COMMENTARY

By Matt Hayes

Go ahead, pick a fantasy. Dream it up. Two outs in the bottom of the ninth. The 2-minute drill. The last shot. Throw in landing the best-looking girl, too.

You know what? Matt Leinart has got you beat. And the ride just is beginning. Maybe that's why this exciting, enticing, exhausting new world is so enjoyable.

Come on, who among us wouldn't love to switch places with this guy? A hip quarterback at a private Los Angeles university with a stars-aligned, bathe-in-the-glory-of-it-all lifestyle. He looks like a Ken doll, a 6-5 statue glowing amid one of the most storied programs in the history of college football. He won a national championship and was dating an actress. For the love of God, he has to avoid the celebrity paparazzi.

Next thing you know, they'll replace Tommy Trojan on the campus of Southern California with Lefty Leinart.

"Matty's got the world in his hands," says USC tailback Reggie Bush.

Well, not just yet. But he's getting there. If this hard-to-conceive, harder-to-believe script continues to play out, Leinart could be the biggest college football star in decades. Bigger than the Big Dawg Herschel Walker. Bigger than Archie Griffin. And with Shaq gone and Kobe tainted, Leinart already is the king of the city that's fashionably late.

Only his timing couldn't be better.

Earlier this summer, Leinart met up with lifelong friend Brian Panique, who was working on the set of the CBS series Judging Amy. The guy who caught all of those fantasy Hail Marys when they were kids now is an aspiring screenwriter. Heck, you or I could've written this scene.

"Everything just stopped on the set when they saw him," Panique says. "If Matt asked to have a cameo spot on the show, there's no doubt in my mind the director would've given it to him."

Hail, Leinart. But the emperor -- this Trojan horse -- isn't who you think he is. It's touchdowns and titles and tinseltown on the surface. It's just plain Matty inside, an everyman who recently reached the legal drinking age and admits, yeah, there are times when he revels in his celebrity status even though his isn't comfortable playing the part.

That's what makes it so refreshing. He's not foolish enough to be dragged under by it all, nor too pretentious to snub a once-in-a-lifetime experience. There is balance and there is perspective, the same beautiful blend used to get to this point in the first place.

Leinart never threw a pass in a college game before last season, when he was first in the barrel to follow Heisman Trophy winner Carson Palmer. Some letdown. His first throw was a touchdown pass in the season opener against Auburn; his last in the Rose Bowl against Michigan finished a national championship run and one of the best sophomore seasons in the history of the game.

That's how this crazy journey began, a four-month passage where life somehow evolved from hoping the public address announcer pronounced his name correctly to finding his name in the celebrity gossip column of the tabloids. He was dating actress/pro surfer Veronica Kay at the time; she's hot, and he's hot, and you just know what that leads to.

"A soap opera," Leinart says.

Like he had time for that. Think about it: He was 20, his girlfriend was on a reality TV show (Boarding House: North Shore) and was a top West Coast model, and there were tabloid and television reporters tracking their every move. And, oh yeah, there was this little gig he needed to attend in Auburn, Ala., where a few linebackers were looking forward to separating him from his pads.

His girlfriend wanted attention, and his coach demanded it. Take a guess who won that battle. Here's a hint: Leinart one-upped Palmer's magical season by leading the Trojans to their first national title in 25 years.

"It doesn't even seem real sometimes," Leinart says.

It began on a humid afternoon in Auburn with a few simple, foretelling words from offensive coordinator Norm Chow. The USC defense intercepted Auburn quarterback Jason Campbell on the first series, and before Leinart had time to feel nerves in his first career start, before he had time to grasp the enormity of the situation, Chow told him the first play that set everything in motion.

"Touchdown," Chow said, then proceeded to call the play: Dual Left 92 Stay Thunder. Just like that, Leinart got the snap, dropped back and threw to the left corner of the end zone where wide receiver Mike Williams caught the first of Leinart's Pac-10 season-record 38 touchdown passes. Piece of cake.

Now, he can't walk off campus without someone stopping and asking for an autograph or picture, or hearing girls whisper in the grocery store that, oh my God, that's Matt Leinart! Or have some guy at the gas station telling him how he swears he once threw five touchdowns passes in a high school game and could've played for 'SC, too, had he not blown out his knee.

Don't get the wrong impression here; Leinart isn't complaining. The alternative is sitting on the bench and watching someone else experience it. But he refuses to let all this change him. He's still the same guy who hangs out with the same friends he grew up with in Santa Ana, Calif. He'd rather sit in his room and study or play video games than use his face as a free pass into any exclusive party or club in the city.

He still calls Panique every Friday before every game and calls again on Sunday to get an unfiltered scouting report only a friend could give. He has lunch every Wednesday with his father, Bob, who stays and watches practice before driving back home. Leinart still wants to play well enough to keep his job, and he still gets that indescribable feeling when he walks out of the tunnel at the Coliseum.

"All that outside garbage doesn't affect Matt," Chow says. "He is who he is. Nothing will change that."

And to think he almost never got to this point. Yep, the King of L.A. nearly walked away from it all before his number came up. Two years of uncertainty behind Palmer and a lazy approach to the game left the former high school All-American searching for answers. "I wondered if this was what I really wanted to do," Leinart says.

All that changed when he won the job in the spring of 2003, when many believed Purdue transfer Brandon Hance -- who played well as a freshman for the Boilermakers -- would be the next in line. Yet, there still were doubts. How could there not be? Leinart hadn't played in game conditions in a little more than 30 months.

"We had no idea what we had," says USC coach Pete Carroll.

They would soon enough. Leinart set the tone against Auburn, performing nearly flawlessly against an athletic defense in one of the toughest places to play in the country. Two weeks later, he threw a wicked crackback block on a defensive back against Hawaii. But it wasn't until six weeks into the season -- when Leinart played through knee and ankle injuries at Arizona State -- that everything fell into place. He was replaced by Matt Cassel in the first half, and Chow was set to play Hance in the third quarter before Leinart limped back on to the field at Sun Devil Stadium.

With USC trailing 17-10, Leinart led the Trojans to scores on five of seven series in the second half; the Trojans won, 37-17. That was the first game after a three-overtime loss at California, and the first of a nine-game winning streak to finish the season. In between, Leinart went from dreading calls from the coaches box on gameday to calling certain plays for certain situations before Chow could signal them in.

Leinart eventually was named Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Year and finished sixth in the Heisman Trophy balloting. He enters this season as a clear favorite for the Heisman, and the Trojans could be playing for another title in the Orange Bowl in January.

"I don't want to get ahead of myself," Leinart says, "but I want to win three national titles."

OK, deal. We don't want to get ahead of ourselves, either. But if Leinart becomes what we believe he can in this era of multimedia sports saturation -- and if the Trojans add a couple of titles -- he eventually could be the most recognizable college football figure ever.

And Leinart thought he had it bad last year, when he and his father couldn't navigate a short walk to the players' parking lot at the Coliseum after he threw five touchdown passes against Oregon State -- when the celebrity rush for something other than dating a gorgeous model first arrived. As the Leinarts exited the locker room, they were engulfed by hundreds of fans. Kids seeking autographs, adults wanting pictures and others just shaking hands and talking about a championship season.

And it just was the beginning.

"I enjoy that, especially with kids," Leinart says. "That's what I was like when I was their age. I would've been devastated if someone would've just blown me off when I was a kid. You want to do those things because you were once like them."

Go ahead and dream, kid.

No fantasy can top this reality.

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