Digital Video - January 2008 - (Page 30) FIRST AND GOAL BY DANIEL FRANKEL W inner of two national championships over the last four seasons, the University of Southern California football program has thrived under a philosophy of pervasive competition under head coach Pete Carroll. Every year, the charismatic Carroll convinces droves of highly touted high-school seniors from all over the country to bypass powerhouse football programs that are more local to them and sign with the Trojans. Once they arrive at fall camp, these prospects don’t have to wait years behind upperclassman to play, provided they’re good enough to usurp position depth charts that can be 10-deep with other blue-chip prospects. By the time all the competing for starting jobs is finished at practice, the Trojans usually find the games relatively easy. Interestingly, Carroll’s philosophy has proven infectious in and around the USC athletic program, manifesting itself in places one might not expect. Take the athletic department’s fledgling digital production operation, for example, which provides video coverage of every school sport — from football to women’s soccer — that is broadcast over the CBSowned College Sports Television (CSTV) broadband network. dv january 2008 Above, Rich Rodriguez edits Trojan football footage while (below) production staffer Mark Haas logs in. “Just being around Coach Carroll, you can’t help but catch his energy and his mentality,” notes Rich Rodriguez, a former USC film student and ICM agent who now heads a USC production unit consisting of 10 full-time and part-time staffers, all of them students. Like Carroll’s players, a newbie producer on Rodriguez’s team can take the plum assignments from somebody more senior if they’re good enough. “If we get a freshman who can shoot his ass off, then he’s going to travel with us,” he says. Until earlier this year, the bulk of Rodriguez’s work consisted of shooting video for the football team — mainly game and practice tape for the coaches to break down and strategize with. But the school’s athletic budget is enjoying the fat of the pigskin right now, buoyed by sellout crowds at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and multi-million-dollar bowl-game payouts, not to mention the selling of copious licensed apparel tied to recent Heisman Trophy winners Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush. With its subscription-based CSTV channel, http://usctrojans.cstv.com, garnering as many as 500,000 unique users a month when the football season hits its fever pitch, athwww.dv.com 30 http://usctrojans.cstv.com http://www.dv.com
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