If It's Friday, It's Time For A USC Notes Column

Practice information scarce during lockdown

With the media not allowed on the USC campus, let alone Howard Jones Field, the reports of the first week of training are one-sided. 

Or should I say even more one-sided than usual?

Everything is great with reporters forced to take the word of Clay Helton and Graham Harrell.

Harrell feels good about the offensive line.

"If we're good upfront, we've got a chance to win a whole lot of football games," he said this week.

Helton even praised the open-field tackling Thursday.

Poor tackling is being blamed as a key reason for the high scores in college football games, but Helton thinks USC -- which doesn't play until Nov. 7 -- is doing fine.

And how do you check that when practices and the campus is closed?

You really can't. But I would note it matters less than ever when you don't play Alabama or Notre Dame.

• I'm glad the Pac-12 is allowing the players' families to attend games. I just shudder at the thought of USC allowing some sycophants to sneak in at the Coliseum now that player families are allowed.

As of today, L.A. County will not allow anyone at games.

• The Pac-12 Conference will have a 20-game league schedule for men and 22-game schedule for women this season.

• When do we get an update on the status of the NCAA investigation into the USC men's basketball program?

• And now for some history: 

I've been wanting to write about linebacker Mike Henry for awhile.

He was Tarzan to me before I even knew he played at USC in the late 1950's.

But a few years ago, I spoke to USC All-American wide receiver Hal Bedsole, who told me how scared Trojan players were to face Henry, who came back from the NFL to play in a spring game in 1961 at the Coliseum.

Bedsole played quarterback for one play and got crunched by former USC stars Marlin McKeever and Henry.

“About two weeks later, I was hunched over like an old man,” Bedsole said. “I went to see a doctor and they did an X-ray. There were three holes in my stomach and they did surgery that night. It was a pretty good lick."

Because of all the injuries in the game, John McKay never again let ex-USC players come back and face the current team.

A former teammate told me about the time Henry and some USC teammates visited a Playboy Club in Hollywood.

"The bunnies were only interested in talking to Mike," the teammate said. "And this was before he even got famous."

After reading last week about the troubled USC linebackers from 1989, here's a picture of two of them (Delmar Chesley, Scott Ross) trying to recover a fumble vs. Oklahoma in 1989.

I've never heard of Don's but in 1956 you could get four hamburgers for 99 cents.

• The legendary USC ticket manager John Morley, who held the position for 29 years during the 1940's-1970's, used to put out a weekly press release on tickets and projected attendances for home-and-road games.

Now you're lucky to get any news on tickets aside from when a game is sold out.