Pete Carroll

Pete Carroll is leaving the practice field wearing a gray sweatshirt, khakis, athletic shoes. Joe Paterno is headed to the practice field wearing a gray sweatshirt, khakis, athletic shoes. One difference. The cuffs. True to his legend, even on a stroll through a hotel lobby when next to nobody is watching, Paterno's cuffs are rolled up above his shoes, the quintessential 1920s hipster. Says Carroll: "I love those cuffs, I really love them.

Pete Carroll is back in town and onstage. He's sitting beside Lou Zamperini . They are here in the Clive Davis Theater in the Grammy Museum at L.A. Live. It's a "Winforever" event, Pete Carroll's approach to achieving success, which probably should be called "Winoccasionally" since he moved to Seattle. Uncle Pete is not amused, and right away it's like old times. Zamperini is 95, a former USC student and inspirational speaker now. He's telling everyone what it was like to be stranded on a raft in the Pacific Ocean for 47 days during World War II, no drinking water after a while, wrestling sharks and eating a four-footer's liver to remain alive.

Back when he was USC's coach, Pete Carroll had high hopes of recruiting Tim Tebow. Tebow and his father visited Los Angeles and went to the 2004 UCLA-USC game at the Rose Bowl, where Reggie Bush punctuated a 66-yard touchdown run with a flip into the end zone. "They were phenomenal," recalled Tebow, who was hosted by Mark Sanchez, Patrick Turner and Jeff Byers on his visit. "It was exciting. It was a good trip. " That's what Carroll thought. So he was optimistic when he made a trip to the Tebow family farm outside Jacksonville, Fla., bringing assistants Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian with him. "Everything was going great, and we were real excited about the home visit," Carroll said.

As Atlanta's left tackle and a former four-year starter at USC, Sam Baker catches a lot of good-natured grief around Falcons headquarters about his unwavering admiration of Pete Carroll. That was ramped up last week as the Falcons prepared to play Carroll's Seattle Seahawks in the divisional round of the playoffs. So Baker playfully fired back at teammates and coaches by carrying around a copy of Carroll's book and making reference to it, whether the reference was legitimate or not. Dirk Koetter, Falcons offensive coordinator, wanted to put in a new wrinkle?

Two months into the season, Steve Sarkisian needs a thesaurus to describe his first try at being a head coach. Amazing. Disappointing. Hard to explain. "I feel like every game gets crazier and crazier," he said recently. Hard to deny that Sarkisian has done a reasonable job of leading Washington back from last year's winless debacle. But with the 3-5 Huskies visiting the Rose Bowl to face UCLA on Saturday, he gets measured by another standard. It's the same benchmark facing Lane Kiffin at Tennessee and DeWayne Walker at New Mexico State.

From Seattle It's dark outside the Seahawks' practice facility, Uncle Pete working all day on a plan to keep Reggie Bush from hurting him. Now isn't that funny, if not a little late. The two will be together Sunday in New Orleans, two of the most dynamic sports figures to hit Los Angeles, Bush known best for his (family) moves and maybe pushing Pete Carroll to live elsewhere. Carroll, as competitive as he was relentlessly enthusiastic, majored in fun at USC. But when it all ended, there was more talk about what went wrong than what had gone so right.

Unbuckling the mailbag: Question: Is Mike Sherman now a candidate for the UCLA job? Jared Gibson Answer: Yes, have him get in line behind Pee-wee Herman. If UCLA tried to hire Mike Sherman, recently fired by Texas A&M, Bruins Athletic Director Dan Guerrero would have to make the announcement in a Sherman tank. Q: Why are you looking so far away? U-DUB Husky Coach Steve Sarkisian is perfect. He was born just five minutes away from UCLA. He coached at USC and will be a natural rival to Kiffin.

Nine years ago, an NFL retread wandered onto the USC campus to watch his daughter play volleyball and wound up becoming the head football coach. He was Mike Garrett's fourth choice. He was questioned by the boosters and ripped in the media. But none of it mattered because USC was in relative tatters, without a bowl win in five years, without a 10-win season in more than a decade, without a national title in 22 years. The Trojans could hire Pete Carroll because they were desperate.

No matter how many times he said "psyched" or "blast" or did cannonballs into the university pool, Pete Carroll was always going to leave USC and go back to the National Football League. The only questions were the time, the date, the team, the billionaire owner and whether Carroll would: 1) get out on top, after a national championship; or 2) bolt for the door after a one-win-shy-of-10 season and the NCAA cops in his rearview mirror. So the final answer looks as if it's: No. 2. Carroll appears headed to the Seattle Seahawks -- not long after a judge ruled he could be deposed in the long-running Reggie Bush case, USC self-imposed sanctions on the basketball program, quarterback Aaron Corp transferred to lower-division Richmond and tailback Joe McKnight and star receiver Damian Williams declared for the NFL draft.

USC football Coach Pete Carroll did not immediately accept the CBS invitation to be profiled on "60 Minutes" when it arrived last summer "I was kind of doubting it at first," Carroll said Thursday. "I may not know everything about the show, but I do know they've been kind of tough on people in the past. I saw the piece they did on [Notre Dame Coach] Charlie Weis a couple years ago. I thought it was horrible.