Former USC basketball player Chad Baker-Mazara has joined the Gigantes de Carolina-Canóvanas team of Puerto Rico’s BSN, the team announced.

Former USC football player Uchenna Nwosu’s foundation donated $10,000 to St. Pius X-St. Matthias High School this week.
Former USC women’s basketball player Kiki Iriafen has been named a WNBA All -Star for the second straight season.

And now for some history:
With the Major League All-Star Game approaching, here’s a good piece of trivia: USC has had three players selected twice. In 1979, Steve Kemp, Fred Lynn and Roy Smalley on the American League. In 2003, Aaron Boone, Mark Prior and Geoff Jenkins on the National League.

There are simply not enough good pictures of one of the greatest Trojans of all time, Gus Williams. But here is one of Williams in 1975 vs. UCLA and forward Richard Washington. Williams averaged 21.2 points and 5.4 assists this season (without a 3-point line). UCLA won this game, 89-84.

The above 1953 picture shows USC running back Addison Hawthorne (23), who joined the team in 1952. Hawthorne was the first African-American to play at USC since All-American Brice Taylor in 1925. But few discuss him today.

He was a well-known player at Pasadena City College and one wonders what he endured if there was a 27-year absence of African-American players at USC. And what changed after Taylor that no African-Americans were on the team for such a long time?

If you think it was all just a sign of the times, remember stars like Kenny Washington, Jackie Robinson and Woody Strode played at UCLA in 1939. So let’s appreciate Hawthorne, who is a historical figure with USC football.

A DIFFERENT WORLD

The USC campus isn’t exactly a hub of activity during Christmas break. And getting people to show up two days after Christmas would be a chore.

But that wasn’t the case in 1945. USC was playing Alabama in the Rose Bowl and a huge, star-studded rally before a packed audience on Dec. 27, 1945 at Bovard Auditorium.

Who showed up? Movie stars like John Wayne, Gail Russell, Barbara Hale and Diana Lynn along with Coach Jeff Cravath and the USC football team. Band leader Alvino Rey provided the musical entertainment. Even some Alabama students showed up.

Wayne and Russell were set to shoot the classic Western, “Angel and the Badman” in four months, which probably explained why Russell attended the rally. Hale later became best known as a regular cast member on “Perry Mason” while Lynn was only 19 at the time of the rally but was well known and ended up with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Gail Russell

Does anyone remember Johnny Wilson’s Ready Room? It was a popular restautant located on Restaurant Row on La Cienega Blvd.

It opened in 1945 and didn’t close until 1989. But did you know who Johnny Wilson was? He went to USC and was the NCAA champion in the high jump in 1939 and tied for the title in the event at the 1940 NCAA championships. He cleared 6-feet, 6-inches both years and this was 30 years before the Fosbury Flop was invented.

PICTURE OF THE WEEK

InsideUSC with Scott Wolf

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