A little change of pace: USC women's soccer forward Amy Rodriguez has been selected to the US Women's Olympic team and will be playing in Beijing this summer. Rodriguez, who was the MVP of the Final Four on USC's national championship team on the strength of a performance that included two goals against ucla in the semifinals, has had a good showing in the recent Peace Queen Cup*, scoring the only (and winning) goal against Brazil in group play as the US women's team moved on to beat Italy in the semi-finals and Canada in the finals.

Rodriguez is the first Trojan to play Olympic soccer for the US, and joins with Stephanie Cox of Portland College as the lone collegiate players on the team.

US Women's coach Pia Sundhage selected Rodriguez on the strength of her recent form: "The way she's been playing and actually running at people has been very good."

This is fantastic news: the US is not short on talented women soccer players, so to be selected for the national side for the Olympics on the merits is a real vote of confidence - Fight On Amy! And best of luck in Beijing.

*In case you were wondering, the Peace Queen Cup is an eight nation tournament organized by the Unification Churh (of the Reverend Moon fame) which is intended to facilitate cultural exchanges and promote world peace... it also has a $200,000 prize to the winning team, in case fostering peace isn't incentive enough.