USC Coach Clay Helton Sleeps in His Office Three Nights a Week

He doesn’t even live that far away.

Pete Thamel has a story at Yahoo about why the unheralded Clay Helton is working out better as USC head coach than wunderkinds Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian did. It’s a nice little profile a coach and a program on its way back to the top. But enough about that, here’s the passage that stuck out to me the most:

Dinners at Tao? Spotted by TMZ at The Nice Guy? Not Clay Helton, the country’s lowest-profile high-profile coach. The Heltons live nearly 30 miles away from campus in Rancho Palos Verdes, as opposed to bustling Manhattan Beach where many of his coaching colleagues reside, because “it’s quieter.” He sleeps in the office every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and returns home on Thursday for “Date Night” with his wife, Angela. 

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Because football coaches are certifiably insane, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Helton spends as much time as humanly possible in his office. But does he really have to sleep there? 

Google tells me Manhattan Beach is about a 40-minute drive from USC in rush hour. Rancho Palos Verdes is a little more than 10 miles farther but it only takes 10 minutes longer to get there. Even if Helton is burning the midnight oil and doesn’t want to go all the way home, aren’t there better places to sleep than your office? 

Either way, you can’t really blame Helton for not wanting to deal with Southern California traffic. We can’t all hire a driver to ferry us around in a tricked out SUV like Philip Rivers.