Lincoln Riley and USC have spent the first three weeks of the season proving how dominant they are on the field and the past few days proving how dumb and petty they are off of it.
On Tuesday, Riley’s program “suspended” Luca Evans, who, contrary to what the Trojans would like to believe, does not work for the team and is, in fact, a first-year USC beat writer at the Orange Country Register.
Evans’ offenses include quoting freshman tailback Quinten Joyner at a USC media availability — but not during the part where the team wanted him to talk — as well as saying hello to players and staffers he saw around campus and emailing various athletic department officials to introduce himself as the new guy in town.
For these egregious crimes against Trojans football, USC is blocking Evans’ access for two weeks. The Orange County Register reported Riley “took issue” with Evans’ rather charming profile of Joyner in which he detailed an innocuous quip between Joyner and teammate Braylan Shelby where the latter asked the notoriously shy Joyner if the team had already told him what to say.
As if it’s not already widely known college athletes are coached on how to speak to reporters.
“I don’t feel like we have too many rules, too many policies,” Riley said of Evans’ banishment, according to the Orange County Register’s Jim Alexander. “But the ones that we do have, we take them seriously, because my first job – even though it is part of my job – is not to the media, it’s not to the fans, it’s not to anybody else. It’s to protecting our players. And that is first and foremost, that will always be priority number one.”
Ok, Lincoln. Sure. A human moment between a burgeoning star and a teammate must be protected at all costs. Let’s not even get into the hypocrisy of Riley suggesting his job isn’t to capitulate to the media.
And never mind that Riley just created the type of distraction that coaches loathe, nor the fact he pulled a similar move before at Oklahoma. The end result of this nonsense will probably annoy USC beyond the current PR headache.
Let me give you a little peek behind the curtain of a beat writer’s life: When you are covering a team full-time, it is your job to be at every single team event and availability. Often times this takes a reporter away from larger projects they’d really like to (read: should) be working on. Beat writers tend to look like they’re traveling as a herd, because, well, most times they are.
That’s just the way big-time college programs like it. Keep all of the people reporting on you occupied in one room and you’ll almost always know what they’re up to. The Trojans just cut Evans off from the herd, giving him two weeks to wander on his own and focus on more in-depth reporting elsewhere — in addition to raising his national profile by putting him in this position. Because, again, Evans does not work for USC and “suspending” him will not stop him from working.
Trust me, Luca, I’ve been there. This may feel horrible now, but it’s nothing more than a massive opportunity and you’ve got brighter days ahead.
Riley, on the other hand, will have to live with the reputation of a vindictive and fragile man. USC will follow his lead, of course, because unlike everything else in this situation, that’s the only real power he has.