I’ve talked about the Lakers, the Dodgers, the Royals, and the Chiefs, but the only team I’m writing a season ticket check to right now is the Athletic Department of USC.  (And that check got quite a bit bigger this year, thanks Coach Kiffin.)  As someone who grew up going to several Sunday and Monday night games in freezing Arrowhead, it makes me feel spoiled now to spend Saturdays in the fall complaining about 50 degree nights as I wrap my cardinal and gold argyle scarf around my neck.  Oh yes!  If we’re the spoiled rich kids of the city and the conference, we’ll ride that image for all it’s worth!  It seems the only time I find out about my friends who went to other schools is when someone gets their one win per decade on us and won’t stop bragging (looking straight at you Bruins).  You don’t even have to be a sports fan to know the Lakers-Clippers ‘rivalry’ is completely worthless, but most years in recent memory the week of smack talk leading up to the game in either the Coliseum or the Rose Bowl is great.  Somewhere in Seattle, Pete Carroll is still giggling over the Hail Mary touchdown at the end of last year’s game.  (UCLA calling timeouts; ain’t like they was getting the ball back, pft!)  I digress…

Sports fandom aside, the more lasting thing that USC has provided me with is this network.  Superficially it’s a business network, but it’s also something else.  I’m human so I’ll have moments here and there were the size of this city makes me feel lonely and isolated, but the nature of the friendships that have come out of going to school there means there’s always someone who will want to watch a college football or basketball game.  Always someone who will want to go to a Jay-Z concert, or a Hall & Oates concert.  Always someone who will be down for In & Out, or be down for Craft.  And of course, always someone who will be down for a movie.  ANY movie.  Hot Tub Time Machine?  Check.  Brooklyn’s Finest?  Check.  The Young Victoria?  Check.  I also have friends here from back home, and the way I talk about Los Angeles and the way they talk about Los Angeles is clearly stark (yeah that was an incredibly cheesy pun but it worked).  My friends who are completely absorbed in the Business half tease/half give me credit for having friends and dating completely outside the Business, and it’s definitely kept me grounded.  But there’s a flip side to that coin: I’ve heard all my friends outside the Business speak in a very ‘outsider-ish’ way about Los Angeles.  I think they’ll all eventually be somewhere else.  More than anything else in this city, the Trojan family and ‘the Mafia’ made me an Angeleno.  If anything, I probably don’t use my business connections enough (which is extremely ironic since that’s why I came to this town in the first place). 

Now that I’ve gotten all that sincerity out of my system, excuse me while I tie a sweater over my shoulders and sip an Arnold Palmer waiting for September to get here…FIGHT ON!!!!