A Day In the Life Of... Pete Carroll
Ben Malcolmson
Daily Trojan
It was an epic journey of epic length, a battle of endurance or, well, another day at work for USC coach Pete Carroll.
It was a 15-hour work day - and that's shorter than normal - packed with about seven hours of interacting with game film, three hours of interacting with media and three hours of interacting with his players.
He hasn't taken a day off from football since the early summer, and the hours pile up just like the wins - 27 of them in his team's last 30 games.
"You can't do it if you don't like it," Carroll said. "And I love coaching this team."
Follow Carroll throughout his day, starting just after sunrise on a clear, crisp morning and ending well into the night, when campus was as calm as Carroll is energized.
"It's not going to be as exciting as you think," the fourth-year coach said when the day started.
That's what he thinks.
7:29 a.m.
His face about a foot from a 25-inch television, Carroll has been studying the third-down offense of Stanford, this weekend's opponent, since he arrived at his second-floor Heritage Hall office a little before 7 a.m. this morning. The internet-fed radio - KFOG, a "world classic rock" station from his home of San Francisco - blares over one of two laptops sitting on his desk.
"I'm looking at the splits of the wide receivers," he says while still keeping his eyes fixed on the TV. "They're not doing it the right way."
He's been watching the same play for the last 30 seconds, rewinding the tape and re-watching the play three or four times.
He receives a call on his cell phone from a coaching friend who still works in the NFL. While the radio is still playing and his eyes are still glued to the game tape, Carroll tells his friend (whom Carroll requested to remain anonymous) to take a look at an upcoming NFL opponent's third downs.
Carroll leaves the room and says, "You better follow me or you're going to miss stuff."
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