I had been under the impression that LT was from Texas and that Polamalu had played his high school ball in Oregon before attending USC, but the newest Nike “Leave Nothing” commercial seems to imply otherwise.  The first time I saw the commercial—directed by David Fincher (“Fight Club” and “Se7en”)—I was struck by the soundtrack and the structure of the parallel story.  It’s a pretty great commercial.

Then when it was on earlier today, JJ shouted, “Wait, that’s Vet’s!”  A quick rewind (thanks, DVR!) confirmed it—about twenty seconds in, a young LT is seen riding his bike towards a football stadium, and it’s none other than LBCC’s Vet’s Stadium, home to the Vikings and the Poly Jackrabbits.  Vets appears a few more times, as TCU runs underneath it and USC runs out of the elevator area.  The even sneakier catch was realizing that the young LT running down a hallway at 0:24 take place in another familiar locale: Long Beach Poly High School.  The MVP is sprinting, if my eyes don’t deceive me, into the 100 building, home to Poly’s administration and many of its athletic trophies (I think you can even see a Go Poly briefly on a door behind him).

So, Nike is now saying Just Do It to revisionist history, and wants the country to think that two of the NFL’s biggest stars are from the nation’s best football player-producing city—I’m totally cool with it.  Of course, they could just be using these settings because Long Beach is filmer-friendly and because they have a sponsorship with Poly, but…nah, that couldn’t be it.