Fight on for old S.C.! The Trojans are back doing it for Pete Carroll.

Where did you grow up and how old were you when you started playing football?

CARROLL: I was born in San Francisco and grew up in the Greenbrae area of Marin County, just north of the city. I started playing football in the Pop Warner League just before my 11th birthday. John Pagliaro taught me the game in the three years I played for the Redwood Junior Giants. I played both ways in Pop Warner as a receiver and defensive back.

COACH: When did you begin playing the game on an organized level?

CARROLL: In my first year of high school I had to take a physical to determine whether I was tall enough and fit enough to play. I think the minimum weight at the time was 115 pounds and I weighed 110. That night I cried because I didn't think they would let me play football. They did. I played outside linebacker as a freshman and then went on to play three more years at Redwood High.

COACH: By what route did you matriculate at the U. of Pacific? Were you a scholarship player?

CARROLL: I went to junior college (College of Marin) after high school, where I played two seasons for coaches Dick Read and Pete Limm. On defense, I played safety and on offense I played receiver and did some quarterbacking.

I was good enough to win a scholarship to the University of Pacific (UOP), where I played safety for two years. As a senior I was the back-up QB but never got to play. I graduated in 1973. Defense was always my natural position so I stayed there.

COACH: What or who turned you on to coaching? Was it true that you started at UOP as an unpaid assistant?

CARROLL: As a freshman in high school, the head coach, Bob Troppmann, asked me to help him coach the younger players in a summer football camp, the Diamond B, in exchange for a free ride at his camp for high school players.

That was my first coaching job, at the age of 13! I worked at the camp for another eight years. After graduation from UOP with a degree ill business, I really had no intention of going into coaching and 1 took a job selling roofing materials in the East Bay. But I still had the desire to play, and so I tried out for the Hawaii team in the World Football League.

After I was cut, I went back to UOP as a graduate assistant. I stayed for three years while getting my teaching credentials and a master's degree.

COACH: How did you get your job as a defensive coach at Arkansas under Lou Holtz? How long did you stay at Arkansas and what induced you to switch to Iowa State under Earle Bruce?

CARROLL: The defensive coach at Pacific, Bob Cope, left for SMU for a year, and then joined Lou Holtz at Arkansas in 1977. Bob asked me to come with him as a GA and, rather than coach at the high school level in the Bay Area, I decided to interview with Lou Holtz and got the job. It was a great career move because the contacts I made at Arkansas helped me form a base of knowledge and move forward in my career. I was there for one year, after which I interviewed at UCLA and Iowa State and chose the latter. 1 was finally going to get paid to coach.

COACH: Under Lou Holtz you coached a winning team in the Orange Bowl. Under Earle Bruce you coached in the Hall of Fame Bowl. And the next time you went bowling it was with Ohio State in the 1980 Rose Bowl. Then you moved over to North Carolina State as defensive coordinator and secondary coach for Monte Kiffin.

By then you had played or coached for Chester Caddis, Bob Cope, Lou Holtz, Earle Bruce, and Kiffin. How did all these fine coaches influence your thinking and work ethic?

CARROLL: They all were tremendously influential for me as a young coach, but by far the one who influenced me most was Monte Kiffin, for whom I worked at Arkansas. He took me under his wing and, as one of the greatest defensive coordinators in America, taught me everything.

We worked together at NC State, the Vikings, at Buffalo, and with the lets, and we still are very close. Of course, his team won the Super Bowl this year. He had a huge effect on me as a coach and otherwise.

COACH: By the mid-80s you were in your 30s and ready for the pros. Was this a conscious decision on your part or were you simply offered a job at Buffalo and then at Minnesota under Bud Grant? How did you find professional coaching after all your years in file college ranks? What were the differences between the two fields? Were you able to retain your terrific enthusiasm for the game?

CARROLL: I had just finished my second year as an assistant under Bob Cope at Pacific when I got the call to join the staff at Buffalo. Coach Kay Stephenson and staff were let go after one year and I was fortunate to get hired by Bud Grant at Minnesota after sitting out a year.

Next to my relationship with Monte Kiffin, my association with Bud Grant was the most important in my career. The football part of coaching in college and the pros is very similar more so than many people realize, whether it has to do with schemes, teaching methods or motivation techniques.

The players in college are younger, more pliable, and respond better to coaching than players in the NFL. I had a blast coaching at the highest levels of the game as a pro coach but I don't think my particular style was as much appreciated in the NFL as it had been in college coaching.

I have a lot of fun and am very enthusiastic and expect that from my players. After years of hearing that I would have more enjoyment in the college game I found out it was true. College coaching is extremely rewarding. I am having the time of my life at USC.

COACH: You really had no choice in the matter, since you had made your bones as a pro coach and were ready for your big career move to the New York Jets as defensive coordinator for Bruce Coslet. You won the respect of the NY media and when the Jets were ready for a coaching change, you became a head coach for the first time in your life.

How did you feel about the transition from assistant to headman? What were the biggest challenges you had to face as a head coach?

CARROLL: In retrospect I may not have been ready for the change with the Jets but under the circumstances I felt I had to take the head job. It seemed to me that my position with the Jets was an interim one, though that is not how it was treated. Still it was great fun to represent the city of New York.

Who wouldn't take that opportunity? We started well but didn't end the season on a high note. I was doomed from the start. As I look back now, I wasn't prepared for the Jets job. Lou Holtz always said that as a coach you are never prepared for your next job and he was surely right that time.

COACH: Following your one tumultuous year with the Jets in 1994, you went on to become an assistant coach at San Francisco and a head coach at New England. What impact did those experiences have on your work?

CARROLL: The years in San Francisco were very special to me. To come back home where my parents and friends live and to work for George Seifert in San Francisco was great. I had known and loved George and studied under him for years that job was a fantastic challenge. To work in that system was a special thing.

The Forty Niners' approach to football was tremendously valuable to me at USC. After my first year Bill Walsh returned to the organization and it was fabulous to have the "source" of all knowledge nearby. I never hesitated to pick his brain and to ask how and why things worked. That experience helped me to formulate a plan for how to be a head coach and how to put all the pieces together. It was great preparation for going to New England.

COACH: As you moved around in the pro game always as your own defensive coordinator, what effect did it have on your personality? With your enormous natural exuberance, you seemed to be the perfect cut for an offensive coach. Did you ever tinker with the idea of changing over to offense?

CARROLL: I have always thought of myself as an offensive thinker. I coached offense my first year at UOP and the reason I went back there in the 80's was to be an offensive coordinator and see things from a new perspective.

At the time I was studying what Joe Gibbs and Don Breaux of the Redskins were doing on offense. As a defensive coach I have always coached my group to play in an offensive, or attacking, manner. We have our blitzes and we try to control the game. When my defense breaks the huddle, we say "Score!"

So I feel I have a well-rounded background in that respect.

I love getting involved with the offense at USC and spend a lot of time with it and take a lot of pride in how much we improved offensively from year one to year two. We put in a lot of changes in the off-season and the blossoming of Carson Palmer this past season was very exciting and more gun than I have had in coaching in a long time.

COACH: What made you decide to return to the college game after all those years in the pros?

CARROLL: I had been in the pros for 16 years and had tasted some success and won a lot of games. But I still wanted to be a head coach and I didn't care where it was. I just wanted to test all the philosophies, principles, and strategies I had learned to that point and didn't want to share the job any more as I had as an assistant all those years. I had confidence in what I could do as a coach. USC has the perfect style, fit and tradition for me to do things in the ways I want to do them.

COACH: Your astonishing success at Southern Cal has led some of the media to claim that you really belonged in the college ranks. How do you respond to that assertion?

CARROLL: A number of close friends had told me that college coaching was the place for me but I really didn't give it a lot of thought. When I took a close look at the situation a year after I left New England, I discovered that USC was the right place for me.

COACH: Did you change your philosophy of coaching when you returned to college coaching? Was college ball basically the same as it was when you originally left it, and did you have any problems adjusting to the younger players?

CARROLL: What I found is that the football part of it is basically the same, though the range of styles and strategies employed in college make coaching more challenging than it is in the NFL. Though the players are better in the pros, you don't need any "transition" time in terms of getting used to the college game again. It has been more fun--the processes of recruiting, teaching, and watching young players develop--in this job than in any other I have had.

COACH: What would you say are the main differences between coaching pro defense and college defense?

CARROLL: It's the variety of styles you see ill the college game, from option football to the wide open passing game, and the willingness of offensive coaches to do things differently means we have to prepare our players for the wider spectrum of possibilities than we would in the pro game.

COACH: What do you think of the West Coast passing game now that you are coaching in the territory in which it all began? How do you defense it?

CARROLL: I think the term "West Coast" offense is terribly misused. There are only a couple of people who coach that offense in the way it was designed by Bill Walsh a long time ago. Its uniqueness is more a question of styles and philosophies that are used in teaching the game and preparing players than it is a tactical system.

Bill captured it years ago and it has evolved under different coaches into a new and different style. In defending the West Coast offense, you have to understand that the first thing you have to do is to do what you do well on defense.

It's more about how you set up and play your defense than it is how to prepare and play against the West Coast style per se.

COACH: As an experienced head coach, what do you look for in hiring an assistant coach--other than loyalty, of course?

CARROLL: I look for a good combination of things in the make-up of a coach. The first and most important component is a high energy and enthusiasm that can be transferred to the players in a specific position group. A high energy level is needed to get the players to perform well at practice every day.

COACH: Looking back over the years, who are the coaches who impressed and inspired you the most?

CARROLL: Early on my high school coach, Bob Troppman, was extremely important in that he gave me an opportunity to work with his kids at Diamond B for a number of years. Those eight years as one of his camp assistants had a big impact on me.

From there it was Bob Cope, my coach at Pacific and the man who helped me get to Arkansas.

The guy who has influenced me the most in terms of technical football has been Monte Kiffin.

I also had a lot of fun with Bud Grant and he has been a mentor to me as long as 1 can remember.

George Seifert was the coach who introduced me to the inner workings of the San Francisco system created by Bill Walsh, and from them I took the conceptual framework of tactics and strategies that form my approach to coaching today.

COACH: How has your basic philosophy of defense changed over the years? What did you use basically in the pros and how different was it in the college game? Did you have any gurus you looked up to in designing your defense?

CARROLL: I learned to coach defense from Monte Kiffin at Arkansas and later when we were together at North Carolina State, the Jets, and the Vikings. These philosophies have continued to evolve.

About 90% of the things I learned with the Forty Niners is used at USC. The Niners' system works so well because its flexibility enables us to cope with all the offenses we encounter over the season.