Mitch Mustain signs with the White Sox

Former USC and Arkansas quarterback, Mitch Mustain, was once a five star high school prospect. Mustain was highly thought of and was handed the reins to the Arkansas kingdom for a eight games. His removal from the starting job there led to him transferring to USC.

Fast forward to 2012 and Mustain is trying out a different avenue in the world of professional sports. He’s going back to baseball. After the college stints at USC and Arkansas, and a brief foray in the CFL with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and the Georgia Force in the Arena Football League, the next chapter in Mustain’s life will be him trying to latch on with the Chicago White Sox.

Mustain signed a minor league deal with the White Sox as a pitcher. The last time he pitched was in high school back in 2004. Good thing Mustain had a connection in the White Sox organization. A friend who plays in the White Sox system contacted a scout to watch Mustain’s throwing session at the University of Arkansas.


“I didn’t think it was going to happen,” he said.


“He hit me up on a Friday and said the scout could be here the next Friday,” Mustain said. “So I went out on Tuesday and played long toss to stretch out my arm.”


“I was hitting my spots and my curve ball was on,” he said. “I’m hoping to eventually get to 94 or 95 [miles per hour],”. I’m excited to see where it goes.”


Not many have been able to make the transition from one sport to the other with such a long layoff. I’m pretty sure Mustain will be beating the bushes for a while he fine tunes his arm and gets his location down. There will be plenty that will want to get their licks in on him while he’s still trying to get his feet under him in a different sport.

       

USC’s Short Term Success Yields Long Term Problems

If everyone in the Pac-10 plays thier cards right, they can bury USC, starting this season. With the Trojan brass booting out former Athletic Director Mike Garrett and giving back Reggie Bush’s Heisman, it seems like they’re trying to get back into the good graces of the NCAA. They also picked former Trojan QB and Rhodes Scholar Pat Haden to run the athletic department. All because everyone looked the other way and Garrett was so smug and arrogant that hedidn’t want to see the wrong doing going on with the football and basketball programs.

The if you don’t know, you don’t need to know atmosphere in Trojanland, fostered by Garrett and former coach Pete Carroll and others allowed to go on at USC was and is unacceptable. Of course the only ones punished for this are the current and future players at USC.

This is why I say it’s time for teams in the Pac-10 to step their game up and bury USC. This is theperfect time for Rick Neuheisel to get UCLA back on track. This is a prime moment for Oregon to cement their staus as kings of the Pac-10 (if they can keep out of trouble). California and Washington can possibly take a step up in class by landing some great talent that is sure to spurn USC to go elsewhere. The Trojans are amn lucky Texas, Oklahoma, and others didn’t take the invite to go to the Pac-10. I’m sure they’ll get back on their feet, but it might take a while before that happens.       

Kiffin keeps pissing off Tennessee

USC head coach has once again pissed off someone in Tennessee. This time for stealing away Tennesse Titans running backs coach Kennedy Pola. From USC alum and Titans head coach Jeff Fisher. It’s not the point that Pola left for a lateral job move. It’s the fact that Kiffin hired him away without asking Fisher for permission to talk to him about the job. Now the Titans are staring at going into camp without a running backs coach. The reason why the Trojans need one is because former coach Todd McNair was the fall guy in the cheating scandal.

Pola, who also is an USC alum,and played and coached for the Trojans, is also the uncle of former Trojan and current Pittsburgh Steeler Troy Polamalu. I have no problem with Pola going somewhere that he feels he advance his coaching career. But the way this went down, I don’t know if he will get another shot on an NFL coaching staff. Not after leaving one of the longest tenured coaches in the league today. Jeff Fisher is none too pleased with how this all went down.

“I am very disappointed in Lane Kiffin’s approach to this,” Fisher said on Saturday. “Typically speaking, when coaches are interested in hiring or discussing potential employment from coaches on respective staffs there is a courtesy call made from the head coach or athletic director indicating there is an interest in talking to the assistant.

“So I am very disappointed in the lack of professionalism on behalf of Lane, to call me and leave me a voice mail after Kennedy had informed me he had taken the job. It is just a lack of professionalism.”

Word is, that Pola wasn’t Kiffin’s first choice. Eric Bienemy, the running backs coach for the Vikings got a promotion and pay raise to keep this scenario from happening to them. If Kiffin had any friends left in Tennessee, he doesn’t have any now.

Kiffin is now trying to explain another mess he’s created.

“We reached out to Kennedy Pola [on Friday] to gauge whether he had any possible interest in returning to USC before we moved forward with the process,” Kiffin said.

“Kennedy said he would think about it and get back to us today. Once Kennedy did call back earlier today, out of my great respect for Coach Fisher I immediately reached out to Coach to make him aware of the situation. I have spoken with Coach Fisher and he now has an accurate understanding of the timeline of events,” Kiffin said.
I think Kiffin needs to keep his mouth shut and coach since it seems like he can’t do anything on the up and up.