New court papers filed in the case against University of Southern California's athletic program include an expert's allegations that coaching mistakes caused football player Stafon Johnson's 2009 on-campus weightlifting accident. more ›

Stafon Johnson was a senior at USC and a running back on the Trojan football team when a weightlifting accident in September 2009 brought his college career to a swift end, and now the former athlete is suing the school, according to ABC7. Johnson's larynx was crushed when the bar loaded with 275 pounds fell on his neck. more ›

Atlanta Braves defeat LA Dodgers 4-3. It looks like the two closers Joe Torre had in mind to replace Jonathan Broxton temporarily didn’t quite work out. After Chad Billingsley’s seven-innings of one-run ball, Torre had Hong-Chih Kuo come in for a two-inning save. The eighth inning was no problem for Kuo in his usual spot as he retired the side in order, but the ninth inning was a disaster. Singles to Alex Gonzalez and Brian McCann and a walk to Brooks Conrad loaded the bases, and Torre put in Octavio Dotel. A bases loaded walk to David Ross to cut the Dodger lead to 3-2 and then the cherry on top: the milkman Melky Cabrera singled to left field for the walk-off win. For those keeping score, no decision for Billinglsey, loss to Kuo and a blown save to Dotel. The loss puts the Dodgers 11 games behind the San Diego Padres in the NL West and seven games behind the Philadelphia Phillies and San Francisco Giants for the wild card with eight weeks left in the season. more ›

Pittsburgh Pirates defeat LA Dodgers 11-1. On their second try to try and clinch the NL West, the Dodgers failed miserably. Only today they had no shot whatsoever. Three baserunning mistakes that led to three outs in the first two innings will not get it done. But then again having a spring training lineup won't help things either. Just to make sure the score was somewhat respectable, Chin-Lung Hu hit a sac fly in the ninth inning with one out to score Orlando Hudson. However a couple of positives come out of this: Vin Scully will now be calling the Dodgers clinch, and the Dodgers will do it in the visiting clubhouse at Petco Park. Sweet! more ›

According to Shelley Smith of ESPN, Trojans senior running back and Dorsey High standout Stafon Johnson was rushed to the hospital after a weightlifting accident where the bar fell on his throat. Smith is reporting that Johnson was coughing blood and bleeding from the nose. Ben Malcolmson's USC Ripsit blog confirms that this accident occurred while he was bench pressing with a spotter when the bar slipped from his right hand. Johnson is undergoing throat surgery. Supposedly he was pressing 275 pounds when the accident occurred. more ›

A lot of the post-game analysis of USC's victory over Idaho on Saturday uses terms like "lackluster," "stalled," "uninspired," "sputtering" among others. The general consensus seems to be that since we did not run up the 45 point margin that odds makers had predicted that the Trojan effort was somehow lacking. Well, anyone who picked up a paper on Sunday knows that USC defeated Idaho by a score of 38 to 10. The Vandals were... more ›