USC's In Dire Need Of An Image Makeover

USC's athletic programs have been getting rightfully shit-winded by all of this O.J. Mayo mess in the last couple days (and, before that, Reggie Bush) but it'll be tough to find a more comprehensive list of the school's indiscretions during the Pete Carroll/Tim Floyd eras than the one put together by Bruins Nation.

Sure, the site is unapologetically anti-USC, but it is rather alarming to see how deep and descriptive this list actually is. Here are some of the highlights from the 46 incidents the blog has pulled together just from a little Google-searching:

• On March 3, 2004, Winston Justice was arrested on suspicion of felony assault with a deadly weapon. On June 15, 2004, Justice pleaded no contest to exhibition of a replica firearm. Justice was sentenced to 60 days of electronic monitoring and three years' probation. Justice was also suspended for two semesters by USC's student affairs committee after his arrest.

• On December 4, 2006, former USC stand-out, and former Rams rookie, tight end Dominique Byrd was arrested for allegedly hitting a bar patron in the face with a drinking glass. Byrd was charged with second- and third-degree assault and armed criminal action. He was released shortly after posting a $25,000 bond. In early May, 2008, Byrd was scheduled to go to trial in St. Louis Circuit Court on felony charges of assault and armed criminal action stemming from the nightclub scuffle in December 2006. In March 2007, he was charged with DUI in California. In October 2007, he pleaded no contest to the DUI charge and received three years' probation. In May 2008, Byrd was released by the Rams.

• On May 6, 2008, it was announced that USC's men's basketball team was the only major athletic program in the Southland penalized with scholarship losses as the result of a poor performance in the NCAA's academic progress rate. The Trojans were penalized in part because Lodrick Stewart, Nick Young and Gabe Pruitt stopped attending class after the 2007 season, and because three players transferred within the same season. USC's APR score of 804 was 121 points below the minimum-acceptable mark, and stemmed from various academic problems, including Gabe Pruitt's academic ineligibility for the fall 2006 semester, and his ineligibility again following the spring 2007 semester. USC served the penalty during the 2007-08 season.

And so on, and so on, and so on...

Maybe Charlie Weis was actually referring to USC when he made his questionable remarks at that Notre Dame alumni dinner a few weeks ago. If so, well, he might have actually had a point.

Pete Carroll, Tim Floyd, USC And Scandal [Bruins Nation]

PHOTO: LA Times blog