Raveling Regrets Speaking Out on Job

George Raveling, USC’s basketball coach, used his weekly luncheon Monday to say that he wished he had not spoken so freely last Saturday after losing to Arizona State.

Although the Trojans have floundered, Raveling’s job was thought to be secure until he said Saturday that it might be in jeopardy.

With no prompting from reporters after the 67-62 defeat, Raveling had said: “They might let me go at the end of the season, but I sure as hell ain’t going to worry about it.

“Let me tell you, I’m 51 years old and there’s a lot of damn things Raveling can do well in life besides coach basketball. Why should I worry about it? And I think I can do a better job because I’m not feeling insecure.

“I’m smart enough to know that there are people who are upset. But the worst thing I can do is to get into a mind-set where I’m running scared. Then that gets into the kids.”

After the comments appeared in print Sunday, Raveling’s phone rang frequently as coaching colleagues called to offer sympathy and support. Bob Knight of Indiana and John Thompson of Georgetown were among those who phoned, Raveling said.

“If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t have said what I said,” Raveling said Monday. “I don’t blame you guys (reporters) for what you did because you had a job to do. I allowed myself to get into a posture where I thought we were just sitting around shooting the breeze, and I probably said something that I shouldn’t have said.”

Although he didn’t claim to have been misquoted, Raveling said that his postgame comments were taken more seriously than he intended.

“Basically, the mistake I made was that I kind of just felt we were sitting around talking and I forgot that you guys were doing your job because it wasn’t really a situation where I meant to get it blown up into the way it turned out Sunday.

“All I ended up doing was screwing up my Sunday morning. The damn phone started ringing from coast to coast all morning long.”

Raveling reiterated that he isn’t under fire from school officials. He reportedly has 2 seasons left on a 5-year contract.

“I didn’t mean to indicate to anybody that there was any kind of overt or covert pressure on me to win,” he said. “Obviously, that’s the name of the game, but I didn’t mean to give people the impression that I was feeling the pressure.”

USC Notes

After USC center Chris Munk had been ejected from the Trojans’ 28-point loss to Arizona Thursday night, Wildcat center Anthony Cook charged that Munk had hit him below the belt. After viewing a videotape of the game, USC Coach George Raveling said that Munk had not delivered a cheap shot.