John McKay

Rich Shmelter historian, podcaster and author of multiple gridiron books including The USC Trojans Football Encyclopedia joins us to chat about one of the greatest coaching eras in football, when John McKay roamed the sidelines of Southern Cal.

Our friend historian and author Rich Shmelter is passionate about USC football amongst other things. One of the greatest eras of USC Trojan football was the period that John McKay coached the team from 1960 through the 1975 season. Winning four National Championships, having multiple Heisman winners, and countless players that went pro, Coach McKay knew how to build a winner. His teams also had three unbeaten seasons, won nine conference titles, went to eight Rose Bowls and had a 16-year won-lost record of 127-40-8, making McKay the winningest coach in Trojan football history. His record in his last 14 seasons – before he left to coach in the NFL for upstart Tampa Bay was 119-29-7.

Rich points out that after a rough couple of early seasons at Southern Cal he instilled a new success rate using the I-Formation with running backs like Mike Garrett, O J Simpson, Clarence Davis, Anthony Davis, and Ricky Bell. Other skill players like Pat Haden, his son J K McKay, Lynn Swann, Sam Cunningham, Charlie Young, Richard Wood, Jimmy Jones, and Mike Rae.

The picture in the banner above is from the Wikimedia Commons and not that John McKay was involved with this game but USC was, and the cover art is fantstic. It is a cropped version of the December 14, 1935 Official Football Program for the USC versus Pittsburgh game from the Associated Students, University of Southern California.

Information was thankfully provided by Rich Schmelter.