Tonight’s slate of meetings started normal with a special teams film review and Coach Carroll giving a brief talk before splitting the team up.

But that’s when things went haywire.

While players were quietly shuffling out of the team meeting room for the position group meetings, Carroll blurted out, instantly grabbing everyone’s attention.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” a now-smiling Carroll bellowed while standing high on a chair. “We can go to meetings — or we can go see a movie!”

The surprise worked.

Players erupted into celebratory applause, dance and a “Big Balls Pete” chant as they were now going to watch a Hollywood film instead of practice film, with a sneak preview of “District 9” waiting for them at the nearby University Village Theatres.


With Coach Carroll (middle, white shirt) standing above the madness, players celebrate the night’s change of plans, as they are going to see “District 9” at a local movie theater.

Created by the USC Video Operations Department, here’s the slide that showed on the screen in the team meeting room after Carroll made the surprise announcement about tonight’s screening of “District 9.” The graphic features an altered motto that now says, “For Trojans Only.”