Compliance

USC, which has been trying to be proactive in efforts to repair its sullied image in the face of NCAA sanctions, will play host to a conference Tuesday at the Galen Center aimed at fostering a better understanding about issues regarding agents. The invitation-only event, an "Agent Awareness, Education and Eligibility Summit," will bring together representatives from the NCAA, the Pacific 10 Conference, the Southeastern Conference, the NFL, the NFL Players Assn. and several agents, according to a Monday news release from USC. The meeting appears to be the latest move by USC to demonstrate to the NCAA that it has adopted the "culture of compliance" that Pat Haden pledged when he succeeded Mike Garrett as the school's athletic director last August.

Pat Haden, from the day he was introduced as athletic director, has spoken passionately about creating a "culture of compliance" at USC. The school is on NCAA probation, and Haden has envisioned numerous problematic scenarios that might warrant attention. But a USC student who is also a certified sports agent was not one of them. "That was out of my wheelhouse," Haden said. It's now at the forefront ? for Haden, for USC's beefed-up compliance department, and at schools across the country.

Dave Roberts , USC's vice president for compliance, said Saturday that he expected suspended tailback Dillon Baxter to be reinstated after he repays the value of a golf cart ride on campus. Baxter did not make the trip to play against Oregon State after school officials discovered that he had accepted a ride from other USC students, one of whom Roberts said is a registered financial advisor with the NFL Players Assn. Roberts said a USC compliance director saw Baxter riding on a cart emblazoned with a logo for 1st Round Enterprises.

Freshman tailback Dillon Baxter did not travel with the Trojans to play in Saturday's game against Oregon State and is being held out indefinitely pending a compliance inquiry. Athletic Director Pat Haden said Friday night that Baxter had accepted a ride in a golf cart on campus Thursday and that one of the people on the cart was a student who is a registered sports agent. Haden said the NCAA, the NFL Players Assn. and USC's Office of Student Affairs had been notified.

FDA: Hire a food safety cop … please. It may not be able to get a food safety bill through Congress, but the Food and Drug Administration soldiers on in efforts to improve hygiene, sanitation and other elements of a safe food supply. On Friday, the agency released the results of a 10-year study that found that retail food establishments with certified food safety managers did significantly better in meeting safety standards than facilities that didn’t have them.

The University of Connecticut admitted its men's basketball program committed major NCAA recruiting violations and imposed its own sanctions, including two years of probation and the loss of one scholarship for the next two seasons. But the school said the evidence does not support the NCAA's allegation that Coach Jim Calhoun , who has won two national titles with the Huskies, failed to promote an atmosphere for compliance. In a report released Friday, the school acknowledged its basketball staff made telephone calls and sent text messages that broke NCAA rules, as cited by the NCAA in a May report that followed a 15-month investigation.

Welcome to the Coliseum, home of the USCheaters, "Fight on!" replaced by everyone in the athletic department now saying over and over, "Compliance. " Hard to move around here without signing a paper promising not to do anything that might get USC in trouble, a school official saying it's done to keep outside influences away from our own people. That's right — they don't trust their own people to do the right thing. They've hired a company run by the former director of the FBI to keep an eye on everyone, and if they've already put a list together of possible enemies, you've got to believe they have Plaschke's computer bugged.

Since taking office in 2005, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has sat courtside next to movie mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg at three Lakers games at Staples Center. He has cheered alongside Tommy Lasorda and Dodgers owner Frank McCourt in the owner's box at Dodger Stadium. Rarely has he missed an awards show: the Academy Awards, the Grammys, the Emmys and the BET Awards —anywhere there was a red carpet in Los Angeles, odds were Villaraigosa was photographed standing on it. It's no surprise that the mayor attends many of the city's premier sporting and cultural events.

Despite a decade of scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice, Los Angeles County's Probation Department remains profoundly out of compliance with orders to improve health and safety for youth offenders. The problems are so widespread that county officials in recent days privately acknowledged that there is little or no hope that they will meet the federal government's deadline this year for complying with the mandates, forcing the county to plead for an extension from impatient regulators or face formal court action.