Pete Carroll's game plan includes dealing with parents

"What is being done to ensure that my son is being cared for in a proper manner???"

Dexter Hazelton, father of Trojans receiver Vidal Hazelton, sent a six-paragraph e-mail to Coach Pete Carroll in September criticizing the football team's handling of his son's ankle injury.

Now, the whole world could read it, a situation that pulled back the curtain on a subtle and sometimes sensitive component that Carroll confronts as the leader of one of the nation's most successful football programs:

Dealing with parents.

Communication between parents and coach spans a range of issues, including injuries and academics, but Carroll acknowledges, "They basically call me about playing time."

He does not begrudge them; and most don't seem to begrudge him. "They just want to know what can their son do to be a bigger part of things," Carroll said.

So it goes, even for a coach whose teams have won or shared six consecutive Pacific 10 Conference titles, played in six straight Bowl Championship Series bowl games, won two national titles, and is in position to take a run at a third title-game appearance in five years.

That success was built on stockpiling talent, and none of the five-star recruits who chose USC did so with the intent of riding the Trojans' bench.

Dexter Hazelton, while critical of Carroll, does not blame the coach for the way he recruits or manages playing time.

"He has to do what he has to do for USC's program," he said in an interview. "If I was in his position, I would do the same thing. But I have to do what I have to do as a father, which is looking out for my son's interest."

The e-mail that appeared on the Internet last week is among several Hazelton has sent to Carroll over the years, and it called out the coach and USC's training staff for not providing his son with immediate treatment upon the team's return to Los Angeles after the season opener at Virginia.

"You have to get to a point where you have to be angry enough to say, 'What the hell is going on?' " said Hazelton, a New York resident who added that he did not know how his message to Carroll wound up in cyberspace. "[Carroll] responds to me. I get the call-backs, but that doesn't mean he's actually done anything about it."