Pages girls

From player, to coach, to analyst

From PA to LA by Yogi Roth and Bob Bancroft. From KMD Publishing. Paperback, $21.99.

From PA to LA is a great, inspirational read for anyone who enjoys college football, and especially for middle school, high school and college students.

Hermosa Beach resident Yogi Roth’s story begins in tiny Dalton, Pennsylvania, where Roth was an all-state high school football player. Through hard work and determination the small wide receiver walk-on earned a football scholarship to Division I University of Pittsburg.

After graduating with a degree in communication and rhetoric Roth played football in Australia for the Gold Coast Sting Rays and took up surfing. Some of his most entertaining stories involve surfing and hanging out with villagers in Fiji and Bali. Then his love for both football and the ocean led to a friendship with USC football coach Pete Carroll and a position on the USC coaching staff.

Roth spent four seasons coaching while also pursuing a Master’s Degree at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Roth co-authored Carroll’s New York Times best seller Win Forever. Carroll returned the favor by writing a moving forward to From PA to LA.

After USC, Roth worked as a college football analyst for ESPN and Fox College Sports. He also co-founded Win Forever, which offers coaching workshops, athletic camps, corporate coaching, entertainment and philanthropy. He recently served as an NFL host on Comedy Central’s new “Onion Sports Network.” 

And he made time to write a television program called “The Cape.”

Asked, “If you could try anything and know you would not fail, what would you do?” he said he never thinks of failing. 

“In fact, when I hear others say they are driven due to their fear of failure, I cringe. If I could try anything I would want to travel around the world, document it, and impact people at every stop, then come home and put it all together and see if I could influence others on a massive scale…and have a blast doing it, because, why not?”

Roth’s future goals are “to set foot on every continent, be the best college football analyst I can be, host a travel show, book a few acting gigs, impact people on a large scale and then have an amazing family with children who are exposed to worldly ideals”.

Roth’s grandparents are Holocaust survivors whose journey is chronicled From LA to PA. Sister Maya is a principal at a new Brooklyn charter school and brother Ravi, whose coming out Roth describes in his book, is an actor in New York.  Roth credits his parents Devorah and Will with helping to shape him into the person he is today. His father gave him a list of principles that, he writes, even impressed Pyramid of Success author and UCLA basketball coach John Wooden. 

Pages: A Bookstore will host a signing for Roth next Wednesday, December 1, from 6 to 8 p.m. He will be introduced by his friend and ESPN senior college football writer Bruce Feldman. The two will talk about college football, Roth’s time at Pitt and USC, and his adventures around the world. Afterwards, there will be a party next door at The Side Door. Pages is located at 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach. For more information call (310) 318-0900.  www.pagesabookstore.com. ER