About Trojan War

When Pete Carroll took over the football program at USC after the 2000 season, the once-great Trojans were under siege. But thanks to Caroll's football knowledge, upbeat personality and recruiting skills, Southern Cal was soon back atop the college football world as home attendance skyrocketed. Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush won Heismans, and the Trojans put together a 34-game winning streak. As it would be later discovered, though, the program was committing sins that would result in lost scholarships, victories and one of those Heismans. But those revelations didn't come until after the national championship game in the 2006 Rose Bowl between USC and the University of Texas. Featuring interviews with Carroll, Leinart and others inside the USC program at the time, "Trojan War" looks at Carroll's nine-year USC reign through the prism of that game, considered one of the greatest in college football history. It was also the beginning of the end.

Director's Take

Arguably, the most influential export in the world is the American Dream. The close cousin of that is the Hollywood Dream. The idea that an individual can become anything they want, someone of note, a star, if the right circumstances align.

Growing up in Wyandotte County (the Kansas side of Kansas City), my college football allegiance gravitated to Los Angeles, in part, because of the Hollywood Dream. Whether it was USC's cardinal and gold colors, the football team having a black quarterback in Rodney Peete, or the fact that they provided the top film school in the country, USC intrigued me.

Unfortunately, just as I became a fan of the Trojans, the football program hit a tough patch in the 1990s. But, my interest never waned due, in part, to Hollywood films like "Boyz n the Hood" and "Menace II Society," chronicling South Central Los Angeles and the private school university strangely located at its center.

I arrived at USC at the same time Coach Pete Carroll did. What I remember is an electric atmosphere, an expectation that exciting things could happen at any moment, on the field as well as the sideline. It was entertaining. It was exhilarating. It was the Hollywood Dream.

When I found myself blessed with the opportunity to direct a picture about the Pete Carroll era at USC, my intention was to give the viewer a slice of the feeling I had watching the Trojans. To use our narrator in a way that allows the viewer to feel like they're hearing a personal story in a barber shop, or, better yet, at a game.

What became obvious, was that there are costs to achieving the Hollywood Dream, some of which the film explores. Those consequences can seem to be unforgiving. However, despite that, the ride to get there can be truly unforgettable.