An Open Field

Welcome to USC football practice, where the team is preparing for the biggest game in school history by ... Look out!

Chasing a Matt Leinart pass down the sideline, Dwayne Jarrett nearly wipes out a businessman holding a souvenir bag, a grandfather in a Trojan sweatshirt, and two moms in lawn chairs.

“This is wild,” Jarrett says.

Welcome to USC football practice, where the Trojans are hunkering down for the most important Rose Bowl in ... Heads up!

Tom Malone punts a ball that sails out of bounds, scatters three teenage girls and bounces near a stroller, whose usual occupant is toddling around the end zone blocking imaginary defenders.

“I wasn’t sure they would let kids in, but here we are, and it’s amazing,” says fan Steve Norkus, hugging his 3-year-old son and future lineman, Anthony.

Welcome to ... aw, forget it. A weighty greeting doesn’t work at a place where several hundred fans surround about a hundred players amid flying balls, youthful howls, and scampering children.

In keeping with years of USC tradition, this is not just a football practice, it’s a block party. This is not life or death. It’s just life.

“It’s kids, it’s family, it’s football ... it’s just fun,” Coach Pete Carroll says.

Even in the final days before Wednesday’s national championship Rose Bowl game against Texas, the most important work days in the lives of nearly everyone involved, USC practice rules remain the same.

Officially, it’s closed. Unofficially, it’s as open as Steve Smith on a crossing route.

Practice is open to local media, open to family members, open to friends of family, open to boosters, open to friends of boosters ... OK, it’s open to just about anyone not named Mack or Bevo.

It’s also open to stares from virtually every other big-time football program that does it differently.

While Carroll considers his team a national treasure, most every other big-time coach guards his team as if it were a matter of national security. This has resulted in some pregame scenes as obscenely lopsided as the final scores.

Two seasons ago at the Rose Bowl, one day before the game, while nervous Michigan was working at the heavily patrolled Coliseum, USC players were lingering on their field across the street chatting with reporters and friends.

Last season at the Orange Bowl, the average person couldn’t get near the Oklahoma practice field, while the crowds watching USC ate picnic lunches and listened to Tom Lasorda.

This openness sometimes can backfire. Remember three years ago when Carroll’s Orange Bowl practice was visited by a certain alumnus named O.J.?

But Carroll, who caused a stink by acceding to his players’ wishes and allowing Simpson to visit, considers it worth the risk.

“This is in keeping with the whole Trojan family aspect of our program,” he says. “You don’t just do it when it fits. Family is always family. They’re all part of things and deserve to be here.”

This week, down the road at the Home Depot Center, in practices that are closed to the public and reporters, the Texas football team is in full lockdown.

At Howard Jones Field, the Trojans are in full hoedown.

On the first official day of bowl practice Wednesday, fans milled around the two practice fields, separated from the players by only a colorful flag-adorned string, like onlookers at a carnival.

Mario Danelo kicks field goals between uprights that rise above the awed faces of fans who are sitting on pads beneath the crossbar.

“I come out here every day to see my brother,” says Michelle Ellis, younger sister of defensive tackle Sedrick. “You can get real close.”

Loose footballs are chased down not by ball boys, but by boys such as Cole Nelson, the 8-year-old son of Billy and Janice Nelson, who are friends of Nick Sanchez, father of quarterback Mark.

“It’s incredible they would let us watch,” says Billy, an Orange County firefighter. “Heck, I’m a Notre Dame fan and they let me in.”

Carroll says he occasionally worries about opposing spies. But considering that he spends time after every practice hanging out with fans, laughing with kids and tossing footballs with their parents, he can’t be too worried.

“I’m concerned that somebody might slip in, but I’m not paranoid about it,” he says. “I mean, it’s hard to watch our practice and figure out something we’re doing.”

His players address those worries with a shrug.

“You can steal our plays all you want,” Reggie Bush says. “But you’ve got to have the athletes to make it happen.”

If USC has a swagger, it is born in these practices, where only the most confident can withstand the coaching staff’s loud demands while performing in front of friends and family.

Open practices teach accountability and concentration while setting a daily standard for a team that must first survive the demands of an entertainment-capital home before surviving the schedule.

“When I first got here it was, like, a shocker to see so many people out here,” Jarrett says. “But now I see how it works.”

If you can endure Ken Norton’s screaming at you in front of your girlfriend, then miss a tackle in front of your mom, then spend 20 minutes on the same field answering questions about it ... how tough can Texas be?

Some teams might wince at taking a Rose Bowl field under a national microscope.

The Trojans will be thrilled that the place has been

cleared of strollers.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.