Lots and lots of questions to answer today and many of them were quite good.
Q: Last year at this point USC was focused on both the 2008 and 2009 football recruiting classes, this year it seems it is more focused on the 2009 players and not the 2010. Besides Dillon Baxter are there no commitments for the 2010 class, and people like you have said the 2010 class is better than 2009 in players. So why has USC started slowly with the 2010 football class and who are the main targets?
A: It’s still early for 2010 and I think USC is being selective offering scholarships. Don’t forget last year UCLA got a lot of early commitments and USC wanted to respond. One way was offering guys from the following year’s class, like Morrill Presley of Carson.
Q: Could the dissatisfaction that USC alumni have over the Song Girls be due to a backlash on the political correctness that has prevailed over the squad during this decade? It seems like great lengths have been taken by the selection committee to shift the focus of the Song Girls from the image of the beautiful Southern California Barbie doll types of the 1970s-1990s to an all-inclusive “unity” approach that has to do with a politically correct/Kumbaya image, where girls are no longer selected based on their physical beauty but rather what they represent. The United States goes through shifts, back and forth, in political ideology every few years and this could just be a backlash on what people perceive to be political correctness taking over an institution that should be free of such restraints. As a result, could it be that the alumni have had enough and want to go back to the old model that was not broken and was actually considered to be the role model for all other universities?
A: I don’t believe beauty only applies to the Barbie Doll image. There are plenty of attractive girls who have been song girls who did not fit the stereotype. I think that’s a strength of the squad, personally.
Q: Are tryouts for the Song Girls well publicized throughout campus other than on the Song Girls’ website and a lone flier at the Lyon Center? Could it just be that most of the pretty girls on campus simply do not know about the tryouts so the available pool of talent that audition is so small, we have been left with a lower quality of Song Girls this decade?
A: I’m sure the girls with any interest in being a song girl know exactly where to go for tryouts. Even at freshmen orientation, students are told they can tryout if they are interested and there is a band staff member with information on joining the band, etc.
Q: Other schools in the Pac-10 are often referred to as “conference foes,” but how could we ever consider Oregon to be a foe when they have such beautiful cheerleaders? It is impossible to ever have negative feelings towards such beautiful and perfect cheerleaders who provide all of us with such joy, always putting smiles on our faces? Doesn’t that mean Oregon are our friends? Henceforth should we not refer to Oregon as our “conference friends”?
A: At the very least, you can look forward to Oregon’s visit to the Coliseum, no matter how good the Ducks are.
Q: How much did Henry Bibby’s negative influence and aura contribute to the decline of the Song Girls in the 2000s?
A: I never underestimate the power of his negative influence, so I’ll buy into this theory.