Assistants Feel the Heat With Hackett

As the pressure on Coach Paul Hackett intensifies with each loss, his coaching staff is feeling the heat as well. Not only are their jobs tied to his, there is an emotional cost to hearing criticism of the boss.

“I’m very affected by it when the leader is taking shots,” Kennedy Pola, who coaches the running backs, said. “We’re in this together.”

This is not the first losing season Pola has experienced at USC. He was a sophomore fullback on the 1983 team that went 4-6-1 including losses to UCLA and Notre Dame. But in that instance, he could point to a reason for the team’s struggles--John Robinson’s resignation the previous season.

“Man, he took my heart with him,” Pola said. “It was like that for a lot of the guys on the team. We were all recruited by Coach Robinson.”

This time around, in his first year back as an assistant, Pola has no explanation for why the Trojans have lost four consecutive games. However, he is not mystified that Hackett is on the hot seat, not after watching what became of Robinson, a coach he still speaks of reverently but who was fired after a 6-5 season in his second stint with the team.

“That’s USC,” Pola said. “If it could happen to a man like John Robinson, no one’s safe.”

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As has been the case after recent losses, Hackett has questioned several of the choices he made during the Stanford game, including his decision to run the ball on a critical third down in the final minutes. But the coach said losing has not caused him to doubt his abilities.

“I’ve been coaching a long time and you go through this,” he said. “Sometimes it seems to pile up on you but you know you’re doing the right thing and you keep on doing it.”

Hackett also said he is buoyed by the players, who have not pointed fingers or shown signs of slacking off in practice.

“That’s why I believe in this team, and that’s why I keep roaring,” he said. “The tide is going to turn for us.”

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USC will try to reverse its losing ways with a homecoming game against California at the Coliseum on Saturday. The Trojans have more victories against the Golden Bears than against any other team, holding a 54-28-5 advantage in a series that dates to 1915.

But recent history has not been nearly as kind. Cal has defeated the Trojans in three of their last four meetings and has not lost in the Coliseum since 1994.