According to a letter from USC's first football coach that was recently uncovered by program historian Michael Glenn, the idea for a gridiron team initially came from USC Latin professor Elmer Merrill. Here's an excerpt from the 1951 letter written by Henry Goddard, who served as co-coach of the 1888 team with Frank Suffel:
"Football was [Prof. Elmer Merrill's] idea. When he learned that I had played on my college team, he said one day: 'Let's teach these boys football. You can play with them and coach them from within and I will coach them from the sidelines.' I readily agreed. He spoke to two or three of the boys that he knew and the game was born. The field was a vacant block, I would guess just S. or S.W. of [Bovard Field]."
Those humble beginnings -- the first team went 2-0 with a pair of wins over Alliance Athletic Club -- set the stage for 11 national championships, 31 bowl victories, 154 All-Americans, seven Heisman Trophy winners and 426 NFL players.
And now see the front and back of the original 1951 letter from Goddard to Tom Lawless (the salutation misspells it), USC's sports information director at the time:
