Trogan-to-English: Now on Video (Leinart)

So you thought Southern Cal lost their ill-gotten football championship?  Watch the video and the scholarly Matt Leinart will explicate the truth.  Then, though the truth needs no explanation, it does need translation. This was awfully long, so only extracts are provided; here it in its entirety at ESPN:

"In reality, I don't think anyone can really take the championship away from us."

We stole it fair and square.

"For all the hard work we put in."

Not in the classroom, or in philanthropic activities, but in a couple practices here and there.

"All this stuff that happened outside the field, I don't condone it at any point, but that doesn't take away from what we did as a football team."

Things off the field that meant a number of us were suiting up illegally doesn't take away from the point spread.

"We just all moved on from it."

Though at a cut in pay.

"Young kids, everyone makes mistakes."

Old enough to die for our country, to vote, to drink, we can't be expected to make non-juvenile decisions.

 

"You gotta stay away from the outside things."

Like the groupies and the runners and the agents and the celebrities that Coach Carroll surrounded us with at every practice.

"A lot of people try to get at you in different ways."

Brynn Cameron got at me in Study Hall.

"Stay focused ...  being a student -athlete..."

Enroll in Ballroom Dancing to maintain your eligibility.

"...and graduating."

With the help of an "A" in Spanish.  "Yo haveno Espanol."

"Who's responsibility is that? Um, I mean it's tough, that's just the way it's become in sports today."

At SC, the president, the athletic director, the coach, the assistant coaches, they all model for us to not take responsibility for our misdeeds.  Heck, OJ is still chasing the murderers.

"You'd like to see it cleaned up a little bit, I guess."

Though that would be a sea change for future generations at Troy.

<I'd tell the kids> "That we won the national championship."

You know, if you tell the big lie enough times, people think it's true.

<Explained that since no one took performance-enhancing drugs, the championship should not be in question>

Ineligible players on the field don't call into question the wins.  

 

"As a football team... we won games fair and square."

You know, like with that Bush Push."

"Reggie is a dear, dear friend of mine."

And a dear, dear friend of lots of people with lots of money.  But not a dear, dear friend with Kim. If someone's a dear, dear friend, then they can get away with murder, or whatever. 

"I won't be really  worried about showing my kids record books."

Trogan footballers don't normally spend much time exposing their kids to books.  And certainly not ones with inconvenient truths.

"I got a ring...   We've moved on from that."

Like Coach Carroll, we took the money and ran.

"I don't think this decision has affected the way we view what happened that season."

We are delusional.  You know how I keep insisting that after the Rose Bowl with Texas that we were the better team.

"What we accomplished... was pretty incredible on the football field."

What we accomplished off the field was pretty incredible, in the police blotter.

"You forgive and forget,  you move on, you learn from your mistakes..., it's in the past, there's nothing you can do to change it, it is what it is."

You don't want to change it, that's why you continue whining, denying, making absurd defenses.

<what say to #2 Auburn>  "Everyone knows that we deserve that <championship>."

People paid good money for it.  

 

<on being thanked for coming on the show>  "Fight On."

Cheat On.  Not one word accepting guilt, expressing remorse, acknowledging the NCAA had overwhelming grounds for its action.  But as a young kid, we wouldn't expect it of him.  We should be hearing any minute from two school presidents, two athletic directors, and two head coaches owning up to everything.  Heck, one of them might even allow, "We are awfully lucky to have dodged the Death Penalty."