USC guard Jeff Byers gives teammates the business
USC FOOTBALL FYI
The fifth-year senior is tapped by Coach Pete Carroll to provide a break from football and lecture his fellow Trojans on some off-the-field action: the U.S. economic crisis.
USC guard Jeff Byers is accustomed to motivating younger teammates and providing insight on the finer points of offensive line play.
So Byers, a fifth-year senior, was surprised last week when Coach Pete Carroll asked him to address the Trojans about another issue:
The U.S. economic crisis.
"Coach Carroll said he was looking for a coachable moment but wanted to get off the subject of football," said Byers, a graduate student in the USC Marshall School of Business.
Byers spoke to the team Friday, the night before the Trojans defeated Oregon to rebound from their upset loss at Oregon State.
The nearly five-minute address covered banks extending credit, borrowers failing to pay loans and related issues.
"There were some blank faces," Byers said, chuckling. "But there also are guys who are well read. They understand and are interested in what's going on.
"Hopefully, some people learned something."
Carroll gave Byers a thumbs up.
"We demonstrated that we all needed a little catching up," Carroll said. "We kind of had our heads buried in the sand for a while. Now, we're all well versed with the economic situation going on in the country."
gary.klein@latimes.com
