Over 20 years ago, Pete Carroll stood at the 50-yard line with his first USC team.
It was one of his first days on the job, right after some of the most intense workouts those players had ever been through. As the story goes, he didn’t know exactly what he was going to do that night on the floor of the Coliseum. But he knew he had to do something.
As the clock struck 10 p.m., you could hear players walking down the tunnel. Some in cleats, ready for a workout. Some coming straight from class.
Either way, they were coming.
He gathered them all at the 50. He asked his captain, Carson Palmer, to pick his best 11 on offense. Then he asked Troy Polamalu, a future Hall of Famer, to pick his best 11 on defense.
Between them lay a long rope he’d borrowed from the local firehouse. Carson’s guys on one side. Troy’s on the other.
Then they played tug of war.
It went back and forth. Eventually, the defense won out.
When it was over, Carroll looked at his team and asked what they’d just learned. Not many answers came back. That’s when he knew he had to coach them up.
He had them shoulder to shoulder at the 50, where he taught them that if they pulled in opposite directions, they would never reach their full potential. But if they pulled together, anything was possible.
I thought about that story last night at the 50, as Michigan and Michigan State played for the Paul Bunyan Trophy.
