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.
