This wasn’t Rodney Peete’s first bus ride weaving through Pasadena on the way to the Rose Bowl, surrounded by a spectacular sea of blue and gold and cardinal and gold flowing in every direction. But this second crosstown trip to play UCLA certainly felt different for the USC quarterback.
For one, 1988 was his senior year, and the 9-0 Trojans and 9-1 Bruins were competing not only for the Pac-10 championship but also to stay alive for the national championship. And then, there was the fact that Peete had just gone through the wildest week of his decorated college football career, a sequence of sickness, subterfuge and secrecy that led to a sight he would never forget as the USC caravan pulled closer to the stadium.