Blue Bayou
RIVER RIDGE, LA. — Reggie Bush went from USC to New Orleans and the "next" Reggie is going from New Orleans to USC.
Reverse direction, isn't that what the great tailbacks do?
If this seems like tossing an expectations piano on the back of a kid days removed from his senior prom, well, 1) no one seems to mind and 2) maybe you haven't seen Joe McKnight's highlights on YouTube.
To suggest, as some have, that McKnight's Internet scrapbook doesn't measure up to Bush's montage from La Mesa Helix High is to argue the merits of strawberry ice cream versus chocolate.
Maybe Bush's knee-jerk moves separated more opposing linebackers from their cleats. Maybe Bush was a tick faster. Maybe he had a better film editor.
In person, granted, McKnight doesn't necessarily strike you as USC's eighth Heisman Trophy winner.
Plopped down in his high school coach's office, between classes, he is wearing a fire engine-red polo shirt, jeans and tan work boots. He is not particularly tall (6 feet), big (190 pounds) or imposing.
USC's extraction of McKnight out of Louisiana, however, has been equated to a Bayou Brink's Robbery.
J.T. Curtis, football coach at the John Curtis Christian School, and son of the man who founded the private school in 1962, was supposed to deliver the goods to Louisiana State.
"For Joe to go to LSU, I'm the hero, but that wasn't what Joe wanted to do," Curtis barked from behind his desk. "I was not disloyal to my state. I was loyal to my player."
The backlash has been, in the finest Southern football tradition, unkind.
"Some said I didn't have any state pride by not staying home," McKnight said. "Some would say that I'll go out there [to USC] and sit on the bench for three years."
And the ultimate insult: "Some said I was scared to play in the SEC."
Louisiana has not taken this well.
While performing in this year's Mardi Gras parade, the Curtis School's marching band got jeered.
A member of the band came back and informed J.T.: "You're marching in the next one! They want to kill you and Joe."
Curtis has been told he is "the most hated guy in the LSU community."
John Curtis Christian, located in Jefferson Parish about 10 miles from downtown New Orleans, has won 21 state football titles since 1975, including last year's 2A division crown.
It is now also known as the school that let Joe go.
