At USC, OJ still a hero

So starts a great article at sbsun.com about how the USC Trojan's football team still adores this double-murdering, disgusting criminal. It does put our current situation with the football team in some perspective. I don't have too much commentary to add, but here are a few choice quotes from the article (a great read):

All this, 12 years after he beat a double-murder rap in an infamous trial and 10 years after a civil court found him liable for those two murders and ordered him to pay $33.5 million in damages. And one year after he tried to have a book published brazenly entitled, "If I Did It."

None of that matters at USC.

O.J. is still a great Trojan.

You can find proof of that in Heritage Hall, USC's glittering shrine to its athletes. Particularly its football greats.

Including O.J. Simpson.

Walk in the main entrance, you can't miss seven replicas of the Heisman Trophy arranged in an arc.

O.J.'s is second from the left.

Jerseys worn by USC's first five Heisman winners are mounted inside glass cases near the western entrance.

O.J.'s No. 32 is in the northwest corner.

How could these guys still have all that garbage still prominently displayed in their hall of fame?

Perhaps it's because Carroll was heavily criticized for allowing Simpson to attend a USC practice before the 2003 Orange Bowl and knows when he might be about to touch the "third rail" of USC athletics.

"I think it's a statement of a time, back in the '60s, when accomplishments were made," Carroll said. "I don't know. I think it's something that is part of the past of this university.

"I don't think what's going on now has a lot to do with it."

Later, he suggested a writer ask some of the other Heisman winners how they felt about having O.J. in their midst.

So we did. One of them is Mike Garrett, USC's athletic director since 1993.

Garrett, who oversees the Heritage Hall collection, was asked if he could envision a time when one of its Heisman winner's trophy and jersey were removed from the room.

"Why?" he said.

Because that person was found guilty of a felony, perhaps?

"We honor people who came through here, in the time they played," Garrett said. "So what you're telling me is that ... if someone did something here and later in life, many years later, something happens ... that means you take it down?

"I mean, I don't know if anyone passes muster on that one because someone can always find something to find reasons to take somebody down."

Ugh... Nothing to add there.

One of those Heisman winners says O.J.'s trophy and jersey aren't going anywhere. That man is Garrett.

"I think some people have lived their lives early on, we honor what they did early on," he said. "What they do later has nothing to do with us and has everything to do with him."

Interesting concept. But not entirely accurate. If one of USC's heroes blew up the World Trade Center or assassinated a president, we doubt his jersey would be in Heritage Hall.

However, you're OK if you beat the criminal side of that double-murder charge and only the civil court nailed you ... and if you've only been accused of 10 felonies. You're good, so far, for glorification in Heritage Hall, the school's sports Holy of Holies.

USC's Trojans? Still don't get it. You wonder if they ever will.

Couldn't have said it better myself.