When Nancy Lueck ’74 was growing up in Sacramento, she used to spend Saturdays watching college football with her beloved grandmother. For a while, Nancy was “very rah-rah” for Michigan, but in 1960, she shifted her allegiance to USC. That was the year John McKay began his legendary tenure as the Trojans’ football coach.
“Even at that young age,” she says, “I connected emotionally with USC. The spirit, the traditions, all the pomp and circumstance at the Coliseum. Plus, the football team was winning!”
Nancy’s passion for USC and Trojan football inspired an announcement to her parents and grandmother: “I am going to go to USC. That’s the school I want to apply to.”
“I was nine years old,” she adds, “and I never wavered.”
Later, when it was time to apply to college, Nancy doubled down and told her parents that she would only apply to USC. No backup or “safety schools”—it was USC or nothing. At her parents’ insistence, she begrudgingly applied to UCLA while waiting for the acceptance letter from her dream school. Fortunately, she didn’t have to wait long.
“When I got the acceptance letter from USC, I broke down in tears,” she says.
Attending USC only deepened what Nancy calls “one of the strongest loves in my life.” She majored in sociology, with a minor in psychology and loved studying Italian with a professor “who taught us the language through singing and listening to opera and watching films on Italian culture.”
There was also USC football and, of course, John McKay, who had made such an indelible impression on Nancy during her childhood.
“I was at USC during his final years as coach, so I got to experience his legacy firsthand.”
After graduating Phi Betta Kappa, Nancy took a job collecting statistical data for the USC/Los Angeles County Cancer Surveillance Program under the direction of Dr. Thomas M. Mack. Her ultimate career goal, however, was to work in the fashion industry. Always “self-directed,” Nancy eventually found a job at Anne Klein in San Francisco. It was the beginning of a 40 year-career, including nearly 24 years in public relations for Bloomingdale’s.
“USC wove through my career quite a bit,” Nancy explains. “I ended up hiring a sorority sister. And whenever I got a resume from a USC alum, I would always talk to that person. Because in my own career, if I was lucky enough to interview with a USC grad, they would always give me their due and I wanted to do the same.”
Nancy, now retired, has fulfilled another life goal by moving to Hawaii. But her passion for USC remains as strong as it was when she first watched John McKay lead the Men of Troy to victory. His character and what he did for USC in building the football program, inspired Nancy to make an estate gift to the John McKay Football Endowed Scholarship Fund.
“USC laid a foundation for my life that has led me to more riches—and I’m not talking financially—than I ever could have imagined,” she explains. “It gives me joy to think that when I’m gone, I will have helped someone, specifically in the athletic program, to hopefully find their way in life and be as lucky as I have been.”