LOS ANGELES — Manager Dave Roberts sent a clear message Friday night as he stood on the podium after the Los Angeles Dodgers won the National League Championship Series.

Roberts used the opportunity to address the ongoing conversation about the Dodgers’ high payroll and the advantage it is said to provide compared to other teams in the league.

“Before the season started, they said the Dodgers are ruining baseball,” Roberts said. “Let’s get four more wins and really ruin baseball.”

The Dodgers beat the Milwaukee Brewers 5-1 in Game 4 of the NLCS to advance to the World Series for the second consecutive year.

The manager’s message was met with a roar from the crowd that stayed after the final out for the trophy presentation.

The Dodgers had the second-highest payroll this season at $321 million, trailing only the New York Mets ($323 million).

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Twenty years ago, one of the most iconic — and controversial — plays in college football took place in one of the sport’s greatest rivalries.

As Southern California and Notre Dame prepare for what could be their final meeting for some time, the 2025 edition also marks the 20th anniversary of the infamous ‘Bush Push.’ In that game, No. 1 USC went into South Bend, Ind., and defeated No. 9 Notre Dame, 34-31, scoring a touchdown with three seconds left to take the lead.

But it’s far from an ordinary touchdown, and one that has been debated by both fan bases since on whether it should have happened — or been allowed?

USC vs Notre Dame 2005 importance

The 2005 meeting of the Trojans and Fighting Irish had great significance before the game kicked off. Undefeated and No. 1 USC was the defending national champion and Notre Dame had hype building under first-year coach Charlie Weis. In front of a sold-out Notre Dame Stadium, the Fighting Irish wore green uniforms, something they hadn’t done since 2002.

The game, lead-up to the Bush Push

It was a close game from start to finish, with the teams trading leads and it a one-score game the entire way. Notre Dame took a 31-28 lead thanks to quarterback Brady Quinn with just over two minutes left in the game.

The Trojans faced a 4th-and-9 at their own 26-yard line, and quarterback Matt Leinart placed the ball perfectly in the hands of receiver Dwayne Jarrett, who ran for a 61-yard gain into the red zone to keep USC alive.

After picking up a first down and the clock running inside 20 seconds, Leinart scrambled to his left to try and score a touchdown. However, just as he was approaching the goal line, the ball popped out of his hands.

Then came chaos. The clock continued to roll down to zero, and Notre Dame players and fans assumed the game was over and ran onto the field to celebrate.

After discussion, the referees confirmed the ball went out of bounds and the clock should have stopped. The field was cleared and seven seconds were put on the clock, with USC getting the ball at the 1-yard line.

‘Bush Push’ play break down

Having likely one play left, then-USC coach Pete Carroll instructed Leinart to spike the ball to set up a field goal to send the game to overtime.

Instead, Leinart made the decision to try and sneak the ball in for a touchdown and the win. He snapped the ball and tried to get in when the infamous part of the play occurred.

Leinart was initially stuffed, but running back Reggie Bush pushed his quarterback forward and he fell into the end zone for a touchdown to make it 34-31 en route to the victory.

Watch: ‘Bush Push’ video

Was ‘Bush Push’ legal?

While there’s no doubt Leinart scored, what’s made the play controversial is whether it should have counted.

At the time, Section 3, Article 2b of the NCAA rule book stated a runner ‘shall not grasp a teammate; and no other player of his team shall grasp, push, lift or charge into him to assist him in forward progress.’

Bush pushed Leinart, so a flag should have been thrown.

What’s important about the rule is while it existed, it was hardly ever enforced, so it would’ve been highly unlikely it wold have ever been called.

Effect of ‘Bush Push’

The play and result of the game had a dramatic effect on both teams. USC’s win streak pushed to 28 games, and had a perfect regular season en route to a spot in the national championship game. Bush also ended up winning the Heisman Trophy at the end of the year.

The Trojans would lose in the title game to Texas.

For Notre Dame, the loss dropped it to 4-2 and severely hurt the hype surrounding the team. The Fighting Irish ended the season 9-3 with a loss to Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl. It also started what would be a tough skid for Weis, who went 0-5 in all his meetings with the Trojans.

Matt Leinart, Brady Quinn meet on field again

As you can imagine, the emotions are still there for the two quarterbacks 20 years later.

Leinart and Quinn met inside Notre Dame Stadium earlier in the week as the 2004 Heisman Trophy winner recreated the play. However, Quinn threw a flag and said ‘they should’ve thrown it’ and ‘we should’ve won that.’

Leinart said it was ‘the only time I’ve ever cried in a football game.’

As the 20th anniversary approaches of the ‘Bush Push,’ the feelings are clearly still raw on both sides.

Parent the child you have, not the one you wish you had.

Kirsten Jones thinks the line is so important, she repeats it within the text of her book.

“Just because she doesn’t have the same passion for the game that you or her siblings might have doesn’t make her ‘damaged goods,” Jones writes in “Raising Empowered Athletes.” “It simply makes her like all the rest of us: struggling to find our places in the world.”

Jones is a former elite Division I athlete. She has been a coach of kids, and she’s a mother of three. 

“I feel like I learned all the chapters in the book,” Jones, now a motivational speaker and performance coach, tells USA TODAY Sports. “I’ve had the kid who was the star, I’ve had the kid who didn’t play. I’ve flown to tournaments where I sat on the sidelines for five days and she didn’t even touch the floor. And it sucks. And the tears in the car ride home for both of you are hard.”

Her book is not so much a guide, but a pep talk. Parenting, as we discover, is an evolution. It involves patience, compromise and the right amount of levity and humor. We don’t start off knowing everything, and we never reach perfection.

 But we get better at it if we’re willing to learn along the way.

“The joke is when you get pregnant, everyone hands you What to Expect When You’re Expecting, and you think, ‘Yes! I have all the answers and this is going to be so easy,’” she says. “And then you get to kick and chase and there’s some yahoos standing next to you on the sidelines going, ‘Well, they’re four. You’re not going to do this rec thing, are you?’”

Jones has raised three athletes (25, 22 and 19) with her husband, Evan. Here are 10 tips she has learned about how we can raise empowered ones, whether they choose to keep playing or not:

1. We start off with a dream; you never know where it might take you

Jones grew up in the 1970s in Missoula, Montana, where she rode horses, skied and played basketball before she discovered her passion.

“I didn’t actually find volleyball until high school because it became a sanctioned sport my freshman year in 1984,” she says.

Her persistence got her to two Division I college programs, but her story is more about the pursuit of a dream that didn’t quite get fulfilled.

“I think we should all have aspirations and just because you don’t play for Duke or Real Madrid or wherever, I believe these are all things that you’re going to take whatever you learn and that you’re going to use it for whatever’s next,” she says. “I saw a mom post the other day about, ‘My 16-year-old just quit. All that money wasted.’ 

“You’re missing the point. Really? Did you ever sign a contract when she was five, that she was going to have to go the whole way or you weren’t gonna invest in it?”

When we dream, we find out if we’re intrinsically motivated to pursue. Kirsten signed herself up for a volleyball camp at UC San Diego, and flew there from Missoula herself.

Two years later, she tried out for the junior national team in Colorado Springs (“with my barely matching knee pads.”) Although she didn’t make the team, she chased down Sue Snyder, then an assistant coach at San Diego State, at the Denver airport.

“Can I come to San Diego State?” she asked.

2. Make sure it’s your kids’ dream, and not yours

Jones’ father, a pulmonologist, was all about education, but also learning and growing at whatever you did.

There were no expectations for activities Kirsten and her siblings tried. They just needed to be all in on whatever they did.

“My parents were actually more piano and ballet, which was for me, like nails on a chalkboard,” she says. “(But) we finish what we start. So if you signed up for karate and you don’t like it a month in, OK, great, well, let’s just finish the season and then we can pick something else.

“My dad always said, ‘If you’re playing for me, you should stop.’”

Parenting, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr told Jones and co-host Susie Walton on their “Raising Athletes” podcast, is a lot like coaching.

“You’re not doing things for your kids,” Kerr said. “You’re trying to give them perspective and then become the best versions of themselves so that they’re making their own decisions and they’re doing the things that can help them be successful. But they’re the ones who are actually doing it.”

Jones says we’re like the guardrails.

3. As parents, we always have to be prepared to pivot

Kerr was the kid who threw his glove and cried when things didn’t go well.

“I had the worst tantrums during sports,” he told Jones and Walton. “I was so competitive that I would literally lose my mind.”

He says his parents never said anything about it until they got home. When a few hours passed, and he would calm down, they might ask: “What are you thinking about when you’re crying?”

“They were very thoughtful about it,” Kerr said. “Sit and observe, support but you don’t have to constantly be telling them what to do and then you help them find their own way.”

Two of Kerr’s kids, Nick and Madeline, played Division I athletics, and Nick went on to coach in the NBA G League. But his youngest child, Matthew, wanted to play soccer to get a uniform like the one he saw his sister had.

When Matthew was about 5, Steve and his wife, Margot, put him in his first game, and watched their son lie down and start picking daisies.

“You’re not really into this, are you?’ Kerr said to him.

“No.”

It was the last sport he ever played.

“I was fine with that,” his dad said. “He’s a writer now. He was writing stories from an early age and making movies on his home video camera and that’s what he loves and so we encouraged him to do that.”

4. Check yourself before you check on them

Jones’ two sons, Caelan and Parker, have played Division 1 basketball. Her daughter, Kylie, had an experience like a lot of our kids: She was on a highly competitive travel team but didn’t get into games as much as many of the other kids.

“We didn’t even try volleyball until she was 12,” Jones says. “And that was a problem because everybody else had started at seven. And so she was behind. But I figured, I didn’t start until I was 14 and it worked out for me. Was she the best athlete? No. Did she pick it up right away and it all fell into place? Not really. And then COVID hit, and it was rough.”

But the pandemic provided one respite: No parents were allowed in the gym. We don’t think our kids can hear us, Jones says, especially if we’re not the loudmouth who’s constantly yelling.

“That’s the only voice they hear,” she says. “And their head’s on a swivel. She was rolling her eyes. I think even having me in the gym was stressful to her because what if I’m not living up? They don’t need the pressure.

Instead, when practice is over, ask your kid for permission before you offer advice.

If they say no? “Then you zip it and call a friend, talk to your spouse, go for a walk. Allow it to be their journey.”

5. Be a friend as well as a parent

“The dad and me says, ‘You should have done X, Y and Z,’” Jones’ husband, Evan, might ask their kids.

“The friend in me says, ‘Wow, that was probably a really hard situation.’”

Evan had played basketball professionally in Europe, where he met Kirsten. He played guitar on the side. Sports, like his music, was intended to be an activity to relieve stress, not provide it.

As Caelan’s sixth grade assistant coach, he noticed the complex offense and defensive schemes the head coach devised. He politely asked him for a minute before a game.

“Three things,” Evan told the team. “Talk to each other, space out and be aggressive. Any questions?”

“That’s all?” asked one kid.

“That’s all.”

6. Have a growth mindset: Sports is resilience training for life

Kirsten started her career working for Nike, where she loved to help professionals push through obstacles in their life.

In her book, she writes that a growth mindset is an athlete’s willingness — and ability — to be curious about learning new skills.

“I never made the national team, but look where I landed,” says Jones, who wound up playing volleyball at San Diego State and William & Mary. “It got me to Nike. It got me into two very good schools and a great education.”

And it got her daughter home.

7. We can be the sounding board while allowing our kids to be the fixers

By the time Kylie was a senior in high school, she had made the top club volleyball team, but she was toward the back of the roster. Despite the team flying all over from their Southern California base, including to Hawaii, she was shagging balls for other players at 5:30 a.m. practice.

“I said, ‘Kylie, I’d much rather you use your time for something you’re interested in where you can start to build the muscle that will help you figure out what you want,’” Jones said. “Unless you really just want to be on the roster.”

“I don’t want to do this,” her daughter said.

Here came the pivot, to film school at Loyola Marymount University, where she is now studying.

Remember Steve Kerr’s son who picked daisies on the soccer field? He went to USC film school and worked in the writers’ room for Ted Lasso.

8. Find things to do independently from watching your kids play sports

Kirsten Jones says her mom and dad barely attended her games, not because they didn’t care, but because there were other things going on in their lives.

U.S. Soccer icon Abby Wambach recently said in her podcast that, as parents, we should never even go to practice. We want our kids’ motivation to come from within, she says, not from us.

“If you haven’t been at practice,” Wambach said, “then you don’t know what the coaches are saying. You don’t know what they’ve been working on, which is good because it’s your child’s life and their experience.”

Our children have a right to play without us shouting over the coach.  It’s also healthy for us to have something we love to do that happily prevents us from being there all the time.

“When do you work out?” Jones asked a woman in Colorado who called her to ask if it’s OK if she didn’t stay and watch practice.

“I don’t, because I just go to different practices,” was the reply.

“Go run,” Jones said. “Show your daughter that you’re important too.”

9. Find things you can do toegher that aren’t sports

Maybe you’re a coach and have to be there all the time. Or you’re like the parent, a former collegiate athlete, who told Jones: ‘I am embarrassed to admit the number of hours I’ve lost sleep over what team my nine-year-old has got to make.”

Her advice? Go on a camping trip. “You will spend time alone and be where he is.”

We all have to be prepared, when we’re camping or otherwise, for them to say: “Well, Dad, I don’t really like soccer, but I know it makes you happy. So I’ll play soccer.”

You can say, “You don’t have to do that.”

10. It’s never too late to change – or adjust – how to be sports parents

When Jones was pitching her book idea, some suggested it should be called, “How to raise a pro athlete.” Her intention was the opposite.

The book is about how we can survive, and thrive, when our careers end.

We want our kids to have hurdles, but sometimes we need to just lower the bar. Perfectionist parenting, she says, is too hard.

Susie Walton, the late Basketball Hall of Famer’s ex-wife who has hosted podcasts with Jones, likes to say: “If you’re perfect, get off at the wrong exit every once in a while and say out loud, ‘Oops, I made a mistake.’”

Jones says one dad who has played in the NFL told her he was embarrassed because he yells at his young athletes on the car ride home.

“If you fix that now, they won’t even remember,” she says. “But we’re in the moment with our kid, and well, this is it. No. It’s a moment. It’s not the moment.”

Like with the equestrian athletes Jones sees, it’s not often about how high the fences are. Our kids just want to jump high enough.

Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons’ baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for two high schoolers. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here.

LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani continues to prove why he’s the best player in baseball.

Ohtani propelled the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 5-1 win against the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, pitching six innings of brilliant ball while launching three home runs.

‘That was probably the greatest postseason performance of all time,’ Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. ‘There’s been a lot of postseason games. And there’s a reason why he’s the greatest player on the planet.

‘What he did on the mound, what he did at the plate, he created a lot of memories for a lot of people. So for us to have a game-clinching — to do it in a game-clinching game at home, wins the NLCS MVP, pretty special. I’m just happy to be able to go along for the ride.’

Ohtani was the starting pitcher and provided all the run support the Dodgers needed, with solo home runs in the first, fourth and seventh innings. His performance helped complete the sweep of the Brewers as the Dodgers advanced to the World Series for the second consecutive year.

Ohtani’s pitching performance, which ended when he was lifted in the seventh, concluded another stellar night from the Dodgers’ starting pitchers, following Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow.

He walked the Brewers’ leadoff hitter, Brice Turang, before striking out Jackson Chourio, Christian Yelich and William Contreras in order. He finished the night with 10 strikeouts, becoming the first player to strike out 10 and hit three homers in a game, per Sarah Langs.

‘I really focused on, first and foremost, as a starting pitcher to make sure I’m an effective starting pitcher,’ Ohtani said. ‘On the hitting side, looking at the entire team, we will see that at times the right-handed hitters picked us up. And on the flip side, sometimes the left-handed hitters picked us up. So in a sense we’re just trying to find the right balance.’

Ohtani provided an early spark at the plate with a solo home run in the bottom of the first inning to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead. His teammates provided further run support in the first as Mookie Betts and Will Smith scored runs to give the Dodgers a 3-0 lead.

‘I think there was a lot of talk that he was scuffling at the plate; he doesn’t swing the bat well when he’s pitching. And all those things I think were fuel to his fire,’ Roberts said. ‘Today, when he took the mound, you can see the focus, the intent. And after that shutdown first inning, just the at-bat right there, you could see that he was smelling a really good night tonight.’

Jackson Chourio managed to get the Brewers’ first hit in the top of the fourth inning, ending Ohtani’s chance at a no-hitter.

But Ohtani launched a ball 469 feet toward center field for his second home run in the bottom of the fourth against Brewers pitcher Chad Patrick. He then got his third in the bottom of the seventh.

Shohei Ohtani stats: Dodgers vs. Brewers results 

• Batting: 3-for-3, 3 HR, 3 RBI, 1 BB
• Pitching: 6 innings, 0 ER, 2 hits, 3 walks, 10 strikeouts

Shohei Ohtani highlights vs. Brewers

How much does a long-distance call to Trinidad and Tobago cost? I’ll find out come my next phone bill.

I went on a reporting scavenger hunt this week.

Admittedly, more than a bit ambitious.

Also, more than a bit peculiar.

So is college football, though, right? Especially, college football fandom.

See, down in Oxford, Mississippi, fans of the No. 5-ranked Rebels are flying Trinidad and Tobago flags by the dozens.

Why? Well, because of star quarterback Trinidad Chambliss.

While covering an Mississippi home game against LSU last month, I spotted the southernmost Caribbean island nation’s red, black and white flag displayed throughout the popular Grove tailgate gathering spot. Trinidad and Tobago flags appeared in abundance when Ole Miss hosted Washington State two weeks later. They’re all over town.

What, exactly, is going on here?

Well, Ole Miss’ rise has been fueled by Chambliss, a breakout star. A Division II transfer, Chambliss began the season as the team’s backup, but he got thrust into duty after starter Austin Simmons injured his ankle in Week 2. As Chambliss started to dazzle, Trinidad and Tobago flags began showing up as a way for fans to throw support behind this former zero-star recruit turned SEC dynamo.

Chambliss, to be clear, is not from Trinidad or Tobago. He’s from Michigan. He’s not named after Trinidad and Tobago, either.

As the Clarion Ledger reported on this week, Chambliss’ parents named him Trinidad because the Christian faith is important to the family. Trinidad is a Spanish word that translates to Trinity in English. Also, his dad liked the name after watching boxer Felix Trinidad on TV.

And, there you have it. Chambliss’ parents named their son Trinidad, and Ole Miss fans used the flag of a country whose capital is 2,400 miles away from Oxford to support their quarterback. Fads have started for more bizarre reasons than this. Ole Miss fans and even coach Lane Kiffin are including the Trinidad and Tobago flag emoji in social media posts about the team. Dick’s Sporting Goods even sells a red T-shirt featuring the Trinidad and Tobago flag with the words “Ole Miss” underneath for $35.

“We were down there (for the Washington State game),’ Chambliss’ mom, Cheryl, told the Clarion Ledger, part of the USA TODAY Network. ‘Driving to brunch through the neighborhoods in Oxford and seeing so many houses flying the flag of Trinidad and Tobago, (it’s) quite amazing.”

Chambliss credits fans’ creativity.

“I love it — all the flags at the tailgates. It’s really cool,” he said earlier this season. “My family loves it, too.”

I wanted to know, though, as Ole Miss prepares for a nationally televised clash at No. 7 Georgia, is anyone in Trinidad and Tobago aware of this surging phenomenon, of their country’s flag becoming a Mississippi football rally symbol at games and on display throughout a college town in the southern United States?

I phoned and sent messages to Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of Sport, as well of its Ministry of Tourism and Ministry of Culture. I spoke with a woman at a private tourism group who said I wasn’t the first reporter to call her this week. I emailed a couple of sports editors at newspapers in Trinidad, the larger of the country’s two main islands located off the coast of Venezuela.

No luck. I failed to connect with anyone in Trinidad or Tobago familiar with Chambliss or the flag fad he inspired. Hardly a surprise. Cricket and soccer are Trinidad and Tobago’s most popular sports. A scan of Trinidad’s newspapers shows no headlines about American college football.

Late in the week, though, the Trinidad and Tobago embassy in Washington D.C. returned my phone call. Although they weren’t familiar with Chambliss or their country’s flag flying at Ole Miss games before I called, they are now. And, apparently, they’re now planning to watch the Ole Miss-Georgia game, televised on ABC.

“The Mission is truly impressed by this remarkable phenomenon,” Janae Harris, a senior executive officer at the Trinidad and Tobago embassy in D.C., wrote in an email to me.

“Please be assured,” she added, “we too will be tuning in to the Trinidad Chambliss game to witness this moment on Saturday.”

And if this quarterback named Trinidad, who’s captured the heart and creative spirit of Ole Miss, helps author a victory at Georgia, you best believe Trinidad and Tobago flags will be displayed with pride and affection back in Mississippi.

Sam Hutchens’ reporting for the Clarion Ledger, part of the USA TODAY Network, contributed to this column.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.