Hi, everyone! I’m Ryan Kartje, the Times’ USC beat writer. It’s been a devastating week for all of Los Angeles, and our thoughts here at The Times of Troy are with all who have been affected by the wildfires. We hope, first and foremost, that you and your families are safe.
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Like many of you, my wife and I spent the last several days mired in a state of constant dread, never quite feeling safe, adding more and more to an emergency go-bag as we refreshed our Watch Duty apps, weighing whether to escape the city with our 1-year-old. All the while the ridgeline to the south glowed red in the distance, a black plume growing ominously off the scorched Santa Monica Mountains.
It was in those mountains that I first fell in love with this city. Having grown up in the flattest corner of Michigan, the notion that I could live near actual mountains, alongside an actual ocean, would never quite feel real to me. (Still doesn’t, to be honest.) My wife and I, lifelong Midwesterners, had never even hiked before we moved to L.A. in 2012, but we would spend almost every weekend our first few years here in the mountains. Soon enough, we were backpacking the Sierras and the Andes in Peru.
There was magic in those hills, as far as I was concerned. There’s a reason my wife and I were married there (in a venue that burned in another wildfire). Ten of my 13 years in L.A. were spent living in north Santa Monica, sipping wine at Rosenthal or eating fish tacos and clam chowder at Reel Inn off PCH, dreaming up a future in the foothills of Malibu or the Palisades, where the mountains would only be a short walk from our backyard.
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So to see those same mountains burning out of control, to see Rosenthal and Reel Inn engulfed in flames and the vibrant communities around them swallowed whole … the scenes were unimaginable, as if they were ripped straight from a dystopian novel.
For Miller Moss, USC’s now-former quarterback, the Palisades had always been home. He grew up in the neighborhood. His grandmother lived in the neighborhood. His friends and their families, too. Now their houses were all just … gone. “Reduced,” he wrote on social media, “to ash and rubble.”
“I know the community I grew up in,” Moss wrote, “and have every belief that the Palisades will rise up in the face of unfathomable heartbreak and destruction.”
There’s a unique sort of cruelty in a fire’s devastation, the kind that’s capable of erasing more than just structures. The plants and vegetation and trees will, in time, grow back. Even the houses will eventually be replaced. But the neighborhood that Moss knew will never quite be the same. In Altadena, in Pasadena, in Brentwood, Malibu, Topanga and elsewhere, so many are now reckoning with that same feeling.
The uncertainty in the fire’s wake has done its own level of damage, the kind that can’t be measured in billions of insurance dollars. Last week, while the fires burned, USC’s men’s basketball team was in the middle of a Midwest trip. The staff had only moved to L.A. eight or so months before. Now several of them watched on their phones and hotel TVs, not knowing if their homes or their families’ homes were in danger.
“A week ago, my family was enjoying the beautiful Rose Parade at our Pasadena home and now we aren’t sure it’ll be there when we get back,” USC assistant men’s basketball coach Quincy Pondexter wrote on social media.
Amid that looming sense of uncertainty, USC would somehow still emerge from its road swing with a top-10 win over Illinois, the first ranked road win in 15 years at USC and by far the most important yet of the Muss era. In the locker room after, players and coaches roared with joy, able to forget for a moment what was happening back home.
The fires were still burning Sunday evening, as USC women’s basketball tipped off against Penn State. The team’s next game, on Wednesday, had already been postponed, as Northwestern opted not to travel to L.A. But even as smoke billowed in the distance in two directions, air quality on campus was fine. The two schools decided to go forward with the game.
Even as the fires keep burning, life is already inching forward around us. The doom scrolling will slow. The dread will eventually lift. The nation will turn its attention elsewhere. And while L.A. will always bear the scars of this fire, its people will creep back to life, reemerging like wildflowers from the ash.
That was clear Sunday inside Galen Center, as Lindsay Gottlieb addressed the crowd after a resounding win over Penn State and captured the moment perfectly.
“Take a moment to look around this building. There were over 6,000 people here tonight,” Gottlieb said.
“And with so many people in our beloved community that have lost a lot, you cannot take our community away from us.”
It’s been a difficult week for many of you. If you want to share your story with Times of Troy or if you want to shout out someone for how they’ve helped you or others over the last week, send me an email at ryan.kartje@latimes.com, and I’ll share some responses in next week’s newsletter.
—Expect D’Anton Lynn to be on the radar of NFL teams soon enough. USC’s defensive coordinator never envisioned himself as a college coach. The son of an NFL player-then-coach, Lynn grew up on NFL sidelines and in NFL locker rooms and climbed through the coaching ranks as an NFL assistant. So it stands to reason that Lynn would, at some point, return to the league he knows best. That could very well happen in the coming weeks depending on how the NFL’s coaching carousel carries on from here. Several candidates with close ties to Lynn have already interviewed for open NFL jobs, among them his first coaching mentor, Rex Ryan, and one of his closest friends in the profession, current Dolphins defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver. Ryan, who once called Lynn “a superstar,” is considered a long shot for the Jets job, while Weaver, a rising star himself in coaching circles, has interviewed for jobs in New Orleans and Chicago. Both would presumably consider Lynn as a candidate to be their defensive coordinator. Whether either will land a job in this cycle, we don’t know. But make no mistake, the time is coming when USC will have to ward off an NFL team’s advances.
—The USC women showed in the fourth quarter in a win over Mayland why they’re national title contenders. JuJu Watkins had just drawn her fourth foul, and the Trojans were down seven with 5:15 remaining against a top-10 team on the road. But there was no panic. Freshman Kennedy Smith scored seven straight points, tying the score with a corner three. Rayah Marshall came up big down the stretch, dishing a key assist one play, then a key block the next. And with Watkins fouled out, freshman Avery Howell hit two free throws in the final seconds to finish Maryland off. “We just kind of have this unwavering confidence in ourselves,” Watkins said after. There’s not much this team doesn’t have at this point. Even the schedule opens up from here, with no ranked teams on the schedule until February.
—USC’s offensive line for next season is coming into focus. The addition of Syracuse center J’Onre “Big General” Reed gives USC critical help on the interior, where the situation was looking pretty dicey a few days earlier. Reed, who has two years of starting experience in the ACC, should slot in at center. USC’s other new transfer on the interior, DJ Wingfield, is likely to step in at left guard, while starters return at left tackle (Elijah Paige) and right guard (Alani Noa). The biggest question mark comes at right tackle. Tobias Raymond would likely get the nod if the season started today, but expect rising redshirt freshman Justin Tauanuu, who impressed down the stretch, to push him in fall camp.
Former employee sues USC for allegedly letting Mike Bohn harass her, then firing her
USC closes in on hiring Chad Savage to coach tight ends and inside receivers
Former Washington, Cal Poly quarterback Sam Huard transfers to USC
Desmond Claude scores 31 in USC’s defeat of No. 13 Illinois
No. 4 USC women rally to close first Big Ten road trip with win over No. 8 Maryland
USC men fade in second half of loss to Indiana
JuJu Watkins scores 23 points as USC hands Rutgers worst loss in school history
Our Times of Troy Best Picture Watch rolls on this week with “The Substance,” a horror satire of sorts in which Demi Moore plays a past-her-prime celebrity who uses a black-market drug called the Substance that creates a much younger version of herself. As you might imagine, there are unintended consequences.
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at ryan.kartje@latimes.com, and follow me on Twitter at @Ryan_Kartje. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
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Ryan Kartje is the USC beat writer at the Los Angeles Times. He joined The Times after six years with the Southern California News Group. A Michigan native and University of Michigan graduate, Kartje previously wrote for Fox Sports Wisconsin and the Bloomington (Ind.) Herald-Times.
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