As the raucous Pete Carroll bandwagon careens noisily toward history this week, it’s important to remember how it looked at the start.
The train was a rick-shaw, and those 2 million people were two. Daryl Gross pulling and Mike Garrett hanging on for dear life. Everyone wanted Mike Bellotti, or Mike Riley, or Dennis Erickson.
Few knew Carroll, other than he had a daughter at USC, and he had been fired from two NFL head coaching jobs. In other words, another rich Trojan parent with too much time on his hands.
Carroll was hired Dec. 15, 2000. The next day’s letters called for his firing.
In 13 steaming months (and 19 wins in 20 games), the words have evaporated into cheers. Today, he’s the best coach in the country.
Thursday is Carroll’s chance to tell everyone who didn’t believe in him to stick it. Not that he would, of course.
“I know people didn’t want me, but it wasn’t their fault. They didn’t know me any better.”
What the finicky Trojan Nation didn’t know then, it knows now. The Rose Bowl is Carroll’s chance to make sure it never forgets.
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