Back when legendary football coach John McKay and his assistant Al Davis were at USC, a stocky, crew-cut freshman named Ed Roski Jr. tried hard to get their attention.
Day after day, Roski jumped onto the field as one of the red-shirted linemen--the wannabes who routinely took a beating from the traveling team on the slim hope of making the roster. Bull-strong as he was, the 5-foot-9-inch Roski never made it. He went on to graduate; served as a Marine infantryman in Vietnam, where he was wounded; then quietly amassed a fortune by expanding his father's real estate business.
For the Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday February 17, 1999 Home Edition Business Part C Page 3 Financial Desk 1 inches; 20 words Type of Material: Correction
John McKay--A story Sunday on real estate developer Ed Roski Jr. incorrectly referred to former USC football coach John McKay as deceased.
Now, some 40 years later, the millionaire developer and avid outdoorsman is nearing the critical moment of his second, equally daunting football quest--this time as a would-be owner of an NFL team that would play at USC's home field, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Along with Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, Roski has been championing pro football's return to a renovated Coliseum for nearly two years, despite widespread skepticism that the vaunted NFL would ever come back to the storied but aging stadium and its locale in the image-marred community of South-Central Los Angeles.
Early on, Roski was "like the lone missionary out in the wilderness," said Leigh Steinberg, the noted sports lawyer and agent in Newport Beach.
But Steinberg and many others, including Roski's new financial partner, billionaire Eli Broad, now seem convinced that the so-called New Coliseum venture has the best shot at winning the NFL's 32nd franchise. A decision could come as early as Tuesday, at the league owners' next meeting in Atlanta.
The NFL is considering a rival bid from former Hollywood super-agent Michael Ovitz, who has assembled a star-studded cast--including Tom Cruise and Kevin Costner--to back the idea of a glitzy new stadium in the South Bay city of Carson. There is also a third proposal, from Houston.
The league has hinted it might forgo naming a specific owner or stadium site and instead award a franchise to Los Angeles, hoping that would touch off an auction that could fetch $750 million or more for the expansion club. Even so, analysts think Roski will prevail, especially now that he has the financial commitment from Broad, whose civic leadership and close ties to Mayor Richard Riordan also enhance the political support for the New Coliseum effort.
