COLISEUM PANEL AND USC DISCUSS STADIUM PLANS.

Byline: Rick Orlov Staff Writer

Officials with the University of Southern California participated Tuesday in their first round of talks in the most recent effort by the Coliseum Commission to win a professional football franchise.

In what was described as a friendly meeting, the more than two-hour session gave USC officials an opportunity to voice their concerns about how a remodeling of the Coliseum would impact the university's football operations.

``Clearly, USC has great concerns,'' said one participant, who asked not to be identified. ``The plans call for a new stadium with 63,000 seats and, last year, USC averaged attendance of 83,000 a game.''

Those attendance figures are expected to be matched in coming years as USC is coming off a year in which it was co-national champion.

``If you are USC and you rely on your alumni, you are not going to want to tell 20,000 or 30,000 people there are no seats for them at the stadium,'' the participant said.

Officials with USC and the Coliseum Commission said they would not discuss specifics of the meeting. The USC representatives met separately with the NFL officials to discuss their concerns.

The session was with three top National Football League executives, including Executive Vice President Eric Grubman, Senior Vice President Neil Glat and senior manager Chris Hardart.

City Councilman Bernard Parks, who did not participate in the session but has been pushing to bring an NFL team back to Los Angeles, said he viewed the meeting as a chance for USC officials to voice their concerns and deal with other issues.

``What everyone is looking for is clarification of the issues,'' Parks said. ``It's not only the university, but issues of control of the stadium and rents - issues that will be important and have to be dealt with before a team can come here.''

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said he was not familiar with the specifics of what had been discussed but that is was part of a process being followed.

``This is part of an ongoing series of meetings. There will be several more.''

The NFL has been supportive of efforts to return a team to Los Angeles, although the Coliseum has had to compete against the Rose Bowl and a site in Carson.

Los Angeles is considered ahead in the sweepstakes, having completed an environmental review and winning support for a variety of interests to allow the remodeling of the stadium to proceed.

Pasadena officials will tour Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis., today and say they hope to come away with a better understanding of how to redesign the aging Rose Bowl stadium while retaining its historic character.

With precious few weeks left to complete a new design for the Rose Bowl and meet the National Football League's deadlines, city officials are looking for a model that shows modern amenities can be successfully wed with old-time charm.

John Moag, the sports broker leading the Rose Bowl bid, and NFL executives agreed that Lambeau Field might serve as a good case study for accomplishing this goal.

USC officials have voiced some concern over being excluded from the earlier talks regarding the Coliseum and the role it would play if professional football returns to Los Angeles.

Pat Lynch, general manager of the Coliseum Commission, described the meeting as a routine part of developing an agreement.

``There are a lot of things to discuss and we will be having more meetings like this over the coming months,'' Lynch said, refusing to disclose any specifics of the talks.

``This is a long process, and today's meeting was a continuation of that.''

Staff Writer Gary Scott contributed to this story.

Rick Orlov, [phone]

rick.orlov(at)dailynews.com