Posted by ESPN.com's Ted Miller
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| Neuheisel | Carroll |
LOS ANGELES -- Here's an image for you.
UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel standing alone waiting outside the hotel for his car.
Here comes USC coach Pete Carroll.
These guys surely dislike each other. Or, at least, they will keep interaction to a minimum in the spirit of a bitter rivalry.
At most, their crossing paths figure to include only a chilly nod, right? Maybe a superior grin from Carroll and a just-you-wait smirk from Neuheisel.
Nope... Carroll immediately walks up with a hand out, and Neuheisel energetically grabs and shakes. They begin to casually chat. Both seem very comfortable.
My thought is they talked about how much they like ESPN.com's new Pac-10 blog, but that's only an educated guess.
I asked myself: Was that completely fake? Would these two rather just claw each other's eyes out?
Maybe. But it didn't seem like that.
I crept behind them, using tactics from my Double-O training, in order to spy on them.
Then I realized that would be crass an stupid and I went on my way with my bag of media guides.
Neuheisel told me this story a few years ago.
In 2001, Neuheisel, as Washington's coach, beat USC and Carroll on a late field goal, 27-24. They walked to midfield for the post-game handshake, and an understandably perturbed Carroll sort of slaps at Neuheisel's hand and says something like, "We'll get you next time."
When Neuheisel finished the story, I went, "So Carroll is sort of a jerk?"
And Neuheisel goes (and my memory is a little foggy so this is a paraphrase): "Oh, no, I just realized at that moment how competitive he was."
From that game on, USC is 75-10. And Carroll is 6-1 vs. UCLA.
Anyone else sort of think this one might get interesting?
H
