“Heads.”
“Heads it is. USC has won the toss.”
Southern California football team, considered one of the best in the nation this decade, march back to the sideline after winning the toss, head coach Pete Carroll secretly thanks his own coach -- Bob Troppman, former coach of the Redwood football team.
Why would one of the most successful college football coaches ever thank his high school football coach for winning a coin flip? Because before every USC game, Pete Carroll calls Troppman on the phone asking what his players should call for the toss.
Carroll, a 1969 Redwood graduate, grew up in Greenbrae and played football, basketball, and baseball while in high school. Carroll won Redwood’s Athlete of the Year award in 1969. He continued on to College of Marin to play football for two years. Carroll later went on to Pacific University to play as a safety, and later coached there. After 15 seasons in the NFL as assistant coach in Buffalo, Minnesota, San Francisco, and head coach for the New York (Jets) and New England, USC hired Carroll to be the head coach of the team.
In the seven years Carroll has been the head coach at USC, he has won a record five Bowl Conference Series games, two national championships, six consecutive Pacific 10 Conference championships, four Pac 10 Coach of the Year awards, and has an 84.4% winning percentage, the highest among active college coaches.
