Special guest Owen Hanson on his journey from USC walk-on to the Cocaine Quarterback
Peristyle Podcast - USC Trojan Football Discussion
USCFootball.com - Ryan Abraham, 247Sports, USC, USC Trojans, USC football, College Football
4.8 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 4 June 2026
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this edition of the Peristyle Podcast host Ryan Abraham welcomes special guest Owen Hanson into the studio, the former USC volleyball and football player that turned into an international drug dealer. Hanson's incredible story is chronicled in Mark Wahlberg’s Emmy-award winning docuseries "Cocaine Quarterback," available on Prime Video.
Hanson talks about his humble beginnings as a Redondo Beach surf kid that was highly recruited as a volleyball player and ended up at his dream school, USC. From there he walked-on to the Trojan football team, despite have never played a down of football in his life, and integrated himself into the program, winning a couple of national championship rings and rubbing elbows with the celebrities that surrounded the program back in the Pete Carroll era.
Hustling his way in real estate, bookmaking and eventually drug trafficking and money laundering for a Mexican cartel, Hanson made fast cash and got caught in the fast lane, partying all over the globe. He was eventually arrested, served time in federal prison and now tells his story of redemption through his book "The California Kid" and the Cocaine Quarterback docuseries. He even started a protein ice cream business called California Ice Protein while he was incarcerated.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey Trojan fans, it's time to get into the huddle with the Parastile podcast. |
| 0:11.0 | Since 2008, the Parasstyle podcast has been your ticket for year-round coverage of the USC football program. |
| 0:20.0 | With multiple shows per week in a wide range of experts, no one covers the Trojans |
| 0:26.1 | like the Peristyle podcast. |
| 0:28.6 | And now here's the host of the Paristyle podcast, USCFootball.com publisher, Ryan Abraham. |
| 0:37.2 | Hey, everyone. Welcome to a special edition of the Parasstyle podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Abraham. Hey, everyone. |
| 0:38.2 | Welcome to a special edition of the Parasdal podcast. |
| 0:41.1 | I'm your host, Ryan Abraham, publisher of USCFleport.com. |
| 0:45.0 | We're going to throw a little curveball at you today. |
| 0:47.1 | We have Owen Hanson in studio. |
| 0:50.1 | Welcome in, Owen USC volleyball player and football player, two-time national champion. There's a little bit more to a story together. But, Owen, thanks for coming to the studio. How you doing, man? Good, Ryan. Thanks for having me. Good to have you. It's funny when I was doing a little research for this. We have a lot of mutual, like, friends and stuff. And I've known Brandon Hancock, who's your boy for many, many years. We go back a lot playing golf and doing stuff. And then when I get to see, we'll talk about the documentary second, him being like prominently, you know, in there. And then watch the documentary and you're like, oh, you're behind Brooke Billings when you were at, and I'm like, I know Brooke. |
| 1:27.8 | I would like coach with him and stuff. And so there's a lot of like mutual crossovers. You're a Redondo Beach guy, beach volleyball golf. So I felt like we had a lot of parallel paths going on here. Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, Brandon Hancock. Well, he was my saving grace while incarcerated the last decade. he would come visit me, you know, month to month and, you know, come buy me some microwave |
| 1:48.3 | burritos and some Diet Coke from the vending machine. |
| 1:51.0 | It was good to have such a good friend there to support my journey through these tough times. |
| 1:58.2 | Yeah, I mean, the documentary is amazing. |
| 2:00.9 | If you haven't checked it out yet, |
| 2:02.2 | it won an Emmy Award, |
| 2:03.6 | sports documentary series. |
| 2:06.3 | Check it out on Amazon Prime. |
| 2:08.2 | Cocaine quarterback. |
| 2:11.1 | Owen wasn't the quarterback at USC. |
| 2:12.6 | He was a tight end at USC, |
... |
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