The Lawyer’s Well-Being Brief

Coach Pete Carroll in the hood!

“Look for something positive each day, even if some days you have to look a little harder.”- Unknown

Peter Carroll is an American football coach who is the head coach and executive vice president for the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League (NFL). He was previously the head football coach at USC from 2001 to 2009, where he won six bowl games and back-to-back National Championships in 2003 and 2004.

“Hey man, you’re doing great, keep it going,” said Pete Carroll, swooping in for a back slap as he approached Marlo Jones.

Jones could have been a quarterback.

“Coach, thanks,” he said. “It’s been tough lately . . . we’re holding on.”

This wasn’t a USC game, this was not the Coliseum, and Jones was not a quarterback.

This happened to be a night on a sidewalk inside South L.A.’s squalid Jordan Downs housing project, hard by the Watts Towers.

And Marlo “Bow Wow” Jones is an ex-gangster, a guy who by his account had spent a quarter of his life in jail and was now working to turn his life around.

“Pete Carroll in the ‘hood,” said a man standing near the Trojans coach, Bow Wow, and me. “Man, this is crazy.”