When future Friday Night Lights and Southland writer/producer Aaron Rahsaan Thomas arrived at USC, the school’s beloved football institution, the USC Trojans, had fallen on hard times. This all changed with the arrival of Pete Carroll, a charismatic, under-the-radar coach who subsequently turned the team around. What followed was a 34-game winning streak that culminated in the 2006 Rose Bowl with The University of Texas Longhorns—an event considered by many to be one of the greatest college football games of all time. Ultimately, the Trojans’ dynasty would come to an end here. The true nail in the coffin, however, emerged when a series of sanctions and penalties brought against star player Reggie Bush erased a sizable chunk of the team’s wins from the records.
These Pete Carroll years are the focus of ESPN’s latest 30 for 30 documentary, Trojan War, which also marks Thomas’ debut as a documentary filmmaker. Featuring interviews with the major players at the time, as well as celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Lance Armstrong, the film darts back and forth in time, with narrator Michael B. Jordan taking the audience through the ecstatic highs and crushing lows of this once-in-a-generation sports saga.
Prior to the film’s October 13th release, Paste sat down with Thomas to discuss how the documentary came together, the intersection between USC and the entertainment industry and how films ranging from City of God to Rocky III influenced the story’s structure.
Paste Magazine: Tell me a little bit about how you came to 30 for 30 and what the seed for Trojan War was?
Aaron Rahsaan Thomas: ESPN and I had been looking to do something for a few years. There was a time where ESPN was looking to acquire Friday Night Lights while we were on NBC. At the time, I was staffed on Friday Night Lights and we started to toss around ideas for other projects. I think every pitch I tossed out they were already developing at the time, so it took us a few years before they came to me with an idea. They knew I was a big fan of USC, they knew I’d attended USC film school and taught there as an adjunct professor, so they wanted to connect me with a producer, Keyshawn Johnson, who had an idea for doing a 30 for 30 on the Peter Carroll era of USC. So I met with Keyshawn, and we hit it off and we went from there to develop a premise.
Paste: For me, the best 30 for 30 films are the ones where you can go in knowing nothing or caring nothing about the subject, but it still engages you. How did you approach this story? What was that ‘human element?’
Thomas: We were aware that some of the more prominent 30 for 30s had been done on college football before—The U, The U Part 2 Pony Excess, about SMU. From the beginning, we wanted it to feel different and we really wanted it to feel like USC. One of the more interesting aspects is USC’s location in Los Angeles. Also, there’s USC’s history with the entertainment business, going all the way back to John Wayne being a football player. That’s how he got his break—he was a member of the USC football team and was able to intern for Fox Studios at the time. So, we thought that was an interesting aspect and maybe there was an angle we could play on kind of like The Kid Stays in the Picture—doing an element of football as entertainment. At the end of the day that’s really what it is, even in college, and we thought we’d lean into that.
I also always liked the aspect of getting to know these guys personally. One of the things they did in the Brazilian film City of God that I always really liked was they would stop the narrative at times and go into these side anecdotes about the characters. I thought maybe there’s an opportunity to do that in a sports film and pay homage to a couple of films I admired. So that was the idea—to try to give you a snippet of the connection between USC and entertainment, give you a snippet of the ride and the fun in being a celebrity when you’re a 21-year-old college student and to give the audiences a bit of a window into who these kids were behind the scenes. So when you see them become stars, you get a sense of how far they’d come from meager, humble beginnings.
Paste: When you were putting the film together, was there anything that changed from the initial inception?
Thomas: ESPN really prides itself on being very supportive of directors’ visions. I found that to be absolutely true. If there’s one thing they wanted to stress—and I completely agree with it—it was that the centerpiece of the film was the 2006 Rose Bowl, which is known as perhaps the greatest college football game ever played, between the SC Trojans and the University of Texas Longhorns. Unfortunately, for SC, it didn’t go their way and the University of Texas ended up winning the game through a great play by Texas’ quarterback, Vince Young. So there was a temptation to maybe do a 50/50 split between USC and Texas. We made a decision early on, and ESPN wanted to stress this, that we choose a perspective and stick with it. Because of my connection with SC, we chose to do it from SC’s perspective. We did very extensive research and a lot of interviews with Texas, but at the end of the day, to be fair, it is from SC’s perspective. So even the Rose Bowl is presented from SC’s point-of-view. There will be Texas fans, I’m sure, who will say, “wait a second! Wait a second!” But, it’s called Trojan War for a reason.
Paste: Where were you in your life when that winning streak was happening?
Thomas: I arrived at USC right around the same time that Pete did. I grew up in the Midwest in Kansas City, but I grew up a USC football fan. When I arrived, the team wasn’t that good. They were still riding on past successes, so it was a little disappointing. When Pete arrived, the assumption was that he would just be a stop-gas solution—a nice guy who would keep us afloat until we got a ‘real’ coach, so to speak. So I don’t think expectations were that high. I don’t know that my expectations were that high. But, despite all that, I bought season tickets when I arrived. And then we started to see things change. Pete was really gregarious and he had an idea for how he wanted to conduct the program and, before long, he was able to really convey his philosophy to the players. And we started to win. So as I’m going through film school, the team is getting better and, despite the fact that I couldn’t afford season tickets, I kind of felt like, ‘I have to keep these because I think we might be on to something here.’ I saw the attendance really grow from being a half-filled stadium to being the easiest tickets in town to scalp—if one were so inclined.
Paste: Speaking of film, one of the elements of the film involves cuts to interviews with producer Larry Turman [The Graduate], which draws parallels between being a film producer and being a coach. And the film itself is structured like a screenplay, with scene descriptions appearing onscreen. How did that come into play?
Thomas: We made a decision early on, based on the 30 for 30 series, to take some creative chances. One of the strengths of the series is that no two 30 for 30 films feel alike. We felt like, if we’re going to lean into a connection between SC and the entertainment business, why not go all the way and do things a little different? Our idea from the beginning was that this ride that SC was on almost felt scripted. You have an underdog coach with an underdog team who builds this team to great heights. It almost was a Hollywood movie in a way, complete with personalities. We thought we’d give the audience a sense of that—like they’re living in a movie. It definitely felt that way at the time. The only thing is that the ending doesn’t exactly turn out the way you expect—they lose! (laughs)
Paste: It’s more the European ending.
Thomas: Yes, it’s bittersweet! But that was the idea. And there were some aspects from a couple other films I admire. One was, strangely enough, Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire, which has super agent Dicky Fox giving you advice throughout the film. That’s what the Larry Turman bits were inspired by—to give you a sense of old-school Hollywood advice, which we felt paralleled nicely with Pete’s approach. Larry wrote this book on the business called, So You Want to Be a Producer? and all his bits of advice were in that book. We felt like, why not use bits of that? He was really gracious with his time. We only had him for 20 minutes, so we had to rush in, get all these bits and get him out of there. We thought it would add this change of pace and provide something else outside of sports. Larry isn’t even a sports fan, as far as I know. Anytime I see those bits, it puts a smile on my face because, like you said, hopefully it appeals to those who may not even be football fans because you’re following a narrative, and he’s a part of that.
Paste: You mention City of God and Jerry Maguire . Were there any other references you had in making the film? Certain interviews have a kind of Errol Morris feel, with the subjects staring straight into the camera.
Thomas: Absolutely. We definitely wanted to put you in the middle of the action as much as possible. I think a few times it really pays off in ways you don’t always expect. We have a sequence where we’re talking about the Notre Dame game with their infamous ‘Bush Push’ play. Matt Leinart starts to recall what he was thinking during the course of it, and I think that’s where being in his face—like you’re talking across from him in a booth somewhere—can be effective. You feel like it’s just you and him and he’s telling you a story.