Song Girl Forum

There is a saying in PR that goes "All publicity is good publicity." After this past year, do you think Lori Nelson agrees with that?

On this week's episode of the CBS show How I Met Your Mother, Barney (played by Neil Patrick Harris) explained a phenomenon known as the "Cheerleader Effect." Basically, it is the idea that while things may look good as a group from a fair distance away (like, say, a group of USC Song Girls), when you look closer at each one individually you realize they are not nearly as attractive as you expected them to be. Their perceived group beauty is exceedingly higher than any of their individual looks, especially when you look at them from a distance in their white uniforms rather than up close. What do you think about this phenomenon in regards to the USC Song Girls?

If we do end up with the first attractive Song Girl squad since the 1990s in January, will there be a restructuring of the price to rent a Song Girl? Will we go from the measly $150 to a somewhat acceptable price that will take into account the higher quality of Song Girl?

Just as the Song Girl scandals have become a weekly event, another week also means another mention in Sports Illustrated of your pictures with cheerleaders of other schools. This time, Cal. The national anxiously awaits each installment. Unfortunately, the Stanford Dollies are next.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/sioncampus/11/11/tim-tebow-is-college-footballs-tom-brady/index.html

Could you interview Ben Malcomson about his "report" on the USC Song Girl tryouts and ask him, "Do you have any sense of shame?"

Natalie Nelson, the daughter of the USC Song Girls coach, earned global fame when a picture showed her cheering for Texas in the 2006 BCS Championship game. Now another picture has shown up of her actually wearing a Texas uniform!

http://www.bustedcoverage.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/n3402087_32172030_7804.jpg

Does she have some kind of identity crises going on and is this a trend with her?

Do you secretly know who the other athletic department staffer on the Song Girl selection committee is but you are not revealing the person's identity in order to protect the not-so-innocent?

In the past when there were tryouts for the song girls, the new squad was announced shortly after the final interviews, yet this year there is a three week wait? The last round of tryouts were on October 22 but the new squad will be announced next week, in the middle of November? Is this due to the immense scrutiny the selection committee has faced this decade and they are making sure to cover all remaining issues alumni may have regarding the song girls before making their final selections public? What is the reason for the hesitation and delay this year? Have the stakes changed?

Was Sarah Carmona specifically told by the advisors of the Song Girl squad that she could attend the reunion or did she take part in the events simply by slipping through the cracks and no one noticed? If she was told she could attend by the advisors of the squad, were there any conditions she had to meet in order to participate?

Has the athletic department taken any new and recent actions against you to pressure you into curbing reader frustration regarding Song Girlgate? Has the athletic department tried to limit your overall access to events and staff out of spite and retribution? Are they aware that regardless of this blog's existence, the anger of the people cannot be destroyed and will be heard in one form or another? Are they still in denial that this anger towards the exposed corruption and cronyism of the Song Girls is real and palpable, not a petty gripe made up by the people of this blog?

Everyone has an image of cheerleaders being wholesome and All-American and in an ideal world, that is what they will be. But as we've seen with the USC Song Girls of the 2000s, they have been quite sleazy without any notion of morals or values. So could it just be the girls who have tried out for the squad this decade have not had any values and this is all we have had to work with. Could it be the girls who ended up as Song Girls were not interested in being wholesome and simply wanted to be Song Girls for personal gain, whatever that gain may have been?

When the Song Girls coach's daughter was on the squad in 2005 and 2006, the Song Girls website had, literally, hundreds of pictures posted each season. But if you click on the 2007 season, there is a grand total of FIVE pictures! Five pictures for the entire year, encompassing basketball, football and all their other activities. The 2008 squad has about 20 pictures. So we went from hundreds of pictures a year, which were updated immediately following each event, to between 5-20 pictures when the coach's daughter was gone? Coincidence?

"If we do end up with the first attractive Song Girl squad since the 1990s in January, will there be a restructuring of the price to rent a Song Girl? Will we go from the measly $150 to a somewhat acceptable price that will take into account the higher quality of Song Girl?"

Depends on what they are asked to do.

Considering how both the advisor and coach of the song girls are now quite clearly claiming they have nothing to do with the selection committee (yeah, right...) and barely have anything to do with the song girls as it is, then why are they even still involved with the song girls? They claim they are peripheral players at best so why not set step aside and let some other people who actually want to do something positive take over the job?

This is the way I understand the current situation (and you are welcome to correct me if I am incorrect):

A) The USC Song Girls have no affiliation with the athletic department and are completely under the jurisdiction of the Intramural and Recreational Sports department.
B) The Trojan Dance Force are wholly under the jurisdiction of the athletic department.

So if this is accurate, why are there employees of the athletic department involved in the selection process of the Song Girls and getting involved in their propaganda campaign? Why are the Dance Force not afforded the same assistance and opportunities and appear to be neglected by the very department which actually has jurisdiction over them, while an entity (the Song Girls) which is not under their jurisdiction is getting the treatment which should be received by the Dance Force?

Do the USC administration actually know about the blatant nepotism practiced by the USC Song Girls coach? This may sound like a rather simple question but what is the point of complaining amongst ourselves about this woman's acts of nepotism if none of her superiors are even aware of her actions? Does it not seem a rather futile issue unless her superiors are informed?

I might of come onto your blog a little late. You and the readers mention Tricia Pillisbury a lot, but I don't know who she is. Who is she? And do you have a picture of her?