FORT LAUDERDALE — Running back Reggie Bush, who can fill up a reporter's notebook as well as he does a stat sheet, was present and accounted for. So was quarterback Matt Leinart, who has become almost as big a media darling as Lindsay Lohan since winning the Heisman Trophy last month.

The USC players were ready to roll Friday after a morning news conference. A cursory head count revealed one member of their caravan was missing.

Paul Goldberg, a USC sports information assistant, was sent to retrieve Norm Chow, the Trojans' offensive coordinator, from the interview room where he was holding court. "Norm's gotta go," Goldberg said as he shepherded Chow to the exit. "The engine's running."

In one hour Chow had effectively hit the kill switch on a years-old fallacy fueling the perception that he's not cut out to be an effective head coach in college football.

His engaging manner debunked the belief that this offensive-minded virtuoso with 32 years of college coaching experience is too reserved to handle the media responsibilities that come with running a Top-25 program.

If the media blitz won't rattle Chow, how come he has interviewed for three Division I-A head-coaching jobs in the past four decades, or one more than Urban Meyer did in November alone?

Granted, Meyer comes to Florida after running two college programs — Bowling Green and Utah, the latter the alma mater of Chow, who was an offensive lineman for the Utes. Chow, however, has been an integral part of two national championship squads (BYU in 1984 and USC in 2003). He has supervised three Heisman Trophy winners — Ty Detmer, Carson Palmer and Leinart.

Chow is a proven winner, which begs the question: Why has his career hit a glass ceiling?

His age, it has been whispered, is working against him. But how does that explain Stanford's recent hiring of Walt Harris, who was born the same year — 1946 — as the 58-year-old Chow, the other finalist for the Cardinal's job?

If Chow isn't too introverted or too old to be a head coach, what exactly is holding him back? His lack of head-coaching experience isn't an answer, it's an alibi. After all, you can't get head-coaching experience if nobody will give you that first job.

Chow could have gone to Kentucky in December 2002. He turned down the head-coaching position for much the same reasons he says he's not interested in joining his friend and former USC Associate Athletic Director Daryl Gross in Syracuse. A pioneer cannot afford to fail, and being the football coach at a school crazy for basketball is not the best recipe for success. After Kentucky, no other offers have been forthcoming. Why?

Chow danced around the question at first. In his heart, he doesn't want to believe university administrators make hires as though it's 1965 once more.

Then he was asked point-blank: Is racial discrimination holding him back?

The most prominent Asian-American coach in football shrugged. Measuring his words carefully he said, "There's not another Asian in head coaching in college football. I don't know (why). I don't want to worry too much about it, but it's there."

Then he threw us an anecdote to digest. In 1999, when Chow was an assistant head coach in charge of the offense at BYU, he attended an athletic department meeting. The university's vice president was standing no more than 3 feet from Chow, describing plans for a new building on campus, when Chow heard him talking about having "all the Chinamen lined up ready to work."

Chow said, "I walked up after the meeting, I went up to my AD and I said, 'C'mon now.' He said, 'Don't worry. I'll take care of it.' So he goes up to tell the vice president and the vice president says, 'I didn't know Norm was Chinese.' "

When will people learn ignorance is not a defense? Chow went home that night and told his wife, Diane: "I'm not dumb enough to leave because I know I gotta feed my (four) kids. But first chance I get, I'm taking off."

He was serious. The following year Chow left BYU, where he had coached for 27 years, to become the offensive coordinator at North Carolina State.

Standing on principle was the hardest thing Chow had ever done. It required him to leave his family behind in Utah so his youngest child, Chandler, wouldn't be uprooted during his high school years.

He spent one year in Raleigh, was summoned to USC and the rest is BCS history.

After finishing the story, Chow shifted his weight from one foot to another. He coughed. His body language suggested he'd just as soon we didn't use the anecdote. He looked embarrassed, never mind that he's the last one who should feel any shame.

For minorities in any profession, daily indignities come with the territory. Chow is not a rabble-rouser. The last thing he wants to do is turn college football's biggest stage into a political platform.

"I don't want to make a big deal of the story," he said. "You asked. I'm telling."

Are college football's administrators listening? We'll see the next time a Top-25 program goes fishing for a head coach. If they refuse to cast their lines deeper, they'll never know what they're missing.