Usc Misery Something To Cherish

First O.J.

Now this.

The haughty football heritage of the University of Southern California took another hit Saturday - a fine thing under any circumstance, but mere backwash in the giddy geyser that irrigated Washington State’s rendezvous with history.

If misery is too good for the Trojans, euphoria will barely suffice for the Cougars.

But in any case, we don’t venerate dragons - just dragonslayers. And with one pass, one catch, one lightning bolt of nerve and a bold stroke of greatness, the Cougs of 1997 carved out an identity Saturday that will never erode.

They beat the Trojans 28-21 at the Coliseum, the aftershocks still cracking the concrete as you read this. No, they didn’t rewrite four decades of futile history.

But they did make it irrelevant. “My dad, when he was playing, it was like, ‘Dang, we haven’t won here in 20 years,”’ said flanker Shawn McWashington, inadvertently making his father, Ammon (WSU ‘66), 10 years younger. “Now I’m playing and we haven’t won here in 40 years. It’s like a centennial or something.

“You’ve got to put an end to it sometime.”

This was the time. The perfect time.

This was the most vulnerable the Trojans could be expected to be - their once-majestic running game a mess, their athletes downright ordinary in a few key places.

And these may be the most unflappable Cougs in memory.

“We just,” said linebacker Steve Gleason, “held together.”

That they did. As breathtaking as the one-handed snag Kevin McKenzie turned into the winning touchdown was, it was no more remarkable than Wazzu’s resiliency in the second half. Having lost time and again here by burying themselves early, the Cougars this time played flawlessly for a half to give themselves a chance - and then stubbornly refused to turn loose of it.

They brought a 21-6 lead out of the locker room at halftime and lost a game of chicken with R. Jay Soward on the opening kickoff - disturbing deja vu from last year’s loss to USC in Pullman.

“But what we told them,” said defensive coordinator Bill Doba, “was to look at the scoreboard. We were still up eight.”

And when the Trojans finally persisted to tie the score on a trick play - oh, how low will this proud program stoop? - the mood on the Wazzu sideline was anything but funereal.

“We were just,” said quarterback Ryan Leaf, “a big play away.”

Two, actually, and both by McKenzie - a slick move to get shockingly open for a 31-yard gain on third-and-12 from the Wazzu 18, and then the Velcro catch for the touchdown. That they came out of nowhere - the Cougs had done nothing offensively in the second half to that point - moved McKenzie to tears and giant linemen to intoxicated ballet.

“It was a personal thing,” said McKenzie, billed as a big-play package ever since he joined the Cougars and finally proving it on the biggest stage of all.

“I had to overcome the game I had two weeks ago (against UCLA) - it wasn’t too good. I had to dig down deep inside and I did.”

In many respects, the deep digging began when the schedule was finally announced in the spring - pitting the Cougs against UCLA and USC back-to-back. Having never beaten the two Los Angeles titans in the same season, the Cougars were now going to try and do it in the same fortnight.

Coach Mike Price allowed himself one whispered cussword and then went to work convincing his players it could be done.

And now that they have?

“Just another game,” said Leaf.

Uh-huh. Just another win for Jason McEndoo, Cory Withrow and Ryan McShane, who wrestled one another to the turf in front of the sliver of Cougar fans in a crowd of 51,655. Just another win for Doba and Jim Zeches and Mike Walker and all the assistant coaches who hugged one another hard enough to leave scars.

Just another game for Leaf, who stormed up the Coliseum tunnel roaring, “Who’s the only quarterback to beat SC?”

(Ed Blount and Bob Newman come to mind, and we can research the others - but yes, Ryan, it’s a select fraternity.)

“Hey, you’ve got to celebrate,” Leaf said. “Forty years of losing down here is over. No one can say that again. They’ll put it in the history book that we beat them in 1997. Of course, it wouldn’t be history if we hadn’t lost the last 40 years.”

Within the next few days, the Cougs will have to file it away, of course, and turn to the decidedly less glamorous assignment of playing Illinois. They’ll have to convince themselves that this is just a blossom and not the whole beanstock.

But in time, they’ll come back to this game, this moment, this slice of history.

“Over the summertime,” said defensive tackle Leon Bender, one of the 44 Californians on the Cougar roster, “for those of us who come back here, everybody’s talking trash. You know, ‘When we play you, we’re going to beat you, you’re nothin’.’ Well, talk is cheap. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop talking.

“It was never just another game. I don’t think it’ll ever be just another game.”

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review