Checking in ...

Just a quick note to say I'll be picking up the pace here, but things have been a little busy with the USC blog. Many UCLA fans are stoked about the allegations flying around across town. If you want to catch up on the O.J. Mayo ugliness check out latimes.com/trojans, where I'll have "O.J. F.A.Q. 1.0" going up shortly.

Remember, no news is usually good news this time of year (at least for football and basketball). If you're still snickering at Trojan fans, click here for your morning schadenfreude laugh (warning: video link contains language that may be inappropriate for work — who knew musicals could be so fun?).

Of course, the biggest news around Westwood isn't good ... it's great. I'll post more in a moment, but HUGE congrats to the women's water polo team for winning a fourth consecutive national championship and taking home UCLA's 101st NCAA. This type of dominance is rarely seen, but certainly familiar to Bruin basketball fans.

Comments

[waters96]

Of course you're spending all your time on the USC blog - you're a Trojan. Why don't you just give this up. It's a waste of space.

Your "Bruins" blog is unwanted and useless. And BTW, UCLA fans are not "stoked" by the O.J. Mayo allegations - we simply know what kind of program you run over there and find this to fall into a long-term pattern of criminality and abuse. If you're serious, why don't you come correct about this and Reggie Bush. Start doing reporting instead of denying.

What am I saying. You're a Trojan.

I'll be very interested if you allow this to remain posted or delete it. A Trojan would delete it. A Bruin would allow it.

[Bruin 01]

Why is USC's scandal more important than our championship? The incredible accomplishments of our women's water polo team (four consecutive national championships) should not get short shrift because an athlete at another school violated the rules. There's more to being a Bruin fan than schadenfreude, you know.

A few months back, you asked for contributors to write for this blog. Were none of them Bruin fans? If there isn't time to adequately cover both schools, why not bring someone else (like, say, a UCLA grad) on board?

[Bruin 01]

Why is USC's scandal more important than our championship? The incredible accomplishments of our women's water polo team (four consecutive national championships) should not get short shrift because an athlete at another school violated the rules. There's more to being a Bruin fan than schadenfreude, you know.

A few months back, you asked for contributors to write for this blog. Were none of them Bruin fans? If there isn't time to adequately cover both schools, why not bring someone else (like, say, a UCLA grad) on board?

[silverlake_bruin]

You still haven't answered why the news of USC using inellibible paid athletes in their football and basketball programs wasn't broken by the Times, but by Yahoo and ESPN.

Why isn't the times investigating the corrupt program at USC? Why is the national media the only ones breaking stories happening right under the times nose.

Also, why is your bio different on this site than the USC. There you proudly list your time at USC. Here, you don't mention you are a USC alum.

[bruinjoe]

Why don't you admit that you're an SC fan and go on to something else? Even Nixon knew that it was in everyone's interests to do something else with his life. And please don't pretend, as you have done in the past, that you are willing to criticize SC by saying things like "Bush should lose his Heisman" when that would do nothing to punish your Trojans for recruiting and enabling persons of such low character.

[Adam Rose]

Whoa!

1. I'm pretty sure I've only deleted comments with profanity or otherwise grossly inappropriate content.

2. I've been referring to schadenfreude in college sports for awhile, generally in good humor and most often in relation to football. Let's be honest, it's a part of sports.

3. Yes, we will have Bruins on board. I want to make sure this is done right and am focusing on the fall. Remember I picked this thing up mid-school-year. That's not to say there won't be people writing sooner, but that I'm not being shortsighted.

4. I already addresses the "breaking news" item in comments before, but I'll do it again: Nobody has a monopoly on information, and different outlets will break different stories first for a variety of reasons. Yahoo! Sports is run by former LA Times employees, and so far as I know we've always been supportive of their good work. ESPN also does good work, and they broke the Mayo story because of the relationship they established with Johnson. Kudos to them. Now, if you look at the LA Times this week you'll notice a lot of column inches have been dedicated to exposing this story. I also know that a lot of resources are being dedicated to further investigation.

5. I'm pretty sure USC can and will be punished for the Mayo situation. I also think a lot hinges on the relationship Guillory had with the program.

6. Just like any news organization (be it ESPN or local sports talk radio), the Mayo scandal is getting more attention than women's water polo. Why? Men's college basketball is more important to the sports world than women's water polo. More people watch, and more ad revenue goes there. I've got a hunch that any news about J'Mison Morgan will get way more page views than WWP. I'm not saying that's the way it should be nor that it's fair, I'm just stating the obvious. Got a problem with it? Talk to Sisyphus.

Finally, huge congrats to the women's water polo team! These ladies deserve all the credit in the world and the accomplishments of the seniors are absolutely amazing.

[waters96]

I still think it is ridiculous for a Trojan to be running a Bruin blog. Like having Karl Rove as the chairman of the Democratic Party. Or a wolf as the president of the caribou union.

This blog is a ghost town because you have no credibility as the person who runs it. Do us all a favor and resign your duties as there would be a great demand for a genuine Bruins blog run by someone who is a Bruins fan, like Rich Perelman.

[Ted]

Adam,

Your point 6 does make sense for the print Latimes... however a "Blog dedicated to all things UCLA" should have the WWP 4th stright run be a bigger story than $UC bball player who cheated and got caught! What does O.J. Mayo have to do with UCLA? The cheating going on at $UC although a big deal as is BUSH cheating scandal to the sports world should not be reported on a UCLA blog over a NATIONAL TITLE 101.

[Ted]

And as for us UCLA fans asking for a Bruin to run the Blog should be totally understood by you. I don't think you are objective because....

1. I am a UCLA guy and could never be objective about
anything USC. So I dont expect a trojan to either.

2. We've seen your writing regarding UCLA on LAist.

p.s. by the way why the difference in your bio on UCLA blog vs. USC blog??!! You can't even be honest about who you are in your bio! How do you expect bunch of Bruins to trust a Trojan?

[bruinjoe]

When the Bruins and Trojans played football last season which team did you want to win? If you rooted for the Trojans why do you feel you are qualified to run a UCLA blog? Finally, why don't you answer the question about why you fail to indicate in your bio for this site that you are an SC alumnus?

[waters96]

Thank you for your apt comments Ted and bruinjoe. In point of fact, there is no way Adam should be running this website. I suspect that it has more to do with the cutbacks at the Times than being based on sound editorial judgment. Nevertheless, it is still outrageous that Bruins fans don't get their own blog written by one of their own, while U$C does. Very weak.

[Adam Rose]

I hadn't checked the comments on this post for awhile. I'm happy to address any and all questions ...

Re: WWP vs. Mayo

It's simply a matter of budgeting time, and sadly "negative" stories are often more pressing and time consuming. There's a fascinating debate running over the importance of negative news about a rival. In an attempt to keep USC news off of this blog, I put pretty much all Mayo content on All Things Trojan. Then I got a bunch of emails asking me to link to a post about USC news that was on Bruins Nation -- so I did.

There's no perfect way to judge the relative importance of stories, but here's a good indicator of what's popular in UCLA circles: http://www.bruinville.com

At least on that particular site, you'll notice that my interview with women's water polo coach Adam Krikorian has fewer clicks that a story about a former USC football player who just got a DUI. The guy's been out of school for a couple years! How's that more popular than a championship coached by one of the greatest Bruin legends of all time? Personally, I prefer "good news" and "do gooding" stories like the one I'll have up in a few minutes about Nikki Caldwell.

Re: LAist

Probably the only blog post I've ever been "assigned" was my very first one for LAist, called "Why USC Haters Are Lame." Here's what you may not know ... I was asked to write something to provide balance to another post called "Why USC Football is Lame." Rather than doing something like "Why UCLA Football/Basketball/Whatever is Lame," I hated on the haters -- not all UCLA fans. I should also note that the "Why USC Football is Lame" post was written by a Bruin who I didn't know at the time, but now consider a friend.

Over the past couple years at LAist I've given the Bruins plenty of props. A few months ago I even did a post crowning the UCLA cheerleaders the best in the Pac-10!

Re: Bio

My very first post on this blog said I was a Trojan. I never hid that fact, instead I was very direct about it. However, I'm not eager to perpetually inflame the situation. I'd rather see what people think after a few months of earnest effort. Also, my bosses are working on getting me access to the content in the sidebar (which I actually don't control), at which point I'll probably alter the All Things Trojan bio. Remember that both blogs will have additional contributors in the near future, and many of them will provide more of the "die-hard" opinions.

Re: Rooting

As part of a professional code, there's no rooting in the press box (though I noticed people don't follow that rule at Notre Dame). If you ask anybody who's seen me at ANY UCLA or USC event in the past year, I'm wearing neutral clothes and I'm not cheering (exception: I frequently clap for any injured player as they leave the field, regardless of team). While nobody is perfectly objective, I'd like to think that I'm at least professional.

Here's another interesting thing I've learned in the past year ... sports reporters tend to root for stories rather than teams. The more seasoned I become as a blogger, the more that makes sense to me (for good and for bad). I can't remember which columnist I originally learned that from, but ironically I read it a few days before USC was upset by Stanford last year.

[waters96]

You're not a reporter, you're a blogger. You don't belong here. No matter how hard you try, you're a Trojan. I have no problem with that. There needs to be a place for people to go who can't get into UCLA. But you don't belong here. Check out your most recent posts. It's a ghost town. Nobody comes here anymore. Please do everybody a favor and resign, so we can get someone who doesn't have a bias against the subject he is blogging. Thanks for your time