This is the latest post for an ongoing media project — SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number and highlight an athlete — person, place or thing — most obviously connected to it by fame and fortune, someone who isn’t so obvious, and then take a deeper dive into the most interesting story tied to it. It’s a combination of star power, achievement, longevity, notoriety, and, above all, what makes that athlete so Southern California. Quirkiness and notoriety factor in. And it should open itself to more discussion and debate — which is what sports is best at doing.
The most obvious choices for No. 77:
= Luka Doncic: Los Angeles Lakers
= Anthony Munoz: USC football
= Ron Yary: USC football
= Jeff Carter: Los Angeles Kings
= Paul Coffey: Los Angeles Kings
= Lyle Alzado: Los Angeles Raiders
= Alex Whitworth: Los Angeles Rams
= John McCarthy: LAFC and Los Angeles Galaxy
The most interesting story for No. 77:
Anthony Munoz: USC football offensive lineman (1976 to 1979) via Chaffey High of Ontario
Southern California map pinpoints:
Ontario, Los Angeles (Coliseum)
******
At 6-foot-6 and 278 pounds, as svelte was he was imposing, Anthony Munoz fit the framework of the game’s most talented No. 77 since the heralded Harold “Red” Grange.
Imagine if Munoz played tackle on the University of Illinois’ offensive line in the 1920s actually throwing blocks for someone still considered a century later as the greatest college football player of all time. Or even later during Grange’s career making the NFL a viable option for players while with the Chicago Bears.
In scanning the enjoyable “The Football 100,” a 2023 list procured by the staff of The Athletic that takes into account the 25,000-plus players who’ve suited up in the NFL during its century of existence, Munoz is slotted as 12th from the top. Not only is he the top offensive lineman on that list, but he is positioned as the highest-ranked football player ever associated with Southern California ties.
Grange, despite his Pro Football Hall of Fame status, didn’t quite do enough to make that list.
Before Munoz’s ascent into a Pro Football Hall of Fame career, he was also included in the Top 100 of ESPN’s list of the 150 greatest players in college football’s 150-year history (where Grange is only No. 6). Munoz’s recognition came despite a history of injury issues that could have brought him much more fame. That still got him into the College Football Hall of Fame.
Maybe it’s because of how he responded to those setbacks – three knee surgeries in four years, robbing him of almost every chance he had during his career to play in games against rivals UCLA and Notre Dame — that we find elevating him to this position for our purposes ultimately justified. It goes to what his USC coach, John Robinson, said about his performance in the 1980 Rose Bowl, calling it “one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen happen.”
When the Chaffey High of Ontario multi-talented and curly-haired tower of power first wore No. 77, he picked USC as the next step in his athletic career. Football was the draw, but baseball was the hook. The kid raised by a single mom and who never knew his dad but learned sports from his older brothers was too big to play Pop Warner football, so he had figured out how to master baseball.
“Baseball was my first love,” he said in an NFL Films production that included him on the NFL 100 All-Time Team. “I was going to be a Major League Baseball player. I was going to be a third baseman or a pitcher. Brooks Robinson or Juan Marichal.”
While he wasn’t the star on a team of stars, Munoz did pitch and do some menacing time in the batter’s box on USC coach Rod Dedeaux’s storied 1978 College World Series title team that went a national-best 54-9, setting the school’s single-season win record. A sliver of the legend Munoz created on the USC campus came at a time when Dedeaux gladly welcomed football players such as Anthony Davis, Jack Del Rio, Rodney Peete and John Jackson onto his roster.
“Dedeaux was very happy to have a celebrity like Anthony Muñoz with us,” said Trojans pitcher Spiro Psaltis, a freshman on that team, told USC RipsIt Blog. “Rod loved to have athletes, if they were good enough.”
The 1978 USC baseball team earned an 11th and final College World Series championship for Dedeaux.
Munoz’s strength and agility were best served on the football team’s offensive line. He allowed two Heisman Trophy winners – Charles White and Marcus Allen – to emerge into the spotlight.
But as his ESPN Top 150 College Player bio points out, he “might have been the greatest what-if on one of the great what-if teams in college football history.”
In USC’s 1979 season-opening win over Texas Tech, he suffered a devastating left knee injury that knocked him out of his entire senior season. Well, not the whole season. The Trojans went from pre-season No. 1, slipped to No. 4 after a Week 5 21-21 tie against Stanford, and went into the bowl season at No. 3 with an a 10-0-1 mark.
Munoz’s injury was not a tear of the anterior cruciate ligaments but of other ligaments. Over a span of 112 days from September through December, Munoz had surgery, did the rehab, and was determined to finally play in the Rose Bow, which he had missed playing during his freshman and junior years because of injuries to his right knee. He was not going to let that happen in his final season.
Not only did Munoz come back to play in USC’s 17-16 win over Ohio State, but his presence on a veteran offensive line with Brad Budde, Roy Foster and Chris Foote in the famed “Student Body Right” scheme allowed White to be named the player of the game. White had a game-record 247 yards rushing, including the 1-yard leaping game-winning touchdown with 1:32 left. Muñoz’s presence was felt on the final drive that covered 83 yards on eight plays against a worn-out defense. White had six carries on the final drive and often ran behind Muñoz as the weak-side offensive tackle.
“Anthony, to me, was the miracle man,” Budde told the Southern California News Group in 2017.
(A fascinating piece on that Rose Bowl by Doug Looney in Sports Illustrated focused on the in-game strategy calls by Pete Carrol, then the Ohio State defensive backs coach).
The Pasadena win not only vaulted the Trojans past the Buckeyes and into the No. 2 spot of the final poll behind undefeated Alabama, but it assured NFL teams Munoz was ready for the NFL. He could have taken a medical redshirt year and come back in 1980 with USC.
But according to a piece in Joe Posnanski’s 2025 book, “Why We Love Football: A History of 100 Moments,” the Cincinnati Bengals had the No. 3 overall pick in the 1980 NFL draft and head coach Forrest Gregg was trying to decide which USC offensive tackle he wanted — Munoz at tackle or Budde at guard. Gregg, then a 46-year-old who’d been in the Football Hall of Fame for three years for his career with Green Bay, met with Munoz and tested him personally in drills. Munoz knocked Gregg to the ground in the last past of the test. “I said to myself, ‘We’ve got to have this guy’,” Gregg says. Munoz was picked; Budde went to No. 10 by Kansas City.
While USC has only decided to retire numbers of players who won Heisman Trophies, it is interesting to see that number 77 has only been delegated to offensive lineman who fit the standard set first by Ron Yary (see below), Sid Smith, Pete Adams and then Munoz. That includes handing it to Pat Harlow, Ken Ruettgers and, recently, to Jacob Rogers, a consensus first-team All-American who blocked for Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart from 2000 to 2003.
When Munoz when he arrived in Cincinnati, No. 77 was worn by veteran left tackle Mike Wilson. Munoz took No. 78, was given the right left-tackle spot to protect quarterback Ken Anderson, and Wilson moved to right tackle. The Bengals have not retired Munoz’s XXXL No. 78, but they haven’t reissued it since he retired following an 11-season career where he missed only three games, played on two Super Bowl teams and named to the NFL’s 75th Anniversary All-Time team. The team has only retired one number.
In his 2023 book, “Got Your Number: The Greatest Sports Legends and the Numbers They Own,” Mike Greenberg slots Munoz at his Bengals’ No. 78 and writes: “There is no player I have come across who has engendered the same degree of universal admiration and awe as Anthony Munoz … he is a person who oozes character, decency and charisma from every pore … I can attest from personal experience that people will remember a player as great as any to ever set foot on a field and a man who was even greater than that.”
He has said: “My mom raised five kids by herself, working two to three jobs at a time to provide for us. I never met my dad, and I never will – he has passed away. What I do know of him is he was a heroin addict and in-and-out of jail for using and selling drugs. I was determined NOT to follow in his footsteps. It occurred to me that sports and education were the two ways out of my neighborhood…and I was determined to succeed.”
In ESPN’s 2020 list of the 150 greatest college football players in the game’s first 150 years, Munoz is listed at No. 99 with this assessment: Munoz might have been the greatest what-if on one of the great what-if teams in college football history.
As pointed out in the bio for his 2021 induction to the California Sports Hall of Fame, Munoz’s impact in Cincinnati where he still lives has made him one of the “community’s most accessible and involved advocates.” It speaks to his being named the NFL’s Man of the Year in 1991. His son, Michael, introduced him upon his election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on the first ballot in 1998. The next year, he was in the fourth class of the USC Athletics Hall of Fame.
And then there’s the fact that the Ontario-Montclair School District, where he attended, “proudly recognizes Mr. Anthony Muñoz as a 2017 Model of Excellence.”
And the city of Ontario renamed Colony Park as the “Anthony Muñoz Hall of Fame Park.”
And why not?
Who else wore No. 77 in SoCal sports history?
Make a case for:
Luka Doncic, Los Angeles Lakers forward (2024-25 to present):
The 6-foot-6, 230-pound shooting guard from Slovenia who procured nicknames such as El Matador, Cool Hand, The Don, Wonder Boy, El Niño Maravilla, Swaggy L, and Luka Legend came to Los Angeles in a surprise trade involving Anthony Davis in early Feburary, 2025. He kept the No. 77 he made famous in Dallas, where he was the NBA 2018-19 Rookie of The Year, a five-time All-NBA player, the ’23-’24 Western Conference Finals MVP and the scoring champ that same season after posting a 33.9 points-per-game mark. He averaged 28.1 points in the 25 games with the Mavericks before the trade with a career mark of 28.6. His career best was a 73-point game in January of 2024 against Atlanta in addition to having a career best of a 21-rebound night as well as a 20-assist night, to go with 80 triple-doubles.
Ron Yary, USC football defensive line/offensive tackle (1965 to 1967):
The Bellflower High star in football, basketball and baseball spent a year at Cerritos College before becoming the Pac-8 Defensive Lineman of the Year as a sophomore at USC. Then head coach John McKay had a better idea — he moved Yary to offensive tackle to fortify the Student Body Right offense. That created a two-time All-American and the Outland Trophy winner, part of the ’67 Trojans win in the Rose Bowl and national championship blocking for O.J. Simpson. Yary became the NFL’s No. 1 overall pick by Minnesota in 1968 (the Vikings traded Fran Tarkenton to the New York Giants for that choice) and spent seven Pro Bowls in his 14 years there, on the 1969 Super Bowl winning squad. He retired as a member of the Los Angeles Rams (wearing No. 73) and inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1987 (noting that USC was 24-7-1 when he played there). The Pro Football Hall of Fame welcomed him in 2001 as he was also named to that Hall’s All-1970s team. Yary was the last offensive lineman to ever be drafted first overall until the Rams picked Orlando Pace in 1997.
Jeff Carter, Los Angeles Kings center (2011-12 to 2020-21): The center piece on the team’s “That 70s Line” (with No. 73 Tyler Toffoli and No. 70 Tanner Pearson) was a key veteran acquisition in February, 2012 for Jack Johnson that drove the team to Stanley Cup wins that season and in 2014.
Paul Coffey, Los Angeles Kings defenseman (1991-92 to 1992-93): The future Hall of Famer and 14-time All Star had his cup of coffee with the team for 60 games to reconnect with his old Edmonton Oilers Stanley Cup title friend, Wayne Gretzky.
Adam Whitworth, Los Angeles Rams offensive lineman (2017 to 2021): The former Cincinnati Bengals All-Pro left tackle was brought in to L.A. at age 36, and he pulled together his 6-foot-7 and 330-pound frame through age 40 and a Super Bowl title.
Doug France, Los Angeles Rams offensive lineman (1975 to 1981): A two-time Pro Bowl tackle also got a role in the movie “North Dallas Forty.”
Vitamin Smith, Los Angeles Rams running back (1949 to 1951): While wearing No. 77 for the Rams (he later sported No. 47 in the last two of his five NFL seasons), Verda Thomas Smith, also known as “Vitamin T,” set a record with three kicks returned for touchdowns in 1950, which stood for 17 seasons. Enrolled in the U.S. Army, he was part of the Battle of Normandy out of Ventura High.
Have you heard this story:
Lyle Alzado, Los Angeles Raiders defensive end/defensive tackle (1982 to 1985):
His previous 11 NFL seasons in Denver and Cleveland set the stage for his move to L.A. and what would be part of a Super Bowl title. The NFL’s ’82 Comeback Player of the Year actually thought he could make a comeback with the Raiders in 1990, five years after his retirement and a run as a network TV analyst. Two years later, “Darth Raider” he died of brain cancer at age 43, but not before going public about steroid use and claiming some 90 percent of NFL players were doing the illegal building drug.
John McCarthy, LAFC goalie (2022-2023), Los Angeles Galaxy (2024 to 2025):
The MVP of the 2022 MLS Cup should never have to buy another drink with 3252 Supporters. On the LAFC home field, he was forced into the MSL Cup final against the Philadelphia Union, his hometown team that first signed him as a third-stringer in 2015, after LAFC starting keeper Maxime Crepeau fractured his leg in the 117th minute of the second extra-time period. He gave up a go-ahead goal, but LAFC posted a goal in stoppage time to push the game into penalty shootouts. McCarthy, who hadn’t stopped a penalty try in seven MLS seasons, made two brilliant saves that secured the title. In the 2023 season, McCarthy came up with another highlight save of a Lionel Messi shot attempt when Miami made its star-studded visit to L.A. over Labor Day weekend. McCarthy started 25 games in the 2023 season as Crepeau returned in September after nearly a year of grueling rehab from the complicated injury and will start for LAFC in their MLS Cup final return against Columbus. The Los Angeles Galaxy picked him up and gave him No. 77 starting with the 2024 season — although his Galaxy online profile makes little to no mention of his achievements with the rival LAFC. The Galaxy traded him to New York late in the ’25 season.
We also have:
Reggie Willits, Los Angels Angels outfielder (2006 to 2011)
James Outman, Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder (2022, changed to No. 33 in 2023)
Adam Oates, Mighty Ducks of Anaheim center (2002-03)
Anyone else worth nominating?
Tom Hoffarth's The Drill: More Farther Off the Wall 
“Rogers was a consensus first-team All-American who blocked for Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart at USC from 2000 to 2003 (and maybe one of the most memorable plays during Rogers’ career came in the 2004 Rose Bowl against Michigan when he took a reverse handoff from receiver Mike Williams and threw a touchdown pass to Leinart).”
Ummm… no. Big Mike Williams took the handoff and threw the TD to Leinart.
LikeLike