It seemed that all the top football programs we had visited had new football facilities. Ohio State had spent $100 million on theirs. Clemson and USC had each managed to keep theirs to only $70 million. This one was 110,000 square feet of football heaven. There was no doubt that boosters were pouring money into these top programs, and a new football facility was part of the arms race to attract the top recruits.
USC had taken a technology slant with their building. It seemed that everywhere you turned, there was a video screen that I wouldn’t mind playing some Xbox on. It didn’t stop in the public areas. In the locker room, each locker had its own video screen.
While all that was nice, they’d done a great job of planning the building. The weight room was ginormous. Then there was the … wait for it … underground practice field. I mean, seriously. We were in frickin’ Southern California. When would you ever want to be inside to play football? I guess it gets hot in the summer, but underground?
By the time Bill had finished showing us the facilities, we could check that off our list as acceptable.
Our next stop was to talk to financial aid advisors. I remembered that USC was a private school. They wanted us to know precisely what our scholarship would cover. Tuition was $51,442 plus a fee of $841. Room and board totaled an additional $14,348 per academic year. Students electing to live off campus elsewhere in Los Angeles were advised to budget at least that amount. The list continued on from there, with guesstimates for books and other living expenses. Bottom line, we could expect the bill to be $69,711 per year. By the time we would graduate, they figure it would be closer to $100,000.
This was 92% more expensive than the national-average private nonprofit four-year college tuition. The scary part was that their acceptance rate was only 17%. I hated to imagine how much the average student would be in debt by the time they graduated. For $70,000 per year, I’d better learn something, or I would have to face my mom.
Of course, USC was a top-notch university. Their strength was in business-related degrees, and they also were heavy in the arts. This was, of course, what you would expect from a school that was just miles from Hollywood.
We then broke up our groups to talk to academic advisors one-on-one. Tim was a little overwhelmed when he discovered that their Bachelor of Architecture was a five-year degree. Wolf and I found that USC ranked in the top 10 in marketing, international business, accounting, entrepreneurship, and real estate. They had a dramatic arts program for acting and for everything technical surrounding that.
Our parents were satisfied that we would be fine academically. Another box checked.
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We’d split off from the other recruits so Bill could give a private tour of the campus. Since he was from our hometown, he knew what would interest us and was able to explain how he’d adjusted to the move to a big city.
“At first, it was a little overwhelming. It’s much more diverse, and people don’t seem to have the same values that we’re used to. It’s much more a ‘me first’ attitude. A good example is when someone breaks down on the highway. Everyone’ll slow down to see what’s going on, but they won’t stop to help. That is, unless they expect they’ll get something out of it.
“The first month I was here, Ridge and I were headed somewhere and had to take the highway. I saw a woman who appeared to be about my mom’s age pulled over on the side. Ridge said I was crazy for wanting to stop. All I could think of was that back home, I wouldn’t think twice about it. Ridge was worried she would think we were trying to rob her or something.
“One thing I like is that it’s much more diverse. I’m starting to have a thing for Asian girls,” he admitted.
Several inappropriate comments were made in fun. My mom shut that down, but we all knew we shouldn’t have been making fun, anyway. We were in the land of the politically correct, plus we knew it was just wrong. I thought about it as we toured the campus. It wasn’t that I was thinking in racist terms, but I could understand how it could be hurtful if viewed from a different perspective. I vowed to do better.
I’d never thought of people being different because of race. To my mind, people differed because of their personal experiences. Just like Wolf had felt the store clerk was profiling him, I reacted differently because of who I was. We each would bring our own life experience to the table, but the bottom line was that we shouldn’t judge someone solely on their ethnicity. I couldn’t lie, though: I thought Asian women were hot, too.
