USC stays silent about NCAA investigation

Some of Lake's assertions go to the heart of institutional control. He has said he believed USC knew about his relationship with Bush because the aspiring marketer had several social encounters with running backs coach Todd McNair. Lake further alleges that he had overheard a telephone conversation in which football Coach Pete Carroll told Bush's stepfather to "put everything in order, to have a lease agreement" for a house that Lake's former partner in the marketing venture, Michael Michaels, provided to the player's family, allegedly rent-free.

And Watkins says the coaches also must have known about a $3,000-a-month Los Angeles condo Bush lived in that Lake and Michaels allegedly paid for.

Carroll has said he knew nothing about the Bush family's living arrangements. McNair has said he might have met Lake at an after-hours function but otherwise did not know him and had no knowledge of anything improper.

Meanwhile, USC also has not tried to question Louis Johnson, who has accused Floyd and Mayo, though it did sit in on NCAA interviews with him, said Johnson's attorney, David Murphy.

"It did seem kind of bizarre that they didn't seek to speak to my client directly," Murphy said of the school. "As far as I know, there has not been a single phone call."

Rarely has a sports program been hit with fresh volleys of serious allegations in the midst of an ongoing NCAA probe. But three years into the USC saga, and a year after the initial accusations against Mayo opened a new front, the investigation is lumbering along and exactly what the school might be doing to bring it to a conclusion is largely unknown.

NCAA head Myles Brand has made it clear from the beginning of his six-year tenure that college presidents must play a hands-on role in athletics and be held accountable if the programs stray from good conduct.

In his 18 years as president, Sample has won praise for reversing the view of USC as a jock-centric campus with modest academic ambitions. He has fattened the university's endowment, boosted its instructional requirements and attracted better students.

But blockbuster sports remain ingrained in USC's culture. Under Carroll, the football program has revived its glory years and become a well-oiled revenue engine. How much the school values football is reflected in Carroll's $4.4 million compensation package, the richest of any private university employee in the United States, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.