FIGHT ON!

 

One of the axioms of the University of Southern California, is that “you are a Trojan for Life.” Well, maybe not so much.

Frank Price, the erstwhile CEO of Columbia Pictures and the former President of Universal Pictures, phoned to say that the new University President was demanding diversity throughout all alumni boards and that old white guys were being targeted for “retirement.” Next to Frank (who has been asked to step down from the chairmanship of the group that includes Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Bob Zemeckis and a gaggle of studio heads), I am the oldest on the School of Cinematic Art’s Board of Councilors. I am Caucasian, and certainly among that group, the least impressive in terms of title and rank in “the industry.” My over 30 years on that board is now at an end.

Morituri te salutant.

None of this impacts on tonight’s Elite Eight NCAA basketball match-up between “my” Trojans and Gonzaga, my wife’s almost alma mater. “Almost,” since Sharon, too, received a termination notice from her University, albeit somewhat earlier than mine. Hers came near the end of her sophomore year back in the 1960s… something to do with… well, if you want to know more you will have wait for the Simon & Schuster fall release of her memoir, APPARENTLY THERE WERE COMPLAINTS. It is due on the stands, December 7 (I know, I know… “a day that will live in infamy”).

Back to tonight’s game:  despite disenfranchisement, I will be wearing my deferential Cardinal & Gold Trojan underwear while Sharon, I am sure, will wear the appropriate thing for one schooled for an entire year by Jesuits. Something, I am guessing, in the school’s Blue & White with an inscription… probably in Latin:

Morituri te salutant?

 

Barney Rosenzweig