A Bush Precedent

Shawn Walters reaches into his pocket, pulls out a jangling set of keys and places one on the table.

“Look at this,” he says, pointing to a cardinal-colored house key emblazoned with “USC” in gold letters. “I love USC. I have no qualms with USC and I never will.”

It’s been 10 years since Walters carried the football for the Trojans, and a little more than a decade since his career was derailed by scandal.

In 1995, USC suspended the running back for taking money and other benefits from a fledgling sports agent -- allegations similar to those currently faced by Reggie Bush.

Back then, the school took the unprecedented step of suing the agent, an action USC officials privately say they might consider taking again if the football team were to face sanctions in the Bush case.

Like Bush, Walters faced allegations that he accepted money. Unlike Bush, who has said repeatedly that neither he nor his family did anything wrong, Walters acknowledged during a recent interview that members of his family did accept money.

If agents “can’t get you directly, they’re going to go to the next best thing,” he said. “Your family.”

When allegations were reported this spring that Bush’s family had accepted extra benefits from an aspiring sports marketing agency, it spurred memories for Walters. He sees many parallels. With one more major difference:

While Bush is a multimillionaire, having been chosen second in the NFL draft, Walters was only briefly in an NFL camp and never played in a game as a professional.

“It totally destroyed my career,” he said.

Until he was derailed, Walters was considered a potential pro prospect. At 6 feet and 225 pounds, he led the Trojans in rushing his freshman and sophomore seasons.

“I was in the best shape of my life,” he said, recalling the prelude to the 1995 season. “I had worked out all summer, had a little hype coming behind me, and I just felt that I was going to have a breakout year.”

Then, in September, the allegations hit.

According to a ledger that was obtained by The Times, Walters received nearly $16,000 in airline tickets, concert tickets, pocket money and other items from Oxnard-based Pro Manage Sports Agency. USC officials determined that $9,000 of that had been given to Walters.

Walters said then, and maintains today, that he never accepted anything more than money for hamburgers or haircuts from his roommates, who, unbeknownst to him, were recruiters working for Pro Manage. He agreed, however, to pay about $3,400 in restitution with hopes that his eligibility would be restored.

The NCAA initially refused, but USC appealed on Walters’ behalf and, after sitting out the final nine games of the 1995 season, he was reinstated with the condition that he also sit out the first three games of the 1996 season.

As a senior, Walters never did get going, finishing with 164 yards in 51 carries. He said he went to training camp with the Kansas City Chiefs in 1997 but got hurt and was released. He tried to get into NFL Europe or the Canadian Football League but found no takers.

“That stigma from SC was following me,” he said. “I don’t think anybody wanted to deal with something like that.”

The case also brought to a close the hopes Ventura County attorney Robert Troy Caron had of becoming a sports agent.

A personal injury lawyer, Caron said Pro Manage was the brainchild of his “clerks,” friends and semipro football teammates who itched to stay close to the sport.

“They convinced me to open a sports agency and they would run it,” Caron said recently. “My mistake was I didn’t supervise very well.”

USC sued Caron, alleging Pro Manage had interfered with the school’s contractual relations with its athletes and had interfered with prospective business advantages for the university.

Caron said his attorneys wanted to subpoena USC coaches and administrators, “and show what’s really going on with student athletes.”

But Caron, a lifelong USC fan -- “I was named for USC. My father misses a game once every 10 years” -- quickly settled the case for $50,000.

“They filed a lawsuit as a way of making a strong statement, which I agreed with because they did establish institutional control,” Caron said.

Players from USC, UCLA, Arizona and Utah were punished by the NCAA for allegedly receiving pagers, telephone credit cards, groceries, cash and other items from Pro Manage.

In August 1998, the State Bar of California put Caron on probation for a year and suspended him for 60 days. The suspension was stayed, allowing him to continue to practice law.

Now 47, Caron said his memories of Walters remain clear. They met through Melvin Nunnery, a former Hueneme High and Moorpark College player.

“He was a naive Texas kid out in the big city for the first time and his eyes were open in wonderment,” Caron said of Walters. “He had nothing in the refrigerator, no clothes to wear. He was a college kid struggling.

“A lot of athletes you come across are takers, they want everything. Shawn never asked for anything.”

According to Caron, the ledger was “more reflective of money Pro Manage had spent for expenses,” rather than benefits received by Walters.

Caron said he tried several years ago to contact Walters but could not reach him.

Asked how he feels when he thinks about Walters, Caron said, “My heart drops.”

As for how Walters feels, he seems more philosophical than bitter.

Last January, about three weeks after Bush played his final game for USC in the Rose Bowl, Walters stood before a crowd during a local Trojan Club dinner at nearby Brookside Golf Course and told most of his story.

Walters, 32, talked about the allegations that led to his suspension, saying for the first time publicly that he had incurred the wrath of fans and teammates without revealing that he later learned a family member had taken money.

But during an interview last month, Walters said his mother and stepfather had accepted about $5,000 from Pro Manage representatives.

“For a while I couldn’t talk to them. I couldn’t even look at them,” he said of his parents.

“I never told anyone because I felt that I was stronger than my parents to handle the situation. I felt, ‘OK, I’ll be suspended a couple games, maybe two, maybe at the worst three. They’ll find out I have taken nothing and that will be that.’ ”

Walters, citing the Bush situation, discounts the notion that he should not have protected his parents.

“Anybody can say what they want to say -- ‘This is your folks. No, you wouldn’t,’ ” he said. “Like Reggie, he would live and die for his parents. I don’t know anything about whether what has been said is true. But I think he would protect his family just like I did.”

Walters said his mother and stepfather eventually divorced.

“My mom and I rebuilt our relationship,” he said. “My stepfather I had not spoken to till about a month ago for the first time since 1997. Do I want to talk to him about it? Yeah. Will I? Probably not.”

Reached by phone in Texas, Walters’ mother, Joyce, politely declined to comment.

“I tried to put that stuff behind us and go on with our life,” she said.

In 2002, six years after he left USC, Walters returned to the school and completed his degree in public policy and management.

He remains an ardent fan of the football program.

“The Notre Dame game last year? I screamed like a little girl,” he said, chuckling loudly. “I’m SC through and through.”

Married and living in Pasadena, he works as a construction supervisor and is in his first year as a part-time football coach at Maranatha High. He also volunteers as a youth football coach in Burbank.

Last month, Walters received his first modest paycheck for coaching.

“My wife looked at my face and saw how happy I was,” he said. “It felt good to do what you love.”

USC Coach Pete Carroll has been lobbying the NFL Players’ Assn. to prohibit agents from contacting athletes until they have declared for the draft. Walters supports the idea, as well as increased education of players.

“When I was in school, we didn’t get anything other than ‘Don’t talk to agents,’ ” he said.

Walters will monitor Bush’s situation and plans to continue sharing his own story with youngsters and their parents. Especially parents.

“Whatever you have to do to avoid any contact [with agents]; get a restraining order if you have to,” he said. “Just make sure you don’t mess up your son’s opportunity to have a very fruitful career.

“If it helps one family, I’m good.”

gary.klein@latimes.com

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Declining numbers

Shawn Walters’ career rushing statistics with USC:

*--* YEAR CAR. YDS. AVG. TD 1996* 51 164 3.2 1 1995+ 25 168 6.7 3 1994 193 976 5.1 11 1993 156 711 4.6 7

*--*

Source: USC

*Missed first three games of 1996 season

+Missed last nine games of 1995 season