A TROJAN BROADCAST WAR; KAHN AND LAMB ARE OUT AFTER DISPUTE WITH GARRETT.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH / The Media

After devoting thousands of hours to their jobs for the last three years, Larry Kahn and Mike Lamb face the strange reality that their chances of remaining as the radio voices of USC football are about as good as John Robinson returning as the Trojans' coach.

Meaning as long as Mike Garrett is the athletic director, it won't happen.

``We both love the university and feel we brought some things to the broadcast that the school has never had,'' Kahn, the tell-it-like-it-is play-by-play man, said Thursday of himself and Lamb. ``But the only thing we've found out about our future is what we read in the papers.''

They read last Friday in the Daily News that USC decided not to renew its contract with Kahn and Lamb as their radio-rights holder took the production in-house and officially bestowed football and basketball upon XTRA-AM (690).

It not only means the production of the broadcast is going south - literally and possibly figuratively - it means the Trojan hierarchy decides who sits behind the mike from now on.

Garrett said Thursday that ``there's no point of contention'' that Kahn and Lamb are out of the picture.

The school's business decision isn't out of the ordinary. Many more radio/team relationships work that way these days. The school assumes the risk for selling advertising and hooks up with an all-sports station that can promote the product 24 hours a day if it wants.

But since Kahn and Lamb are in the somewhat unique situation of also doing the audio portion of the broadcast, USC found it tough to separate the right packager with the announcers and would rather go into a completely new direction.

For starters, Garrett's camp contends that 3D Productions (run by Kahn, Lamb and Dennis Holtz) owe the school as much as $750,000 in rights fees and it could go as high as $1 million by June 30. Kahn strongly denies that figure as ``ludicrous,'' pointing out that deadline for all final payment is more than 16 weeks way.

And for the last few years, Garrett also became disenchanted with Lamb. Kahn said Garrett told him he didn't like Lamb anymore after a meeting with Garrett following the '96 season. At the end of the '97 season, Kahn said Garrett told him again he didn't want Lamb back, but Kahn could stay. It's believed Garrett enjoyed the criticism of the school's play that Kahn and Lamb brought to the broadcast, which led to Robinson's ouster.

Kahn wasn't going to sell out his partner. He also turned down the basketball-only job. And he told Garrett he should at least tell Lamb of his opinion.

``I saw Garrett the next day,'' said Kahn. ``I asked him if Lamb was going to bring him a tape. Garrett's exact words were: `I don't give a (expletive) if he's the next (expletive) Vin Scully, I don't like the (expletive).' When he said that, I was speechless.''

Garrett responded Thursday about the parting of ways:

``I want a complete package, someone to use at Trojan Club functions and other things like that. Neither one of them are good at the mike (as after-dinner speakers). I'm thinking more about someone like Tom Kelly, who can do a lot of other things besides just broadcast.''

As for money owed the school, Garrett said that 3D Productions ``agreed to one amount and kept adjusting it. The dollars we should have got we never did. And we were supposed to get our money before they got theirs. That didn't happen. They put me in a precarious position. That's no way to do business.''

Garrett called Kahn ``vindictive,'' says Kahn used to complain about Lamb himself, and any claims made about his choice of language is false.

``The fact is, I didn't do that,'' said Garrett, also accused in Thursday's edition of the Los Angeles Times for berating players last season. ``My feeling is, if that's all they've got to defame me, I'll take it. That's the least of my concerns.''

Kahn said that after Saturday's final USC basketball broadcast, he still planned to do a number of baseball games for a to-be-determined radio station, even though financially it's no more than a break-even situation.

``I think it's important we do it, because we have done it for the first time in 25 years and the program deserves it,'' said Kahn. ``I don't want any of this to sound like sour grapes, because we'd love to stay. Up until Jan. 23 of this year, I thought our relationship was fabulous. Now, I don't have an explanation.''

EVERYONE (GULP) INTO THE PATTERN?

If Garrett's first choice to bring Kelly back as the radio voice of the Trojans doesn't work - Kelly has been making a comfortable living doing football replays and basketball for Fox Sports West 2, and Garrett hopes a simulcast will work between the two mediums - be prepared for the ever-lobbying Lee ``Hacksaw'' Hamilton (not his real niche) to do USC games.

The San Diego Chargers have moved to another station, so Hamilton has his football weekends free. Plus, he can give the university three hours of free publicity on his weekday drive-time talk-radio show.

Another reason USC picked XTRA was that there were complaints about the KLSX-FM signal missing parts of Los Angeles. That will undoubtedly come up again when XTRA's signal skips over its usual parts of the San Fernando Valley. As UCLA learned when its football games were on the station before moving over to AM 1150, the XTRA signal won't carry into the vicinity of the Rose Bowl.

SOUND BYTES by Tom Hoffarth

WHAT SMOKES

The first piece of work from the newly formed Fox Sports Net Films: an hour-long documentary on the life and times of former Pittsburgh Pirates star outfielder Roberto Clemente (Sunday, Fox Sports West, 9 p.m.). Actor Jimmy Smits narrates in an elegant style that matches the way Clemente used to cut off a ball hit down the line, turn and throw to third base. ``It's the closest portrayal of my father's life that I have ever seen,'' said Roberto Clemente Jr. Black Canyon Productions, which did HBO's ``When It Was A Game,'' also has a hand in this work. Fox Sports Net chief Arthur Smith says this will be the first of a three-to-four-times-a-year production from this new film division that will provide national programming for Fox's regional cable channels.

WHAT CHOKES

CBS has figured out a way to tweak the format of its NCAA college basketball tournament show (Sunday, 3:30-4 p.m.) that'll keep the news vultures at ESPN (and the rest of the free world) at bay. Instead of rattling off all 32 pairings in the first two segments of the show and saving the analysis for the end, they'll just release one region at a time, analyze it, then move on to the next. That way, the ESPN show, which has to wait until CBS makes the official announcement, has to dance around before it can do its job. And that way, the viewer has to sit through the whole show. On the kimono-tails of a delayed-broadcast Winter Olympic coverage, CBS shouldn't be trying to drive everyone to the Internet again.

Reporter Jeff Biggs' unceremonious exit from the Lakers' recent road trip by AM 1150. Simply, it's a management decision to cut back on some employee hours after a recent union dispute over compensation. And the simple result is that Biggs - and the listeners who benefited from his Lakers news gathering - pay the price.

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PHOTO CLEMENTE JR.

BOX: SOUND BYTES by Tom Hoffarth