Airdate: TBD - FSN
In 2006, Ben Malcolmson was a student at USC and a reporter for the school paper, the Daily Trojan. He had covered the top-ranked USC football team for two years, and that fall decided to begin the school year with a quirky article about walk-on try-outs. Malcolmson experienced a stroke of creativity: he’d give the try-outs a shot himself. His editor approved and he soon found himself joining 28 hopefuls in a tryout to walk-on with the USC football team. He was a 6', 170-pound reporter for the Daily Trojan who had only played one year of football in his life, back in the 5th grade.
Malcolmson got through practice, but not without some playful ribbing from the coaches, who knew him as “that reporter”. And after a difficult day of tryouts and some serious physical punishment, Ben walked away feeling he had a good article and nothing more. The morning the team list was posted, Ben was in shock: he had made it! Quickly he ran to Pete Carroll's office to see if this was some sort of a joke, but Carroll quickly responded, "You've got good hands and you're quick." A stunned Malcolmson rewrote his story and then promptly resigned from the paper.
But the feel good story was short-lived, as Malcolmson injured his shoulder in only the fourth practice of the season. His doctors said he would need surgery and need 8 months to recover, causing him to miss the entire season. A determined Malcolmson refused to let this sideline him. He had the surgery and returned to the team three months later, ready to play. Though he dressed for all the home games, he never quite believed he would get to play. But in the final home game of the season, and with USC leading Notre Dame by twenty points late in the fourth quarter, the crowd started chanting, “Get Ben In!” And Pete Carroll did just that. Ben ran out onto the field and pumped his fist as a true Trojan – finally able to live out his dream as a modern day “Rudy.”