USC doesn't practice in a bad neighborhood, exactly, although the hotel transportation guy explains that while you can take a taxi there, it'll be difficult to get one back.

This is not Paris Hilton's L.A. Don't bother looking for the paparazzi.

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There's an iron fence around the field where the Trojans will work out on this sunny Monday, three days from their Rose Bowl meeting with Penn State. At the gate is a kid with a clipboard, like a bouncer at the door of a nightclub.

To get inside for the entire session, you have to be on a list of approved alumni, friends and family of players, high school coaches, local and national media. Anyone else can watch from outside the fence and many do, some bringing lawn chairs and food.

Other than that, the only limitation is on media covering opponents, and that only since someone, earlier this season, wrote a story describing Xs-and-Os.

We get partial access, for the first 20 minutes or so of the practice and then again after the workout ends. Through much of the regular season, there isn't even a list. Anyone is allowed in.

What's about to happen is far less clinical than theatrical, and it really is something to see.

"The more atmosphere here the better," USC coach Pete Carroll says. "We never play without crowds. We never do anything without people around."

Bill Plaschke, the award-winning Los Angeles Times columnist, is a regular attendee.

"You see gang-bangers and homeless people," he says. "I've seen receivers run into baby carriages. You see guys catch passes in the end zone and then have to make a spin move to avoid people having lunch under the goalpost."

Plaschke said he's been trying to get a one-on-one with Joe Paterno and running into the sports-info department barrier we're all used to. No barriers here. Plaschke said he has cell phone numbers for all the Trojan coaches and many of the players, but almost never has to use them, because they're all available, after practice, every day.

Once Plaschke was waiting to talk to former USC offensive coordinator Norm Chow, who then was squabbling with Carroll over something. When practice ended Chow — who saw Plaschke, and knew what he wanted to talk about — took off, jogging.

Tim Tessalone, USC's amiable sports information director, hollered to Chow, stopping him in his tracks. That's about as rigorous as Tessalone's job gets. Chow came back and did the interview.

We're not in Happy Valley, Toto.

The practice is constant motion, noise, clamor. Some of it, the middle portion Penn State writers aren't supposed to see, simulates game conditions and game speed as much as possible. There's a full, uniformed officiating crew.

In the middle of everything is Carroll, relentlessly energetic and upbeat. Now the kickoff team's on the field, preparing to kick to the return team, as if at the start of a real game.

Except that Carroll's on the field, right next to the kicker. When the ball's in the air Carroll flies down the field with his players, keeping up as well as any 57 year-old man can expect to.

He does this over and over, as the players work on left, right and up-the-middle returns.

He's all over the place, clapping, running, firing passes. It's hot, 75 degrees under a clear sky and yellow sun. Carroll's for some reason wearing a hoodie and slacks, and he's practicing as much as the players are.

After about 90 minutes it's over. There's a huge huddle of players, coaches and staff at midfield, from which Carroll can be heard but not seen, exhorting, praising, encouraging.

Woody Hayes he ain't.

But he has built America's most urban major-college football program into, arguably, America's best, and he's done it by embracing the city, by digging himself in.

College football can be America's most insular team sport. It traffics in patronage among an old-boy network of alumni and boosters. Not at USC.

Carroll has gone deep into Los Angeles' most dangerous neighborhoods, trying to understand the gang culture. His non-profit consortium, "A Better L.A." works to mediate and lessen the desperate violence.

"60 Minutes" got a segment out of Carroll's work a few weeks back. It has made him, in his eighth season here, one of L.A.'s most honored and admired citizens.

The huddle breaks, and now everyone is allowed on the field. Players are autographing hats and shirts and limbs. Carroll is hugging and grinning and posing for picture after picture. All you have to do is walk up and ask.

Little kids are flying around, playing air football or just, for the fun of it, running. This is how Keyshawn Johnson, an L.A. kid who became an All-America receiver here and then an All-Pro, fell in love with the program, by hanging around practice enough as a child that they eventually made him a ballboy.

Finally the crowd starts home, and Carroll meets with the media, including many from the Penn State beat who can't quite believe the contrast between this and what they're used to.

"What do you think?" Carroll asks. "I know what I think, but what do you think?"

We think it's pretty cool, Pete.

E-mail: mgross@lnpnews.com