In honor of USC-UCLA, we recogzine Mckay, Donahue

In honor of the USCUCLA rivalry this week’s Prognosticators column focuses on two of my favorite people in sports, legendary USC coach John Mckay and legendary UCLA coach Terry Donahue.

And yes there’s Six Degrees of Separation from the Porterville area with both men. Mckay and legendary Porterville Panther band director Buck Shaffer come from the same town, Shinnston, West Virginia. I found this out when I referred to Mckay in a column I wrote as sports editor during one of my previous tenures at The Recorder. Shaffer told me he and Mckay were from the same town and he said he would write Mckay a letter send him the column.

Mckay also provided my favorite all-time sports quote when he coached the expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers. When asked about his team’s execution, Mckay replied, “I’m all for it.” I have to admit sometimes when it comes to the execution of our picks as prognosticators — especially in the last couple of weeks — “I’m all for it.”

I also had the chance to interview Donahue who played in a fundraising golf tournament at River Island following his retirement as UCLA coach after the 1995 season. He retired with a five-game winning streak against USC.

When I asked him about retiring with a five-game winning streak against USC, Donahue said, “It doesn’t get any better than that.”

Fellow Strathmore High graduate Larry Stewart, the long-time Tv/radio sports columnist for the Los Angeles Times, became good friends with Donahue.

The USC-UCLA game is a tricky one to pick as the Bruins appear to be the better team, but are coming off doing that face plant against Arizona, and the Trojans tend to play to the level of their competition. Of course I’m going with my alma mater, USC.

Here’s hoping we prognosticators execute better in our picks this week. And of course as always we encourage you to frequent the businesses of our prognosticators whenever possible. And as always we wish you a blessed week.