When you get a traffic ticket, it’s no big deal; when Bobby Brown gets a traffic ticket, it’s a parole violation. Welcome to the next year (at least) for USC’s football program, where Reggie Bush’s tangled web of alleged connections with an agent–we’re not journalists, but we play them in our lousy community theater–will make even the slightest of infractions loom ever closer to the line of “lack of institutional control.”

In this case, the issue is some deal with Matt Leinart’s dad subsidizing WR Dwayne Jarrett’s rent over the course of the past year. Jarrett paid $650 a month to live at the Medici apartments–an apartment complex where the monthly rent sits at a boggling $3,866 a month for a two bed room. Leinart paid the same amount, and Bob Leinart, father of the Buzzsaws’ new qb, paid the remaining $2,566 of the rent. The quote from Pete Carroll:

“One guy had resources, the other guy didn’t. [Jarrett] gave what he could. Matt needed somebody to live with him, and [Jarrett] got a good deal.”

Why Nick Lachey couldn’t have filled that spot is beyond us, especially since we all know he’s been catting around without Jessica for well over a year. (Damn you, E! Television! Damn your fascinating celebrity profiles to hell!) Jarett, in a case similar to some minor improprieties on Luke Walton’s part during the 2000 NCAA tournament, may have to pay back over $10,000 in rent to Bob Leinart to avoid the unbearable gaze of Myles Brand and his fascination for small trophy cases like this one, which require much less legwork and embarrassing investigations than geniunely troubling cases like the Reggie Bush house fiasco.

The name of the apartment complex kills us, too: Medici. As in a grand dynasty whose power and influence was unparallelled until lax leadership scuttled their dominance. Hmm…


Lorenzo de Medici Pete Carroll had no further comment.