Check out the photos from USC's advance trip to Charlottesville, Va., to prepare for the game there this fall
By Ben Malcolmson
USCRipsIt
PeteCarroll.com
See the behind-the-scenes images from USC’s logistical scouting trip to Charlottesville, Va., on May 5-6:
The quaint Charlottesville-Albermarle Airport, which features only a handful of gates, will be overrun with the Trojans’ two chartered flights come Aug. 28.
The baggage claim area at the Charlottesville-Albermarle Airport makes it clear that you’ve entered Cavalier territory.
The Charlottesville Doubletree Hotel will be the Trojans’ hotel for their trip to play at Virginia in August.
Director of football operations Dennis Slutak checks out a hotel ballroom, which will be used as a team meeting room in August.
Hotel sales manager Amber Kemper (right) shows director of football operations Dennis Slutak an open field outside the hotel that the team could use for one of its pre-game walk-thrus.
Slutak and Kemper jot down notes during their meticulous logistical planning meeting Monday at the team hotel.
Virginia’s assistant director of facilities and operations Mike Stroud shows executive assistant Morgon Fraser (left) and director of football operations Dennis Slutak (middle) where the buses will arrive to drop off the team at Scott Stadium on game day.
Assistant director of facilities and operations Mike Stroud shows Dennis Slutak the newly renovated visitors’ locker room, which features 75 lockers.
The coaches have their own smaller locker room within the visitors’ locker room at Scott Stadium.
The athletic training room area of the visitors’ locker room is one of the many gleaming new parts of the facility.
Stroud and Slutak make the 25-yard walk from the visitors’ locker room to the Scott Stadium field.
From this tunnel, the Trojans will storm out onto the Scott Stadium field to begin the 2008 season.
Dennis Slutak (left), Morgon Fraser (middle) and Mike Stroud (right) look around Scott Stadium from field level.
The view from the visiting coaches’ box, which is on the suite level and at about the 30-yard line. [Click to expand]
A panoramic view from the southeast corner of Scott Stadium, the same corner that the USC section will be on Aug. 30. [Click to expand]
The view from above the end zone.
The view from the 50-yard line.
The view from the 30-yard line, looking at the scoreboard and grassy knoll above the north end zone.
The view of where the USC fan section will be (in the southeast corner of the stadium) on game day.
The view from the grassy knoll above the north end zone.
The view from the northeast corner of Scott Stadium.
The view from Scott Stadium’s southeast corner, where the USC fan section will be on Aug. 30.
Though lacrosse is the sport that takes over Scott Stadium during the spring, the faded end zone logos can be seen in the grass.
The goalpost at the south end zone rises in the 61,500-seat stadium.
The Trojans will be playing at an ACC opponent for the first time since 1998, when USC visited Florida State.
If he wasn’t in the car, he was on the phone. And if he wasn’t on the phone, he was in the car. Here, director of football operations Dennis Slutak is pulling double-duty, a commonality during the jam-packed advance trip to Charlottesville.
Dennis Slutak inspects a local high school field, as he checks out potential locations for the Trojans’ practice on the Friday before the game.
Director of football operations Dennis Slutak, wearing a shirt referring to the Sparq commercial in which Coach Pete Carroll says, "My quick smells like french toast," stands in one of the buses that the Trojans will charter for their 48-hour stay in Charlottesville.
The famous Rotunda on Virginia’s campus is one of many Thomas Jefferson-designed buildings in Charlottesville.
Charlottesville, located in the rolling green hills of central Virginia, seems to be the ideal spot to commence the 2008 season.
• Ben Malcolmson is the Director of Online Media for USCRipsIt/PeteCarroll.com. You can contact him at Ben@PeteCarroll.com.
