Tag: usc athletics

USC hires Julie Rousseau to chair Black Lives Matter Action Team

The USC Trojans have hired former LA Sparks and Pepperdine Waves head coach Julie Rousseau to chair the Black Lives Matter Action Team.

The USC Trojans have hired Dr. Julie Rousseau to be the chair of the athletic department’s new Black Lives Matter Action Team, according to a release on Twitter Tuesday morning.

“We are incredibly fortunate to have someone with Dr. Rousseau’s experience, compassion and ability to connect with people to lead this effort,” AD Mike Bohm wrote in a statement.

Rousseau is a native of Los Angeles who played college basketball at UC-Irvine in the early 1980’s. She moved her way up the coaching ranks after her playing career ended, eventually coaching the Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA for parts of two seasons in 1997 and 1998. She was also an assistant at Stanford from 2000-2004 and the head coach of the Pepperdine Waves from 2004-2013.

“A native of Los Angeles with experiences as a student-athlete, college and professional coach, and educator, Julie is uniquely qualified to lead our USC athletics Black Lives Matter Action Team,” Bohm said in a statement. “Julie’s passion and vision, strong leadership skills and outstanding reputation, as well as her innovative academic background, make her a wonderful fit to guide this critically important initiative.”

The Black Lives Matter Action Team will work with student-athletes to “ensure that all voices are equally represented.”

[lawrence-related id=10559]

USC: Trojans reported zero positive COVID-19 tests last week

The USC Trojans tested 120 student-athletes last week for COVID-19, and for the first time they did not yield a single positive test.

The USC Trojans have continued to report good news in the results of their testing of returning student-athletes for COVID-19. The latest result included testing on 120 student-athletes, and zero of them were reported positive.

That means out of 437 total tests done since the middle of June, only seven student-athletes tested positive, and they were all put into isolation. This is the first week where testing resulted in zero positive tests at USC.

USC tested “student-athletes who are participating in on-campus workouts in the Phase 1, 2 and 3 sports of football, men’s water polo, women’s soccer, women’s volleyball, and men’s and women’s basketball”.

The Trojans are two weeks away from the start of fall football camp, assuming it does not get delayed.

USC entered Phase 3 of its offseason workouts on July 13, which allows incoming freshmen to join the roster.

When they will be able to move past that phase, with actual physical contact, remains to be seen, but last week’s results are a good sign going forward.

[lawrence-related id=9836]