Issue: Spring 2003

Editor’s Note

Two for 2002. In the midst of all the excitement about the football team beating UCLA and Notre Dame and winning the Orange Bowl – not to mention Carson Palmer becoming the first West Coast Heisman Trophy winner since 1981 – the Women of Troy made their own history by defeating perennial powerhouse Stanford to win the NCAA women’s volleyball championship, also a first since 1981. This victory, coupled with the men’s tennis team’s 16th NCAA championship last May, brought USC’s total number of national championships to 96.

USC came into the volleyball championship game with a 31-1 season record, their only loss coming at the hands of Stanford, who also happened to be the defending national champion.

But the USC women were not intimidated. “I came to USC to do something that my dad [Don Killian] did in 1977,” senior Lauren Killian told the Los Angeles Times. Added junior April Ross, “If we’re going to be in a game like this, we’re just not going to lose.”

Coach Mick Haley, who won two national titles at Texas and coached the 2000 U.S. volleyball team at the Sydney Olympics, took over the team in 2001. “This is the most special group of girls that I have coached,” he said. “They worked hard; they deserve this.”

Others agreed. Sophomore Keao Burdine was named Most Valuable Player after the game; earlier April Ross and sophomore Emily Adams were named to the 2002 American Volleyball Coaches Association’s All-America first team. Adams is also a finalist for the prestigious Honda Award in volleyball, which puts her in the running for the Honda-Broderick Cup, awarded annually to the nation’s outstanding collegiate woman athlete of the year – a title won last year by USC track star Angela Williams.

You can read about football in the What's New section of this issue and see the men’s tennis team honored at the White House in the Alumni News section. And everything you ever wanted to know about Trojan sports can be found here

– Susan Heitman