So who goofed on this rumor? Pete has to know
So the way Hans hears it from Scheibe, both guys working in the office here, there’s this Cardinal & Gold bigwig who says Pete Carroll will be the next coach of the San Diego Chargers.
Now I know Pete doesn’t like to talk NFL unless it’s with a team owner who has landed his private plane in some faraway land, but I brought it up at his news conference Tuesday for personal reasons.
As I told him later, I’ve spent the last seven years doing everything I could to build him up, and if he goes to the Chargers it’s going to just kill me to start tearing him down.
“I just want you to confirm for me that you will never work for the Spanos Goofs,” I said.
Right away Pete says, “They’re working their tails off to have a good season down there right now. First place as a matter of fact. They’re doing pretty good.”
Now ordinarily Pete will tell you he has no idea what’s going on anywhere about anything when you talk to him during the football season. But even though the Chargers have lost five games, he knows they’re still tied for first place, and what does that tell you?
He also has Matt Spanos playing center, and you know what that means. Do I have to spell it out?
WE TOOK the conversation outside later, standing almost in the same place where he stood nearly a year ago talking about his courtship with Miami Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga.
I told him I wasn’t going to say anything about Norv Turner, Arizona State’s Dennis Erickson “or anybody else who obviously couldn’t cut it as a NFL coach,” and he starts pointing to his chest like I might be talking about him.
It was so long ago that he couldn’t hack it as a NFL coach that I hardly remembered, I told him, more concerned right now with the fact he hasn’t denied the report about the Chargers’ job.
“Where do you get this stuff?” he says, while wanting to know all about Hans & Scheibe, who are quickly becoming the Woodward & Bernstein of our time.
“Where did they get this story?” he asked, and my first guess would be Jim Harbaugh.
I know this, though, you call the sports department and Scheibe usually answers the phone, so I’m not surprised he got the story first.
As for Hans, someone is always out to get USC as far he is concerned, so I would imagine he’d be the first to know if the Goofs were trying to take the Trojans’ head coach.
“Just tell me you’ll never work for the Goofs,” I said.
Pete smiled, turned to walk away and left only two words behind: “Plausible deniability,” he said.
And you know what that means -- it’s almost that time of year again.
A FEW minutes later we ran into each other once more.
“I’ve got to do a radio show,” Pete said with a mischievous grin. “Oh, that’s right, you don’t have a show anymore, do you?”
As you might’ve already noticed, he always wins.
THE FAVORITE now to walk off with this year’s Heisman Trophy, sophomore quarterback Tim Tebow, visited USC on a recruiting trip two years ago. Tebow picked Florida over USC, Alabama, Michigan and LSU.
Makes you wonder now if Tebow had signed with the Trojans -- would he still be sitting behind John David Booty?
I WISH I could have been everywhere in L.A. on Tuesday afternoon -- watching the reaction on the faces of Lakers fans when they heard the bulletin: “The Lakers just made a trade,” only to learn later the Kobester was still here.
THE trials for the Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity are Friday, as if that really concerns Kiddy Up, who basically called it quits after winning $50,000 for Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA.
Kiddy Up’s tongue will be tied down in an effort to make him run faster, and if I had a dime for every time the wife suggested tying down the tongue of Kiddy Up’s owner . . . although I have no idea what she has against Ed Allred.
The 10 fastest of 74 horses running Friday night will qualify for the Two Million on Dec. 14. A year ago Blues Girl Too won the big race and the owners took home $816,480.
Blues Girl Too was trained by Joe Bassett, who is the son of John Bassett, who deserves all the credit for training Kiddy Up to be so nice to other horses and allowing them to go ahead and finish first.
THE PATRIOTS are a 22-point favorite to beat Philadelphia this week. The biggest point spread in NFL history?
Not according to Robert Walker, the sports book director extraordinaire for MGM Mirage. The Steelers were 24-point favorites over the John McKay Tampa Bay Bucs in 1976. The Bucs lost to Pittsburgh, 42-0, and fell to 0-13.
By the way, Walker has already made the Patriots a 16-point pick to beat the Cowboys in the Super Bowl.
TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Colleen:
“My cousin is in the final losing battle of his more than valiant seven-year war with cancer, my son is still out of work, my Mom is getting older, but as I say -- she’s still a pain in the butt, and above all, I hate the upcoming holidays. I’m not really as grouchy as you or as I sound, but after reading your column today about pure pleasure, I remembered things I haven’t thought of in so long.
“I remember having chickenpox really bad when I was eight, but my Mom coming home from work in the middle of the day to pick me up and take me to downtown Pittsburgh in her old Chevy when the Pirates won the ’60 World Series so I could see the entire city go absolutely NUTS! I remember my son hitting a home run in a baseball tournament to win the game just as it was announced that my ticket won the 50-50 drawing and I won $88 . . .
“But most of all, my grandkids are the best and I know exactly what you mean by pure pleasure.”
I know we certainly want more, even though it means urging the daughter to spend more time with the Bagger.
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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.