. Carroll has a revelation on coverage and frantically draws it on the dry-erase board.
"Hold on, coach," Orgeron says, suggesting it might be more difficult to figure out than what Carroll just did. Orgeron, the defensive line coach, slams his pen down in frustration because the double tight end stack formation is tough to cover.
"Two weeks, I guarantee we'll see some new stuff," Orgeron says regarding Stanford not playing for 14 days.
"But I'll bet we'll still see stuff in their realm, though," Carroll, the self-proclaimed eternal optimist, fires back. He continues to diagram plays, grimacing to show the struggle of covering the two tight end formation.
10:23 a.m.
Lane Kiffin, the wide receivers coach, enters the conference room to tell Carroll a recruit for next season is on the phone. Carroll leaves and goes to his office, where he talks to the high school player about his last game. Before returning to the defensive room, he chats with his son, Brennan Carroll, who is the tight ends coach.
He's back in the conference room, kneeling on a swiveling chair that oscillates back and forth while he talks about creatively named plays.
The coaches come to a point where they have to invent a new formation to cover the Stanford offense, and they brainstorm a name for it.
Carroll first decides to call it "wiz," but changes his mind and names the play "wax."
"Wax on, wax off," Norton says to the staff while making the Karate Kid hand motion, inciting a few laughs from the coaches.
10:38 a.m.
Tuesday is media day for Carroll, and Assistant Sports Information Director Paul Goldberg, who is handling the media requests for Carroll today, enters the room and tells Carroll he has to be on a Pacific-10 conference call with national media.
"Just a second," Carroll says, idyllically ignoring the immediate nature of the request.
Four minutes later, he is in his office - with music blaring, of course - on the phone, listening to the tail end of the UCLA segment of the conference call. He shrugs and rolls his eyes.
During his 10-minute interview, Carroll relates with each reporter as if they have been life-long friends, saying, "What's up?" and "How's it going?" to every interviewer. He also answers every question like it's the first time he's heard that question, even though he's already talked about it many times before and he will hear the same question five or six more times today.
Immediately after the Pac-10 conference call ends, he does a phone interview with a writer from Sports Illustrated about the importance of turnover margins.
10:59 a.m.
Carroll is back with the defensive coaches in the conference room, scripting plays for every formation Stanford runs.
Linebacker Ryan Powdrell stops by, and Carroll asks, "What's new on campus?"
"Same stuff, different day," Powdrell replies before leaving after a short stay.
11:15 a.m.
After a detour to the restroom, Carroll returns to his office for radio interviews over the phone. Songs from George Thorogood and Fleetwood Mac play over the speakers - "mood music," Carroll says - during the interviews.
11:38 a.m.
Carroll heads outside Heritage Hall where he does a seven-minute interview with Lindsay Soto for Fox Sports West's "Trojan Football Magazine." Right before the interview starts, Emily Adams of the USC women's volleyball team walks by and tells the TV crew, "Make sure you give this guy a hard time."
Carroll replies with a huge smile: "Big E!"
11:45 a.m.
A quick interview with Los Angeles Times USC beat writer Gary Klein and signing an autograph for a zealous fan are the only speed bumps for Carroll as he is always moving while heading back to his office. He meets with offensive coordinator Norm Chow and Kiffin in Chow's office, which is adjacent to Carroll's, and there they discuss the routes the receivers should run on a certain play.
With one leg over the chair's arm and the rest of his body draped over the chair, Carroll says to Kiffin, "Don't make a big deal about this play."
Kiffin alters the route a little - from a straight corner route to a slanted corner - and Carroll responds, saying, "Who are we trying to fool here?"
Carroll looks over at Chow, who is engrossed in the playbook and hasn't said a word in 60 seconds, and says, "You OK over there?"
Slouched deep into the chair like a high school kid in history class, he signs a football administrative assistant Irene Puentes brings in, while hardly looking at it. He has more important things to look at right now.
Carroll brings up the Indianapolis Colts-Tennessee Titans game from the previous Sunday, telling Chow and Kiffin that Colts' quarterback Peyton Manning "beat them like a drum" with this particular play. "Why can't we beat Stanford (with this play)?" he says.
12:05 p.m.
He has to return to his office for a conference call with media at Stanford. Neil Young's "Old Man" and a Talking Heads song play loudly in the background.
Carroll talks on the phone to another recruit, and then colorfully discusses last weekend's Manning play with quarterbacks coach Carl Smith in Smith's office.
12:19 p.m.
With about 25 reporters gathered in the Heritage Hall lounge, the weekly press conference for local media begins with Carroll giving an opening statement before answering questions from reporters.
12:41 p.m.
Carroll makes an appearance on former USC football player Petros Papadakis' radio show on 1540 AM with a crowd of about 50 fans gathered in the lobby of Heritage Hall. Papadakis, the jokester he is, urges Carroll to run for mayor of Los Angeles after Carroll responds to some questions about the Stanford-USC game modestly and non-confrontationally.
During a farcical segment in which Papadakis tells of the history of Admiral Akbar from Star Wars, Carroll offers to do the Chewbacca noise, but bows out before making the sound.
12:53 p.m.
Television cameras abound as Carroll is about to begin a set of interviews for the local CBS and NBC stations, as well as Annenberg TV News. But before he gets started, Carroll chats with Willie McGinest, a former USC linebacker from the early '90s and a current member of the New England Patriots. McGinest, who is visiting his alma mater since the Patriots have a bye, played under Carroll when Carroll was the head coach of New England from 1997 through 1999.
After the television interviews end, Carroll talks to and has a few laughs with ABC sideline reporter Suzy Shuster off-camera. Minutes later, he is sitting on the seat back with his feet on the bench of a concrete chair in front of Heritage Hall, talking on the phone with a radio show. He then heads back upstairs to his office when it is completed.
"The media blitz is over," he says gleefully with a sense of relief.
1:22 p.m.
It's back to the real work for Carroll, as he returns to the defensive conference room, where it appears the defensive coaches have been working since Carroll left nearly an hour-and-a-half ago.
"What do we got, fellas?" Carroll asks while opening up a bottle of Caffeine-free Diet Pepsi. He doesn't drink caffeine - "it's bad for you," Carroll says matter-of-factly.
The enormous wooden table is ruffled with papers from the playbooks, binders, bottles of Pepsi and water, tapes of games and about 100 dry-erase markers. Carroll plops himself down in a reclining chair, hunkering down for another play dissection. He leans back with his feet hinging on the the marker well of the dry-erase board while chattering constantly, making comments on the defensive plays the coaches have written on the board.
He comes across one of the plays written on the board, and wonders, "Flat curl? Where did that come from?"
"Somebody wrote that up there," Seto says as he points to Carroll's handwriting. Everyone laughs.
1:43 p.m.
Linebacker Matt Grootegoed enters the room and Carroll starts talking about a game between Mater Dei (Grootegoed's alma mater) and Long Beach Poly he watched on Fox Sports last night. Then the two of them reminisce about the game, bringing back memories for Grootegoed, who played running back and safety in that game.
1:54 p.m.
Carroll has pit stops in his office and the hallway where he talks with running back LenDale White before settling down in Chow's office for a few minutes. The two coaches trade suggestions for an offensive pass play that they think could burn Stanford.
"(Quarterback Matt Leinart is) going to hold the ball for six seconds," Carroll says to Chow with the excitement of discovering a play that will be so successful. "This is (Stanford's) worst nightmare."
2:02 p.m.
He returns to his office, where he writes the script for today's practice. Carroll is humming to "Something to talk about" by Bonnie Raitt.
After nearly 30 minutes in his office - the longest stretch all day he is alone - it's time for team meetings.
"We're rolling," he says.
2:30 p.m.
The entire football team meets in the auditorium of Heritage, where large pictures of Trojan grandeur adorn the walls.
The respect the players have for Carroll is palpable when the commotion and conversations of 100-plus players immediately subdue right after Carroll steps to the front of the room.
"It's competition Tuesday, boys," Carroll tells the team while bouncing back and forth in the front of the auditorium. His excitement for today's practice - just one of the 100 or so the team has during the season - can be felt. The assistant coaches yelp, holler and howl in agreement with Carroll's part pep talk, part sermon that promotes USC's play and amplifies Stanford's game.
"It's Pac-10 time," he declares to the team with animated enthusiasm.
2:36 p.m.
The defense and offense split up for meetings, with the defense going into the basement of Heritage Hall and the offense staying in the auditorium.
3:09 p.m.
The meetings end and Carroll returns to his second-floor office to make some phone calls and script the day's practice. On the way into the office, he catches a glimpse of "Pardon the Interruption" on ESPN, which is showing a segment on Deion Sanders, and Carroll wonders aloud how Sanders will do in his comeback attempt to the NFL.
3:42 p.m.
Carroll departs his office, throwing on a gray USC hooded sweatshirt and some sunglasses, and begins the 150-yard trek to Howard Jones Field, where the team practices daily. Before entering the field, he rubs the Marv Goux plaque, a sign on the wall next to the door to the practice field honoring the late great USC coach.
He walks onto the field and talks with running back Hershel Dennis before the team gathers on the south field to stretch. Carroll strolls among the stretching lines while the special teams work on punting and kickoffs.
The team breaks off into position drills, and Carroll joins the linebackers, who are doing an exercise that works on their pass coverage. Carroll plays the quarterback during the drill and throws quite a few quality passes to the scout team receivers.
During practice, Carroll watches from afar and up close and he works with the offense and the defense. He's the one with the whistle; he wields all the power during the scripted plays.
Former USC receiver Mike Williams stops by practice for a couple of minutes, and Carroll takes a few moments to talk with him on the sideline. Williams then leaves and Carroll goes back to running the show.
5:48 p.m.
Practice ends, and print media members huddle around Carroll for the routine after-practice interview. Then Carroll has to do interviews with two television stations. He throws some Bubbilicious gum into his mouth and leaves the practice field.
6:13 p.m.
Carroll heads over to the Galen Center, the athletes' cafeteria, where he puts some dinner into a Styrofoam to-go container. Within minutes, he's back in the defensive conference room watching tape from today's practice with the other coaches while nibbling on his dinner of chicken and steak. It's the first food he has eaten since breakfast this morning.
7:06 p.m.
Goldberg nabs Carroll from the conference room for the "USC Insider" radio show with Papadakis and Pete Arbogast, which is being recorded in the lobby of Heritage Hall.
7:17 p.m.
The radio interview concludes, meaning Carroll has done his last interview of the day. He revisits the defensive conference room, where he puts the hood of his sweatshirt over his head, reclines back in the chair and props his feet up on the table. He breaks out singing '50s vocalist Chuck Berry's "Too much monkey business." Even 13 hours into his workday, Carroll is still very alive and very upbeat.
"It's a beautiful thing, boys," he says while looking at a tape of the defensive line during today's practice.
Orgeron, with contributions from Carroll, diagrams a new defensive formation, and he receives his boss' praise. "Good job, Ed," Carroll says.
"That's after 8, too," Orgeron responds in his thick Louisiana accent, in regards to it being late in the night.
8:27 p.m.
The coaches discuss the next morning's breakfast - "how about omelets?" Carroll asks - before Carroll sends his assistants home for the night, even though they won't leave for another hour or so.
"I try to send them home by 8," Carroll says. "But I keep a different schedule."
8:36 p.m.
The football office has become increasingly quieter during the last few minutes, and Carroll enters the offensive conference room, where he watches the offense in today's practice.
After spending most of his day working on the defensive side, he shows he does know his stuff about the offense while looking at the tapes of today's practice. Carroll precisely breaks down a play, showing how the tight end clears the linebacker out so the motioning receiver has a clear flat. Carroll eyes Leinart's throwing during today's practice, and he is quite impressed.
"That's Matt throwing the way Matt throws," Carroll explains after a perfectly thrown ball by Leinart to a receiver running a corner route.
8:55 p.m.
During the next 35 minutes, Carroll bounds between the office of Tim Davis, the offensive line coach, Chow's office and the offensive conference room. In Davis' office, Carroll joins Davis, Kiffin and Smith, who are watching film of the Broncos during the late '90s when running back Terrell Davis ran wild.
But these coaches are focusing on the center, who dominates the defense's nose tackle. Carroll discusses offensive line technique with Davis, showing the jerky motions he wants and adding sound effects to match those movements.
9:33 p.m.
Carroll heads back to his office where he autographs some photos with the radio still playing. He picks up a black wooden bat emblazoned with "Trojan Baseball" and takes a left-handed swing.
A lefty?
"No, both sides," Carroll replies.
9:45 p.m.
Kiffin and Carroll watch film of the Stanford-Brigham Young game in the offensive conference room, pulling apart the Stanford defense with such painfully close detail. Carroll throws his pen at the large projector screen in disgust of a play Stanford just used in the game.
10:08 p.m.
Carroll says goodbye to Kiffin and heads back to his office, where he throws some things into his briefcase and locks his office door. His day in the office is done.
10:09 p.m.
He gets into his black Mercedes to go home. The day ends more than 15 hours after it started.
"You either compete or you don't," Carroll says. "It's all about competition. If you want to be good, there's no other way to do it."
