USC laughs off brush with paparazzi

USC ate 721 pounds of prime rib the other night, but does that make the Trojans meatheads?

A paparazzo decided to ask some pretty random questions outside the Lawry's Beef Bowl and produced a video for TMZ, known for its hit-and-run journalism. The result was a less-than-flattering portrayal of the Trojans.

In the video, defensive tackle Fili Moala was asked his thoughts on Joe Biden and appeared confused about the identity of the vice president-elect. It turns out Moala never heard the question. "It was so loud, the band was playing in the background," he laughed a couple of days later. The interviewer was speaking "real soft, kinda under his voice."

Trojan Coach Pete Carroll wasn't too pleased and told his players that he felt he had let them down by not preparing them for this sort of thing, but nobody I talked to was bothered by the incident. "Maybe some of these guys learned a lesson that they need to be more educated and understand what's going on outside of their football world," said offensive lineman Jeff Byers.

Since his position tends to get the biggest "meathead" rep, I asked Byers what he thought about the government's economic bailout efforts.

"It's completely ridiculous," he explained. "If they were practicing good business practices, they shouldn't need government money. Why would you ever want to give money to uncompetitive businesses, or somebody who made poor decisions? If you go to Vegas and put $100 million on black and it comes up red, you don't get $100 million."

I guess TMZ didn't look too hard for serious answers.

"It's a lot of greed too," Byers continued. "These people in charge of these companies, they aren't taking a hit. It's the guys who own the stock, or the people trying to make money on loans that are defaulting. These CEOs are spending money lavishly. The automakers were flying around in private jets. You're losing X-amount of dollars for every car you sell, you shouldn't be flying around in private jets. Maybe you should think about commercial. I don't have any pity for people who are losing money because of what they've done."

OK, granted, Byers should know about fiscal policy -- he finished undergrad early and is halfway through an MBA. But maybe TMZ should ask Arthur Laffer if he can pancake a defensive linemen. I'd like to watch the 68-year-old economist try that.

Efforts to blitz Mark Sanchez just showed that he was as comfortable thinking out of the box as scrambling out of the pocket. Asked about euthanasia, he immediately recognized the gag and shot back, "Like the Ali G Youth-in-Asia, or the real euthanasia?"

You can expect more Trojan-related "news" to appear on TMZ, but probably just regarding the love interests of USC alums Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart.

-- Adam Rose

Comments

[BixBeiderbecke]

Are the youth in Asia dying with dignity? Euthanasia, as a bio-ethics topic is so 1950. We don't, as professionals in the medical and health fields practice "death" any more than we practice "eugenics". What a retarded question for TMZ to ask a college football player? They're practicing "crank-calling journalism". What a total waste of energy! It's almost akin to "bullying", if you ask me.