Jim Weber runs LostLettermen.com, a site devoted to keeping tabs on former players and other nostalgia. This week, he tracks down former Miami star turned federal agent Randal Hill.

Between the finger-wagging, the media had their fun with Miami during the Hurricanes' heyday in the late '80s, when The U's penchant for winning national titles (four from 1983-91) was matched for its reputation for having no respect for rules, laws or authority of any kind.

Miami was so good and so bad at the same time, went the joke, that it topped the polls of the AP, UPI, SI and FBI. How do the Hurricanes take their team picture? From the front, then to the side. When their rivalry with Notre Dame hit a national note in 1988, the label was inevitable: "Catholics vs. Convicts."

One of the most flamboyant 'Canes of the "U" era was wide receiver Randal Hill, whose post-football career track has led him down the only logical path: To that of a federal agent for the Department of Homeland Security's U.S.

Jim Weber runs LostLettermen.com, a site devoted to keeping tabs on former players and other nostalgia. This week he tracked down one of the breakout alums of 2010: Former Arizona State wide receiver Isaiah Mustafa.

Unless you've been in a fallout shelter for the last 11 months, you're probably well acquainted with the few seconds of Isaiah Mustafa's life that transformed him into "The Old Spice Guy," the chiseled star of those winking, hyper-masculine "manmercials" that hit the air in February.

But Mustafa's route to the national stage has passed through enough twists and serendipitous turns – one of them leading him to Arizona State, as a member of the team that nearly became the most unlikely national champion in the history of college football – that Jay Leno once compared it to "Slumdog Millionaire."

Jim Weber runs LostLettermen.com, a site devoted to keeping tabs on former players and other bits of nostalgia. Today, he looks at the victims of the annual USC-UCLA prank war ahead of Saturday's game.

He's 10-feet tall and bulletproof, literally. But even some world leaders might not have the type of security afforded to Tommy Trojan right now.

As usual, USC's life-size bronze statue of a Trojan warrior is spending this week wrapped in duct tape, guarded by his own personal security detail and monitored via video surveillance.

Why?

The figure at the heart of campus has also been at the center of the USC-UCLA rivalry almost since the day it was unveiled in 1930. And with the Trojans and Bruins set for their annual battle Saturday in the Rose Bowl, Tommy is once again Public Enemy No. 1 for UCLA students.

The shenanigans started back in 1941 when USC students stole a bell from their crosstown rival and stashed it away at a nearby frat house, initiating the Victory Bell as a traveling

Jim Weber runs the college football and men’s basketball site LostLettermen.com. This week, he looks at the early trials of Bevo, introduced to Texas on Thanksgiving 1916, ahead of Thursday night's rivalry showdown between the Longhorns and Texas A&M in Austin.

There isn't a fan base more proud of its school or more in love with its mascot than the faithful from the University of Texas. Longhorn fans stay true to their school by traveling en masse to road games, decking themselves head to toe in burnt orange and obsessively lashing the "Hook 'em Horns."

And they show their affection for the live longhorn mascot, Bevo, with endless merchandise that ranges from golf head covers to Halloween costumes, as well as a student group, the Silver Spurs, whose sole purpose is the care and transport of the 2,000-pound steer. These days, he's treated like royalty while taking in games from the field.

It wasn't always that way. Texas had been known as the "Longhorns" for years, but before a group of

Jim Weber runs LostLettermen.com, devoted to keeping tabs on former college football and basketball players and other bits of nostalgia. Today he tracks down former Iowa coach Hayden Fry for the origins of Iowa's pink locker rooms, on display Saturday against Ohio State.

For over three decades, opponents entering the locker room at Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium have felt like they just walked into a dollhouse. The space is coated floor to ceiling in bubblegum pink, even in the bathrooms, from pink sinks to lockers that look better suited for Barbies than 300-pound linemen.

What is a program decked in black and gold doing with a pink locker room? As the familiar legend has it, former Hawkeye coach Hayden Fry, a psychology major, ordered the makeover when he took over in 1978 in an effort to create a soothing effect on opponents. Jails have employed the same technique.

But the psychological edge is only part of the reason.

“Frankly, the only color paint we could find at the stadium was pink,”

Jim Weber runs the college football and men's basketball site LostLettermen.com and is a frequent contributor to Yahoo! Sports Blogs.

Leonard Marshall probably doesn't need to worry much about discipline, even as a first-year high school head coach. If his players act up, all he has to do is show them a clip of "The Hit."

You know, the blind-sided shot the former Giants defensive end put on Joe Montana in the fourth quarter of the 1990 NFC championship game that essentially ended Joe Cool's career with the 49ers and propelled the G-Men to their second Super Bowl victory under Bill Parcells. One of the most legendary hits in NFL history, it left Montana with cracked ribs, a broken hand and feeling like he was on death's doorstep.

Even though Marshall's current players weren't even born then, they're certainly familiar with the play.

"It comes up a lot," Marshall said. "YouTube and all that stuff from all my days on the ‘Howard Stern Show,' they pull up stuff from my games against the

Jim Weber runs the college football and men’s basketball site LostLettermen.com and is a frequent contributor to Yahoo! Sports Blogs.

It's an early November day and Jake Plummer(notes) has the itch to play again.

No, he's not pulling a Brett Favre(notes). Plummer is on his way to play handball for the first time in weeks in Sandpoint, Idaho, the resort town of 7,000 people near the Canadian border where Plummer now lives three years after his abrupt retirement.

Still only 35 years old, Plummer sounds totally carefree, shooting from the hip while yapping on his cell phone, cracking jokes and laughing.

"I lost in our doubles match at my tournament in a tiebreaker and came off the court as happy as I've ever been after a loss," Plummer said. "I was smiling and laughing and [thinking], 'Hey, this is life.'"

[Related: Plummer's mustache among greatest in NFL history]

Wait, is this the same Jake Plummer that was labeled a brat after wearing out his welcome in Denver for flipping off a fan,

Jim Weber runs LostLettermen.com, a site devoted to keeping tabs on former players and other bits of nostalgia. This week he answers the all-important question about Wisconsin's upcoming trip to Iowa: Why does the Badgers' coach have another team's logo tattooed on his leg?

The modern phenomenon of tattoo regret has been lampooned by everyone from T-Mobile commercials to "Saturday Night Live." But there's nothing funny to Wisconsin fans about coach Bret Bielema's homage to his college days.

Especially not the week of the Badgers' annual rivalry showdown with Bielema's alma mater, Iowa.

[Photo: NBA player tattoos his head]

Sure, the "Tiger Hawk" tattoo seemed like a great idea at the time. That was 1990, when Bielema, then a walk-on defensive lineman for the Hawkeyes under legendary coach Hayden Fry, sprang for the ink after receiving a scholarship as a sophomore. To celebrate, he got the iconic Iowa logo tattooed on his left calf with the words "Believe" and "Achieve" on opposite ends