LOS ANGELES — Lindsay Gottlieb pauses on the microphone for a moment in mid-February, a crowd at USC’s senior night hanging on her every word, fighting against the emotions that threaten every word she speaks. She pauses between inflections, collecting herself. Trying to convey, in the span of precious few words, the special nature of one India Otto.
She turns, first, to the words of Andy Warhol, her voice shivering as she recites a quote into the microphone.
They say that time changes things. But actually, you have to change them yourself.
Otto, a fifth-year senior, has played 26 total games at USC. 66 college minutes. She takes the floor only in blowouts, and has scored a total of 23 collegiate points. Yet her teammates’ eyes light up at any mention of her, and Gottlieb will take any opportunity possible to mention her. Otto is the oldest guard at USC, here even before the Gottlieb era, the most senior member of a program that’s been completely reformed from the freshman-year days she saw no one in the stands.
This world is different here, now. Gottlieb planned this senior night on USC’s home floor, knowing not just parents but an entire Los Angeles community would want to be present; fans pack the lower basin, staying long after a loss to Utah. And Otto, Gottlieb professes to the crowd, is as much a reason for that as any other. She’d shown up with her best every day for five years, day in day out, in recruiting dinners and practices behind the scenes, a roommate and mentor for freshman JuJu Watkins and voted a captain by teammates.
There was a reason her tribute was last and wholly not least, this senior night.
“You all don’t see Otto on the court a lot,” Gottlieb says, before a moment of raucous applause. “You don’t see her in the stat sheet. But there are very, very select few people, maybe no one, who is more responsible for the changes here than India Otto.”
And then they saw her on the court Saturday afternoon, in an…
Read the full article here
