Man Without a Game : For Most of Last Three Decades, Donahue Worried About USC, but Not This Week

Terry Donahue swung his golf club smoothly and watched the ball soar into the bright blue sky.

Without a cloud on the horizon, with barely a breeze rippling the colorful fall leaves, what better place to spend the third Monday in November than on a golf course?

Wait a minute. Terry Donahue? The third Monday in November? A golf course?

Something seemed wrong, out of kilter.

And understandably so. When you change your routine for the first time in a quarter century, there are going to be some unsettling feelings.

For the last 25 years, and 28 of the last 32, Donahue has spent the third Monday in November far from a golf course, concentrating and working and agonizing over the upcoming UCLA-USC game, only six days away.

Donahue’s wife, Andrea, described the sight of her husband playing golf the week of the UCLA-USC game as “an out-of-body experience.”

Donahue wasn’t a Bruin forever. It only seems that way. He spent three years in Westwood as a player, five as an assistant coach and the last 20 as UCLA’s head football coach until his retirement at the end of last season.

And every one of those seasons, good and bad, had a huge showdown battle against the Trojans near the end of November.

“I was in Fiesta Bowls and Cotton Bowls, but nothing else except the Rose Bowl could rival the SC game,” Donahue said. “The wins were sweet, oh so sweet, and the defeats were as bitter as they can be.

“It was a wild experience. So exciting. You’d come out of that tunnel when we played in the Coliseum, and half the stadium would be going crazy for you and half would be going crazy for them.”

How big was this game?

As head coach, Donahue would begin preparing his players for it in the spring.

He would come up to players working out at spring practice, mention the date of the USC game more than six months away and tell them, “That’s the game of the year.”

And in Donahue’s eyes, regardless of what transpired beforehand, it was the game of the year.

“Every coach who has ever worked at UCLA knew he was going to have to beat SC, at least once in a while, to survive,” Donahue said.

And that was the case with him, as well.

In 1976, Donahue became the head coach of the Bruins at only 31 and learned fast, piling up a 9-0-1 record and the No. 2 ranking in the nation by the time he faced USC.

Across town, the Trojans were also having a successful season under their new coach, John Robinson. They came into the 1976 showdown game a step behind the Bruins at 9-1, ranked third in the nation.

Donahue vs. Robinson for the first of many times.

For Donahue, it felt like the worst of times when the Trojans raced to a 24-0 lead and cruised to a 24-14 victory.

“To me, it seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime had slipped through my fingertips,” Donahue said.

And for the first time, Donahue felt what it was like to be the point man for the wave of criticism that crashes down on the loser of the UCLA-USC battle.

“People get really upset when you don’t win that game,” Donahue said. “Whichever coach loses is going to take a brutal beating. And oftentimes, unjustifiably so.

“The first time I had to go through that beating, it made a lasting impression. It was probably the worst time because it was the first time. When you don’t win, the phone doesn’t ring. People don’t know what to say to you. People write negative things in the newspapers and say them on the talk shows. Everything hinges on that game.”

By 1980, Donahue figured his job hinged on it. He was in his fifth year as Bruin head coach and had not beaten the Trojans.

“There were rumors running rampant that I was going to get fired,” Donahue said, “even though I had a winning record, and even though I had taken UCLA to two bowl games in four years. Normally, that is not a reason to be fired. But the fact is, I hadn’t beaten SC in four years.”

Donahue finally accomplished that feat at the end of that 1980 season, winning, 20-17, on a touchdown pass from Jay Schroeder to Freeman McNeil with just over two minutes to play.

Of all his games against USC, perhaps the most important was the last one. When Donahue’s Bruins beat Robinson’s Trojans, 24-20, last season, it made Donahue the winningest coach in Pacific 10 Conference history with 98 victories, and gave Donahue a winning lifetime record against USC at 10-9-1, not to mention giving him his fifth consecutive victory over the Trojans.

All those numbers gave some closure to Donahue, who then left to become a commentator for CBS. He says he wasn’t sure what he was going to do heading into that game.

“I just didn’t know,” Donahue explained. “Winning that game made it easier to leave. Otherwise, I just might have stayed to take care of unfinished business.”

Donahue has not second-guessed his decision to give up a lifetime on the field in order to sit in a broadcast booth. He even turned down a tempting offer last week to interview for the vacant head coaching job at Notre Dame.

But, Donahue admits, he’ll feel a sense of loss this week.

From a distance.

Donahue will be in Florida to cover the Miami-Boston College game. And maybe that’s just as well.

“The first week of the season and this week have been the hardest,” he said. “It makes me think, ‘What in the world am I doing?’ Some feelings of melancholy and nostalgia have set in.

“I like my job. I’m doing well at it. But part of me says, ‘You’re a coach. You’re supposed to be coaching. Where’s your team?’ ”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

USC vs. UCLA

Saturday, Rose Bowl

Channel 7, 12:30 p.m.