2007 Week 2
September 13, 2007
The season is finally in full swing. You've still got all these other gimmick games. Louisville and Tennessee played a basketball/football doubleheader, with Louisville taking the hoops game 38-35 then winning the football nightcap 20-7. Louisville, Tennessee, nightcaps, excuse me, I gotta get Ma to get me a mint julep or five.
I must say I am glad that they've cut back on some of the exhibition games. Though I did tune in last Thursday night for the start of the NFL season and saw the ESPN logo saying "OSU" vs. "Cinci". I'm not sure why the Buckeyes scheduled a game against the Bengals but they sure got walloped.
The rest of the Big Ten had the annual Big Ten/MAC challenge, with teams like Minnesota, Michigan State, Indiana, Michigan, and Penn State taking on MAC powers like Miami of Florida, Boweling Green, Western Michigan, Oregon, and Notre Dame. Like most conferences I guess the MAC has gotten aggressive about expansion.
The Big Ten is trying to start their own TV network, which is the revival of a really lousy old idea. I remember back just after the war, in my early 50s, when the Ivy League decided to start a TV network. They hired me as program director and we struggled to find good Ivy League related shows. We put "College Bowl" in our key Thursday night 8 p.m. slot only to find out that nobody wanted to watch panty-waisted Yalies who couldn't break 100.
Then we hired this out of work stag film star to host the halftime show live from the field. One day he went out there in a women's dress, exposed what he called his baby arm, and the Ivy League Network had TV's first ever "wardrobe malfunction". Our network was taken off the air by the government, our host was hired away by NBC and put on some medications and soon became famous as TV funnyman Milton Berle.
USC had one of those early-season double headers, with the "A" team knocking off Georgia between the ledges, while the backup men of Troy struggled valiantly but fell to Florida.
USC is a program with a lot of advantages, the sun, the beach, and the girls most prominent among them. Way back when Howard Jones was a young singer and football coach, he brought the Trojans to dominance.
Howard had a lot of help from his boosters, especially one man in Cardinal and Garnet named Wally. Wally traveled from West Hollywood down Sunset to the beaches to find the prettiest girls to serve as recruiting hostesses. He then fitted them in some of his nicest sequined tops and the shortest skimpiest tissue-sized pieces of panties he could find.
These girls soon became world-famous and subject to many restraining orders issued against me over the years. You see, Wally was better known for two others thing; he was a USC booster but also a famous bowel representative. And he was also known for his flamboyant outfits, gentle voice, and musical talent.
Wally sure loved his recruiting hostesses, and looked on with pride as their sequined tops were replaced by sweaters, modern surgeons in Beverly Hills molded them into perfection, and their tight little hinies were barely covered with "butt floss" (let me tell you, never floss your teeth after flossing your butt. But I digress).
Yes, Wally, better known as pianist Liberace, invented the "Thong Girls". USC officials, assuming his famous Woody Hayes lisp was leading to a mispronunciation, changed the troupe's name to "Song Girls". And now you know the rest of the story.