Googling Paul Hackett...

What's in a name?
by Mojack

So, I was thinking about writing something funny about one of our former coaches. Remember Paul Hackett, ex-USC football coach, you know, aka He-Who's-Name-Must-Not-Be-Said? I didn't think anybody would want to remember him, so I decided to Google Paul. To anyone over Brooks' age of 99, "googling Paul" is not a euphemism for anything bad, well, unless you consider researching anything about our former football coach...bad. Okay, well then I'm guilty.

In ten pages of Google Hell, I only found 2 references to "Paul Hackett, football coach." Google was being generous qualifying that Paul Hackett as a "football coach." What I did find is this:

PH #1, a Democratic Senate candidate also named Paul Hackett. (photo left: Democratic Senate candidate and Marine Corps Major Paul Hackett) As it said in a political blog, "Candidate Paul Hackett is accustomed to waging quixotic battles and taking his hits. He just didn’t expect the lowest—and fatal—blows to come from his own party. In an announcement that stunned many in Washington and even some in his campaign staff, Hackett declared on February 13, 2006, that he was dropping his bid for U.S. Senate in Ohio."

And then I was lucky enough to find another Paul Hackett. PH #2 was born in England and raised in Canada. This Paul Hackett is a filmmaker currently living in China. He is also the owner and operator of the popular and respected websites Guitar Noise and Music Careers. In 2003 he took time off from his websites to direct Not Much, his first feature film.

(photo right: Canadian Paul Hackett)

And then I found Paul Hackett #3.

He's at Columbia University, and he's not coaching the football team (thank God). (photo left; Columbia University Paul Hackett and Korean Dictator Kim Jung Il) Nor is he coaching the intramural Frisbee Football team (again, thank God). By the way, USC does need intramural Frisbee Football. But, I digress. This Paul H., #3, writes, "I am currently engaged in research in two fields of inquiry, computational linguistics applied to the Tibetan language, and late Indian/Tibetan Buddhist tantra." Maybe our old USC football coach would've been more successful if he had gotten into the study of a far Eastern language. But now I think the question of the day is how do you say, "Tank formation" in Tibetan?

On further searching for Paul Hackett (sounds like a bad movie starring Michael Madsen). I came across an Australian bird photographer. (photo right: Australian Paul Hackett in the wild)

The Aussie Birdman Paul Hackett (#4) didn't say anything about Foster's or Throwing a Shrimp on the Barbie. Instead he wrote, "I was born in Melbourne in October 1964. I began bird photography in October 2001 in an attempt to identify the species I was seeing around the garden. I soon ran out of birds to identify so started travelling to see and photograph new birds." He seems nice for a Paul Hackett, doesn't he?

Then I went to speed googling. What else could I do? I was so amazed at this other world of Paul Hacketts, I just had to find more with the thought always was on my mind, "Did these seemingly normal Paul Hacketts have any notion that they shared a name with an incompetent football coach who loved jukeboxes?" Hopefully they had no idea.

I found that if you go to www.paulhackett.com that is actually the blog of a computer IT professional. As this PH says, "If you have arrived at this website, interested in the fate of Paul Hackett the democratic candidate in Ohio, it's not me." This Paul Hackett is from Oxfordshire, England. He writes, "I am a computer programmer. As I travel from job to job, picking up new information, the knowledge tends to fade with time and the notes get lost. In future, here is where the information shall end up!" He apparently has no idea about the football Paul Hackett.

If you like playing bridge, you might want to go to Didsbury, Manchester, England, and look up the bridgemaster Paul Hackett. As it states on this PH's website, "Paul Hackett and twin sons Justin and Jason are famed world-wide for their Bridge skills, both as individuals and as members of a remarkable family. Between them, the family have won most of the major titles around the world, including many European Championships, the World Junior Championship and were most recently victorious in Hong Kong, Norway and Japan." True, bridge sounds boring, but I think I'd rather watch a bridge tournament than watch the Trojans lead the PAC-10 in penalties again.

And finally, Paul G. Hackett, the #6 or #7 Paul Hackett that I found, did write Medical Billing For Beginners, if anyone finds medical billing an interesting read. If that doesn't float your boat, just find Petros on the radio and listen to him.