This post is part of a media project called 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 consider the list of athletes attached to it. Who wore it best? Or, what’s the most compelling story linked to it? Any person, place or thing is in play with Southern California connections. Star power, transformational achievement, longevity, notoriety and quirkiness all factor in. Whatever leads to a lively discussion and interpretation.
The most obvious choices for No. 71:
Brad Budde: USC football
Tony Boselli: USC football
Kris Farris: UCLA football
Joe Scibelli: Los Angeles Rams
The not-so-obvious choices for No. 71:
John Ferraro: USC football
Randy Meadows: Downey High football
The most interesting story for No. 71:
John Ferraro: USC football offensive lineman (1943-1944, 1946-1947)
Southern California map pinpoints:
Cudahy, L.A. Coliseum, Los Angeles City Hall
For two bits, college football fans who got their hands on the 1946 Street & Smith’s Football Pictorial Yearbook got their money’s worth alone from John Ferraro’s fierce million-dollar glare.
A small caption off his right shoulder that reads “FERRARO U.S.C.” gives the only hint of who we see. Inside, the table of contents lists his full name appears along with the photographer who made special use of a new film material called Kodachrome.
As a USC All-American tackle in ’43 and ’44, coming back to play after military duty during World War II in 1945, Ferraro was among some of the game’s greats at the time in history. Army’s Glenn Davis, “Mr. Outside” out of Bonita High in La Verne, just finished second in the Heisman Trophy in ’44 and ’45. Teammate Doc Blanchard, “Mr. Inside,” won the Heisman in ’45.
Yet for this cover, the publishers picked Ferraro.
“If any tackle in this land of ours has ever played better ball, he must be Superman and Hercules rolled into one,” Braven Dyer bravely once wrote for Los Angeles Times in 1944 after Ferraro pushed the Trojans to a 28-21 victory at the Coliseum over the San Diego Naval Training Station Bluejackets. “When Big John goes to work, he’s dynamite.”
Hyperbole aside, the quip holds true today. Any Los Angeles civic leader tenacious enough to accomplish something for the good of the town, they can measure themselves up against John Ferraro, a Rose Bowl legend and U.S. Navy vet rolled into one, who starting a heritage of USC standout linemen who sported the No. 71 and became a legendary political figure that helped shape the dreams of the city.
In the cable-connected tapestry that makes up areas of Los Angeles, Cudahy might not make the cut if one lists all its influential cities. Population 22,294 on 1.23 square miles. More rodeo-minded than Rodeo Drive. On a scale of one to 10, if Beverly Hills is known by its 90210 zip code, Cudahy is calculated quite accurately at 90201.
The second-smallest in the county next to Hawaiian Gardens has one of the highest population densities of any incorporated city in the U.S., according to its department of information. Cudahy doesn’t get into the news unless something strange happens. In 2020, a Delta Air Lines flight from L.A. to Shanghai had to make an emergency landing right after takeoff and dump jet fuel circling back to LAX. The fuel rained down on an elementary school in Cudahy, a city already having to deal with toxic sludge from a nearby battery plant contaminating its land.
Cudahy wasn’t incorporated until 1960, yet biographies about Ferraro note he was born in that area known by that name in 1924. A working class suburb just west of the 710 Freeway that connected Long Beach to Alhambra, mostly a place to pass through for truck drivers hauling freight from the large shipping ports or circling back to a card casino in nearby Bell Gardens and City of Commerce.
Some 2,700 acres of land next to the San Gabriel River that had been used for beet and grape farms was bought up by meat packing baron named Michael Cudahy, who parceled it off in long rectangular pieces to farmers just moving from the Midwest with their horses and chickens. His company could also set up a large slaugherhouse.
A San Gabriel based artist named Not Hector Jimenez, who handcrafts satirical, fact-filled “quickstyle” history zines of Los Angeles city history, notes that Cudahy once tried to “get the government to let him use the L.A. River water for ‘washing purposes,’ promising to return the water to the river” when he was done with it. “Good luck with that in South Gate,” Jimenez added.
He referred to Cudahy as something “squeezed into South East L.A. like a little brother that always gets the middle seat in the back (of a car).”
Ferraro’s Italian immigrant parents ran a macaroni factory to help feed their family — John was the youngest of eight. But the business went under during the Depression.
Ferraro went to nearby Bell High, Class of ’42, and found his calling on the football field as an All-City team selection. The story goes that Ferrero’s ticket to a USC scholarship came about because a) he was big and b) he was a good friend of a player Trojans head coach Jeff Cravath really wanted instead. The friend, whose name doesn’t seem to have been well documented, didn’t pan out. The 6-foot-4, 245 pound Ferraro worked as the left tackle in his first season.
The bio for his induction into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1974 recounts how USC’s 1943 team in Ferraro’s freshman year — a season where many teams in the country went dormant during World War II — finished its abbreviated Pacific Coast Conference season with a 29-0 win over Washington in the ’44 Rose Bowl before 68,000.
The Trojans recorded seven shutouts that season. This was also the only time teams from the same conference would play in the Jan. 1 contest due to travel restrictions from the war. General Eisenhower, stationed in Western Europe, allowed U.S. troops who weren’t on the front lines to listen to the special radio broadcast of the game.
Ferraro became an All-American in ’44, as USC won another conference title capped off by a ’45 Rose Bowl win, this time 25-0 over Tennessee before 93,000.
Ferraro blocked a Vols punt minutes into the game and teammate Jim Callahan carried in 30 yards for a touchdown, giving USC a lead that wouldn’t be challenged.
In 1945 Ferraro was off as an ensign in the U.S. Navy. He served on a tanker stationed in the Bay Area with Warren Christopher, who would end up as Secretary of State under President Bill Cliton. That friendship with Christopher sparked Ferraro’s future interest in politics.
But first, Ferraro returned to USC for his final two seasons. A back injury hampered his play in ’46, but he still was All-Coast team and second team All-America as the 6-4 Trojans finished the season with a 20-13 win at Tulane in late December.
Ferraro’s final year of ’47 resulted in another first-team All-America pick. USC went 6-0 in the PCC, shut out UCLA 6-0 before 102,000 at the Coliseum on Nov. 22, and was ranked No. 3 when it lost the next week to No. 1 Notre Dame 38-7 in the season finale. The No. 8 Trojans still went back to the ’48 Rose Bowl, but were pinned down by a 49-0 loss to No. 2 Michigan (from the Big Nine Conference) before 93,000 in Ferraro’s final game.
Ferraro was picked No. 46 overall in the 1946 NFL draft by the Green Bay Packers, but as in those days, most of the draftees didn’t go pro. Ferraro thought his degree in business administration could be more productive. Starting in 1951, Ferraro was a successful insurance broker. It made him plenty wealthy. And able to scratch the political itch.
In ’53, Los Angeles mayor Norris Poulson appointed Ferraro as L.A.’s police commissioner, a 13-year run that culminated with his oversight of reaction to the Watts Riots of ’65.
When he appointed to the Los Angeles City Council by mayor Sam Yorty in 1966 from among 13 applicants to fill a vacancy of the position to represent the fourth district, Ferraro stayed in that chamber an unprecedented 35 years, re-elected nine times, right up until his death.
When he joined the City Council, carpenters had to remove the top drawer of his desk so he could fit his legs underneath.
Through that period, Ferraro was City Council president for 18 total years (1977 to 1981, and from 1987 to his death in 2001), and president pro-temp from ’75 to ’77. He was often the acting mayor with Tom Bradley was out of town. Ferraro’s committee appointments often set the direction of policy making.
The years in between were spent an unsuccessful run on the L.A. County Board of Supervisor as well as an 1985 campaign to be the mayor of Los Angeles, a spot kept for a fourth term by Bradley, himself quite the track and field athlete during his days at UCLA before becoming a police officer.
The sports-related connections that Ferraro became known for was helping bring the 1984 Summer Olympics to Los Angeles and provide a pathway for developers to make Staples Center happen in the South Park area of L.A. to help revitalize the area.
“John Ferraro is the unsung hero in this thing,” George Mihlsten, an attorney for Staples Center developers Ed Roski Jr. and Philip Anschutz, said as the completed center prepared for its opening. “He made the deal happen in L.A.”
Ferraro maintained he didn’t seek attention for his city representation. He just wanted to push the team forward. He wanted to be a behind-the-scenes deal maker. Fix pot holes. Keep the garbage trucks running. Whatever it took to help people.
A peacemaker who all the while knew how to navigate the hand-to-hand combat of local politics.
“I was a tackle,” he says, comparing his tenure on the council to his days on the playing field, to the Los Angeles Times in 1985. “Sure, we never got any glory, no headlines, and that has been my philosophy.”
In 1973, the College Football Foundation honored Ferraro with the NCAA Silver Anniversary Award, given to career achievement to student athletes on their 25th anniversary as college graduate.
The Councilman from Cudahy — with or without the Kodachrome mug shot — just did his job coolly and confidently. Or has his friend Warren Christopher said: “He possessed the two indispensable qualities for a public official: common sense and character.”
When Ferraro died at age 76, his Los Angeles Times obituary explained how L.A. mayor Richard Riordan was present with family members.
“I know of no one who represents the heart and the soul of Los Angeles more than John Ferraro did. He was a big man, he was a strong man, but he was a loving man–a person who put Los Angeles first and his own agendas last.”
The news was announced in council chambers by President Pro Tem Ruth Galanter. Fighting tears, she told a reporter, “We are all sort of his children here. . . . It’s really hard to lose your dad.”
“In the wake of term limits, the council has not only lost its institutional memory, but it has also lost its single most important institution,” said county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who sat on the council 19 years with Ferraro.
The Council Chambers are named in his honor. There is the John Ferraro Building on Hope Street, formerly the Department of Water and Power. When they put him the Coliseum’s Court of Honor in 2000, Los Angeles Times columnist T.J. Simers wrote: “Make it a real Court of Honor for the living such as Peter Ueberroth, (John) Argue and Ferraro, who dedicated a portion of their lives to better L.A and what might go on in the Coliseum. And make it a memorial for the greats of the past who have contributed so much.”
He was part of the second class of the USC Athletic Hall of Fame induction in 1995, a year before he was included as a Rose Bowl Hall of Fame selection in 1996.
In 2014, it was announced that there would be a $10.5 million renovation of the John Ferraro Athletic Fields, the city’s largest soccer facility, a 26-acre site where more than 340,000 players each year compete. All in his Fourth District of Griffith Park.
It was somewhat interesting to see that on USC’s 2024 lacrosse roster, a junior attacker named Mia Ferraro from Philadelphia was on the squad wearing No. 9. The school said she was not related to John Ferraro.
But maybe it’s just comforting to see a Ferraro name back on a USC jersey. And, in the Los Angeles Coliseum’s Memorial Court of Honor:
Who else wore No. 71 in SoCal sports history?
Make a case for:
Brad Budde, USC football offensive lineman (1976 to 1979):
Best known: The first true freshman to start for the Trojans in the post-WWII era, Budde’s 6-foot-4 and 282-pound frame formed a wall on the USC offensive line for the likes of Charles White and Marcus Allen. As a senior, along with being a unanimous All-American, USC Offensive Player of the Year, USC Most Inspirational Player and Academic All-American, Budde was selected as the first and only Lombardi Award winner in USC’s history. He became a College Football Hall of Fame inductee in 1990, later honored by the USC Athletic Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame 2010. In 2025, the Associated Press named its all-time All-American college football team to mark the 100th anniversary of the award that began in 1925. Budde was second-team offensive guard. After seven years in the NFL with Kansas City, Budde earned a Masters in physical therapy from Loma Linda University, Budde has served as president of Budde Physical Therapy Inc. rehabilitating senior citizens in Orange County. He was also an offensive line coach at San Clemente High and Orange Coast College.
Not well remembered: When he was the 11th overall pick in the NFL draft by Kansas City, he joined his father, Ed Budde, as the first father/son combo drafted in the first round by the same team and play the same position.
Tony Boselli, USC football offensive lineman (1991 to 1994):
Best known: While Trojan standouts such as Morton Kaer, Harry Smith and Ralph Heywood wore No. 71 before “Big John” Ferrero, there wasn’t anyone quite as big in statue as the 6-foot-8, 335-pounder to wear it after him like Boselli. He was inducted into College Football Hall of Fame in 2014, a reflection of his three-time All-American status. His USC Athletic Hall of Fame induction in 2012 mentions his status as the ’94 team captain and MVP. “I’ve coached three Hall of Fame linemen — Anthony Munoz, Jackie Slater and Tony Boselli,” former USC head coach John Robinson once said. “They were all kind of equal in terms of the potential they had. Tony had marvelous size, speed, balance and he was a mean SOB.”
Boselli is also in the Cotton Bowl Hall of Fame to capture his game MVP performance in USC’s 55-14 win over Texas Tech in 1995 — as USC’s offensive had 578 yards.
In ESPN’s 2020 list of the 150 greatest college football players in the game’s first 150 years, Boselli ranked No. 144 with this tribute: “The rebuilding of USC football in the early 1990s just might have begun with the signing of Boselli, who didn’t sign with his home-state, national-champion Colorado Buffaloes in order to go to USC. Boselli rapidly remade the prototype of the ideal offensive tackle … made All-Pac-10 as a freshman, when the Trojans went 3-8. By his junior year, USC won a share of the conference championship.”
Not well remembered: Boselli became the first player picked by two NFL expansion teams — by Jacksonville in 1995 (second overall in the draft) and by Houston in 2002 (in the expansion draft, injured the entire season) and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2022 for his five Pro Bowls in seven seasons.
Joe Scibelli, Los Angeles Rams right offensive guard (1961 to 1975):
Best known: They don’t make ’em like they did Scibelli. He joined the Rams at the age of 21 in 1961 and did not leave until he was 36 years, logging 202 games, including 193 as a starter. On a line with Charlie Cowan for 15 years and Tom Mack for another eight, Scibelli played in the Pro Bowl in 1968 and was an All-Pro pick in 1973. He became a team co-captain during his last 10 years with the Rams and was named the team’s most valuable offensive lineman five times.
Not well remembered: The Rams took him in the 10th round of the 1961 NFL Draft (No. 130 overall), technically out of Division II American International College in Springfield, Ill., after he played his two years at Notre Dame and left the program.
Kris Farris, UCLA football offensive tackle (1995 to 1999):
Best known: The 6-foot-8 standout from Rancho Margarita Catholic High School was recognized as the Outland Trophy winner and a consensus first-team All-American as a senior. “I did go to UCLA to study film,” he said, “but I realized my first love was football. I never circled back on that career after football – I put all of my energy and focus into football and never prepared myself for that kind of work in film. I didn’t get my major in film – had no contacts in the business. At 26 it just wasn’t my goal anymore. I still do love film though.”
Have you heard this story:
Randy Meadows, Downey High football running back (1954 to 1956):
In a senior season where he the led the CIF in scoring with 196 points in 13 games, Meadows’ greater moment of fame in Southern California came when his 12-0 Downey team faced 12-0 Anaheim and Mickey Flynn for the the CIF championship on Dec. 14, 1956 at the Coliseum. In dense fog, before an estimated 50,000 fans, Meadows injured his shoulder tackling Flynn in the first quarter. But he came back and had 112 yards rushing on 10 carries and scored on a 69-yard TD run. The game ended in a 13-13 tie, co-champs were declared, and it has been documented in the film “A Last Hurrah.” Meadows, who shared the 1956 CIF Player of the Year award with Flynn, became his teammate at the following Shrine East-West All Star game, which drew another 85,000 fans at the Coliseum. Meadows, who went to USC briefly, never appeared in a varsity game and suffered a career-ending injury while playing for a service team in the Army. He died in 2000 at 62 after a long battle with cancer.
We also have:
Deuce Lutui, USC football offensive guard (2004 to 2005)
Charles Brown, USC football left tackle (2006 to 2009)
Craig Novitsky, UCLA football offensive guard (1990 to 1993)
Bruce Davis, UCLA football defensive tackle (1975 to 1978)
Reggie Doss, Los Angeles Rams defensive end (1978 to 1987)
Anyone else worth nominating?
Wow! I didn’t think anyone remembered that Anaheim vs. Downey game back in ’57.
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