Cheers All Around : Enthusiasm Returns to USC With Second Coming of John Robinson

It was almost as if they were bringing back John McKay. Or Howard Jones.

About 350 USC football fans have turned out at Pasadena’s Brookside Golf Club to celebrate the second coming of John Robinson.

The Trojan pep band is there, cardinal and gold pennants and balloons decorate the banquet room, and San Gabriel Valley Trojan Club members mill about, awaiting the man who has been brought back to restore Trojan football prominence.

Finally, Robinson and his wife, Linda, arrive. He walks into the room looking like a guy from Duke--blue blazer, white pants and black-and-white shoes.

But Robinson moves comfortably, working the entire room, going from table to table, shaking every hand. When the brunch line forms, he takes his place in line just as the band strikes up “Fight On.”

Robinson seems not to notice. He’s heard the song before.

But as the band appears to be packing up, Robinson leaves his table, walks to the microphone and says, “This is my 6,000th speech since I’ve been back (actually, it’s his 51st), and these people have been to every one of them.”

The coach then asks the musicians to step to the microphone, introduce themselves and give their majors.

When Robinson begins his talk, he plays against a theme Larry Smith sounded when he left USC after last season. Smith spoke of USC people needing “realistic expectations” for the football program. USC folks didn’t like that much.

“Linda and I have leased a condo on Orange Grove (in Pasadena) during the season, and so I consider this my neighborhood here,” Robinson says. “And I want you all to know we’re going to finish our season right over there.”

He points to the Rose Bowl, a few hundred yards away.

Cheers all around.

“We will wear the uniform the way so many have through the years, with pride and dignity. And we will perform.”

Cheers all around.

“Putting SC back on top is going to be a joyous experience. It will be fun. In fact, I tell our players it’s going to be fun to play at places like Penn State, Notre Dame, to play in the rain in Seattle. (Pause) OK, so our players are a little dumb.”

Laughs all around.

“What is USC and what makes it go?

“It’s your passion and your love for USC. It’s what separates USC from most universities. Add up all the physical assets of USC. The campus is nice, but there are nicer. The buildings are big, but others have bigger.

“The difference is you, and it will always be you.”

Then, with everyone in the room revved up, a mild scolding.

“It’s true Larry Smith and his team had a bad year last year. But so did you,” he tells his audience, wagging a scolding finger.

“When the team lost to Fresno State in Anaheim last December, there were only 6,000 of you there.”

His message is clear: If he is to lead USC football back to the top, it will take more than the players and the coaching staff to get it done.

*

On the practice field at USC’s preseason training camp, Robinson is working with the running backs, walking them through the plays that Mike Garrett, O.J. Simpson, Charles White and Marcus Allen ran to Heisman trophies.

The tempo picks up and now defensive players are taking whacks at the runners with bags as they race by.

Suddenly, Robinson erupts. Practice stops. The coach speaks. A 230-pound ballcarrier, he rails, is running with too much finesse.

“If you want to run like that, then you lose 30 or 35 pounds and get down to 185 or 190 and get fast,” he tells him.

Then, his voice rising, he says, “But if you want to run like a big fella, then I want you foaming at the mouth and knocking these guys on their . . . !”

*

It’s Pac-10 media day at a Los Angeles Airport hotel. Each coach has brought one player to the session. Robinson is with defensive end Willie McGinest.

The two of them are sitting in front of several dozen journalists as McGinest speaks.

“We watched Coach Robinson go down the chute with the Rams,” he says. “And we want to help him put USC football back on top again.”

Laughs all around. And then more laughs during question time when a voice in the back of the room asks, “At your age, how do you expect to be able to recruit?”

It’s Bill Walsh, the Stanford coach, who is 61.

Robinson, 58, breaks up, but he retorts: “Hey, I’ll run into you in some strange towns and some strange motels.”

Later, Walsh needles Robinson about his weight, which tends to rise markedly during the season.

“I’m delighted to welcome John back to college football, but I’m worried about his diet,” Walsh says. “I hope USC assigns someone to go on the road trips with him, to supervise his diet.”

*

After 32 consecutive years of coaching football, Robinson took 1992 off. He had coached the Rams for nine seasons, but left after 5-11 and 3-13 seasons in 1990 and ’91.

“I was physically worn down,” Robinson said.

“When you go through a long stretch of work like that without a break, it’s physically hard on you even if you’re enjoying it. Even if you’re winning. But the worst thing is when you’re not enjoying it.

“My weight and my blood pressure were up. I was in a Custer’s-last-stand mentality. I felt like everyone was closing in on me.

“That’s what’s great about being back at SC. It’s just a great job. And I’m enjoying it.”

Last season, Robinson was a football broadcaster for CBS, Prime Ticket and USA Cable.

“I kind of enjoyed that, but when the USC job came up, I felt like even if I continued with TV work and worked hard at it, I’d still have too much time on my hands,” he said. “I’d have been out all the time, searching for something.”

Some wonder if Robinson is going out of his way to put pressure on himself and this year’s team. In almost every interview, he implies that winning Trojan football is returning, sooner rather than later.

In the 10 seasons since he left, USC is 70-45-5. In USC’s seven seasons under Robinson, 1976-82, the Trojans were 67-14-2. That winning percentage, .819, is still the highest of any active major-school coach with a minimum of five years.

Robinson only shrugged.

“We have a high level of expectation,” he said.

“We aspire to win national championships. We want to be where the elite are. That’s what we want to do. We wouldn’t want a football program if those weren’t our expectations, and I wouldn’t want to coach.”

*

The lone holdover from Smith’s staff is Mike Sanford, who coaches wide receivers for Robinson. He also worked for Robinson at USC during Robinson’s first run.

“The big change is that we’re all excited and we’re all having fun again.” Sanford said.

“He’s a very organized guy. He knows exactly what he wants to do in practices and games. But he’s also very flexible, and he won’t hesitate to change things around if he has to.

“He has a way of making the staff meetings very productive, yet also a lot of fun. He’s a very funny man without always trying to be.”

Mike Riley, Robinson’s offensive coordinator, says Robinson football will be fast and physical.

“We want to play fast--Robinson’s a big believer in that,” Riley said.

“He believes there’s so much speed on defense today, if you don’t run fast plays, people are right on top of you.

“The quarterbacks here last year dropped back deeper and threw deep downfield more often than we will. We’re going to throw high-percentage passes and try to throw them very quickly. Robinson doesn’t think we have the capability to put 40 points on the board, so he wants us to control the ball.”

*

Everywhere, old Trojans rejoice.

Jim Hardy is 70. In 1944 and ‘45, he quarterbacked USC to two Rose Bowl victories. He visited several USC practices last week at UC Irvine.

“Everyone I’ve talked to is thrilled,” he said.

“They feel Robinson is part of the family and knows the tradition. The last guy didn’t. This guy is a great coach. Any coach can draw X’s and O’s. But Robinson is a guy who knows what’s on the game film before he sees the game film.

“Look at him. (Robinson is in the midst of his running backs, railing over some flub.) You never see him up in a tower or in a golf cart. He’s in the middle of it, teaching.

“So many coaches want to win, or hope to win, or think they can win. Robinson expects to win. There’s a big difference.”

*

Linda, Robinson’s wife of four years, said of her husband’s 1992 sabbatical: “I don’t think he missed (football), not at first.

“We had a wonderful year together, almost a honeymoon. We spent a month in Europe, most of it driving around in northern Italy. We took a couple of trips to Hawaii and the Napa Valley.

“I got him into an exercise program and got him in shape.

“Toward the end of the last football season, when coaches started getting fired, I could see that old brain ticking. He got kind of quiet during the games on TV.

“He told me the hardest part of the TV work he was doing was going to the games and having no emotional involvement, then hopping on a plane and not caring who had won.

“He felt like announcing games wasn’t a real job, because it didn’t involve a week of preparation. So he started getting antsy. His year was up and he had to make a decision. He started asking me how I felt about moving.

“We were at our house in Solana Beach when he got the SC job. He was so happy.

“And I didn’t fully understand how much he missed coaching until the first day of spring practice. I couldn’t believe his energy level. His last years with the Rams, he was never like that. He’s going nonstop now, and it’s so much fun for me to see him like this.”

Robinson, she said, knows how to relax in his few hours away from football.

“A lot of people don’t understand--John Robinson is not just a football coach. He loves art and music, too. He’s a great fan of John Barry, who wrote the themes for the James Bond movies, and ‘Dances With Wolves.’ ”

Fine, but now opening night approaches. And John Robinson must show people he can still coach. Because if he can’t, he will be dancing with wolves.