L.A. Story: USC Coach Pete Carroll Profiled On "60 Minutes"
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CBS' "60 Minutes" Profiles USC
Football Coach Pete Carroll |
USC football coach Pete Carroll was profiled on CBS’ “60 Minutes” last night. CBS’ Byron Pitts began the segment by saying, “If your image of a football coach is of a tough guy with a permanent scowl on his face, then you haven’t met Pete Carroll.” Carroll is “upbeat, optimistic and seems to have a permanent smile on his face, and no wonder -- he has the highest winning percentage of any active coach in Division-I football.” Pitts said one key to Carroll’s success is his “unconventional, laid-back California style.” After USC defeated Ohio State earlier in the season, Pitts told Carroll on the field after the game, “People in this town seem to love you.” Carroll: “They like winning. This town loves champions.” Carroll coached four seasons in the NFL with the Patriots and Jets, and Pitts said, “People have characterized your tenure in the NFL as a failure. You buy that?” Carroll: “I hate hearing that. That doesn’t sit well with me at all. They made the right decision for them, but I didn’t go out thinking that I had failed.” But Pitts said Carroll at USC has “finally found his calling. His boyish, enthusiastic style that seemed too soft for the NFL has been a perfect fit with younger athletes.”
MENTOR PROGRAM: Pitts said Carroll’s life work is to “teach young people, not just ballplayers. To seize every opportunity and make the most of it.” Carroll’s off-the-field activities include mentoring gang members. He has donated his own money and “raised even more cash to fund a program where about 50 former gang members will take” courses to stop the violence in their neighborhoods. Carroll, on why he tries to help these at-risk young people: “The last thing I want to do is be trying to get something out of it. I have no connection to that thought” (“60 Minutes,” CBS, 12/14).
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