No Trouble in Paradise

Voters didn’t give him the Heisman. USC didn’t buy him the bodyguards. Hollywood didn’t throw him a birthday party.

Reggie Bush received none of the off-season perks afforded his more famous Trojan football teammate.

Turns out, Bush was given something far more valuable.

He got the team.

Somersaulting through the tropical sky, sprinting through its simmering heat, Bush was draped around the Trojan neck like a fancy lei Saturday in USC’s 63-17 season-opening victory over Hawaii.

He was the first thing anybody saw, the last thing anyone will remember, more than a novelty, finally a symbol.

Matt Leinart might be the cover boy, but Bush is now the centerfold.

Leinart might have captured the nation, but Bush now runs the neighborhood.

After spending the off-season stumping for a larger role by building a larger body, Bush has been rewarded with the sort of opportunity that last fall was given to Leinart.

It can be his team, his season, even his Heisman, if he can handle it.

Gaining 167 total yards with two touchdowns and two somersaults and several twisted Warrior ankles in less than three quarters?

One game down, that’s handling it.

“We couldn’t stop him,” gasped Hawaii linebacker Tanuvasa Moe, walking painfully off the field. “We’ve never seen that kind of speed, and all those moves.”

If you will excuse one more lame Hawaiian metaphor, the game showed that “aloha” has truly more than one meaning.

Hello, as their every-down impact player, Reggie Bush.

Goodbye, in the same role, LenDale White?

Said a smiling Bush, entertaining reporters at his first address on the Heisman campaign trail: “My initial role here has stepped up a lot.”

Said a wincing White, walking alone: “I don’t know what goes on around here anymore.”

Perhaps nothing Bush did was as stunning as making the Trojans’ two-time leading season rusher disappear.

White, strong enough to be an NFL impact player next season, received the reps of a journeyman.

“Reggie is such a special player,” Coach Pete Carroll said, eyes still wide long after the game. “We just want him to play.”

And so Saturday, for the first time since Bush and White arrived here three years ago as a sort of thunder-and-lightning duo, Bush was the entire storm.

He was the running back on first down, on third down, at midfield, at the goal line, in virtually every important situation.

Before the starters were pulled in the third quarter, Bush had a dozen carries to White’s five.

In the first-teamers’ only goal-line opportunity, Bush was given the ball not once, but twice.

The second time, he dived in for the sort of touchdown that White used to score.

Said Bush: “It is what it is.”

Said White: “Nobody tells me anything, I just play football.”

Considered two of the top 10 running backs in the country, Bush and White had their first big Trojan games against Hawaii two years ago.

This time, while Bush was spending his time celebrating around the end zone, White was slowly walking the sidelines in the other direction.

This time, while Leinart threw for 332 yards, it is Bush’ 41-yard touchdown run that everyone will remember, Bush somersaulting in from the five-yard line.

“That was pretty cool,” Leinart said. “I’d give it a 7 or an 8.”

Bush, whose flip against UCLA last season was a tad cooler, shrugged.

“There was a guy who had the angle on me, I wasn’t sure if he was going to catch me,” he said. “I thought, ‘I’ve got to secure that touchdown.’ ”

This time, while Leinart threw for three scores, and special-teams expert Desmond Reed scored twice, and Darnell Bing started it all with an interception touchdown sprint, the hundreds of visiting Trojan fans chanted only one name.

It is a chant you will hear plenty this year, so get used to it.

“Reg-gie, Reg-gie, Reg-gie.”

“I really like hearing that,” Bush said with a grin.

He has earned it, working harder than most during the off-season, adding five pounds and a bunch of muscle, pushing himself to stay on the field during the hot summer camp.

When White was missing spring practice because of academic troubles, Bush was there. When White has struggled through injuries during practice, Bush is always at full speed.

“He’s not our leader for nothing,” guard Fred Matua said. “He worked so hard during camp. He pushed himself. He pushed us. We trust him.”

Many were surprised last year when Bush was voted by players as the team’s MVP even though Leinart won the Heisman.

Carroll made it clear Saturday that it was no fluke.

“There’s a little bit of a change there, but it’s subtle,” he said.

Yeah, as subtle as a Frostee Rucker forearm.

Take the Trojans’ third drive, in the second quarter, when they were leading, 14-3.

Of the 10 plays, four were Bush runs and one was a Bush reception.

Of the 83 yards, 76 were earned in plays involving Bush.

The touchdown, appropriately, was scored by Bush.

“He’s worked as hard as anybody in the off-season to do this,” Leinart said. “He can run the ball between the tackles. He can do that.”

Reggie Bush can do lots of things. Over the next several months, to the delight of Trojan fans, and perhaps the dismay of one Trojan veteran, he will be given every chance to do all of them.

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