LOS ANGELES — The book says Rocky Seto was a walk-on at USC in the late 90s, meaning he didn’t come with a scholarship.

The book is too nice to say he was actually a beg-on.
The difference is that walk-ons, these days, are usually players whom the coaches know. They’re encouraged to join the team with the tacit assurance they’ll get scholarship help later to keep them from attending Cal Poly or Utah State, etc. They are not strangers.
When Seto finished his second year at Mt. San Antonio College, he drove to USC and sat in the Heritage Hall lobby. He was a cold call.
He had gone to Mt. SAC because Bill Fisk, an ex-Trojan, was the coach. He thought that might help him. He didn’t have an NFL bloodline. His dad was a Japanese immigrant who ran a gardening business in Boyle Heights and then Arcadia, and Rocky spent a lot of time raking and mowing. Football was more appealing.
But this was more a delusion than a dream. This wasn’t even like David Eckstein showing up at U. of Florida workouts, looking for a couple of swings. At least Eckstein was on a field. Seto had nothing going, except that he was coming to USC anyway.
Seto looked up and saw Coach John Robinson walking around on the second floor. This was it.
“I went up the stairs and sort of hung around where I saw him going,” he said the other day. “I wanted to make it look like a chance meeting.”
Robinson brought Seto into his office for a 10-minute chat.
In August, Seto wore a USC practice jersey.
Today, the Trojans’ defense is an insistent, inescapable, swarming force.
Just like its first-year coordinator, Rocky Seto.
“I’ve just been blessed, praise the Lord,” Seto said. “A lot of great things have happened to me.”
Seto never has left Heritage Hall. He played for Robinson one year and Paul Hackett the next. Then he was a graduate assistant, and a part-time assistant, and he married Sharla Chiang, who played soccer for a conference championship team at USC.
Hackett was fired after 2000. Seto feared he was losing his grip on football. He also was second-guessing his decision not to pursue a doctorate in physical therapy, even though the program had accepted him.
“Sharla wanted us to go to a women’s volleyball game and support the team,” he said. “I said, nah, I wasn’t in the mood. But I finally did.
“And talk about being in the right place at the right time again.”
One of the players was Jaime Carroll. His father is named Pete.
“He was sitting right behind me,” Seto said. “I knew he was the darkhorse candidate for the job. I just introduced myself and told him who I was and what he did. And then he got the job and kept me around.”
Seto wasn’t on the official staff in 2001-02, but he worked with the safeties. “It helps,” he said, “when one of them is Troy Polamalu.”
It also helped that Carroll, in his own mind, never quit playing safety. Carroll and Seto discussed the position day and night. When a full-time spot opened in 2003, Seto took it, and when Nick Holt left for Washington last year, Carroll took about five seconds to make Seto the coordinator.
Prestigious title. Risky job. The Trojans lost three linebackers to the first round of the NFL draft, plus five other starters.
That defense held opponents to nine points a game and 3.6 yards per play.
The four USC opponents in 2009 have averaged 10 points and 3.5 yards per play.
Asked about it, Seto launched into a checklist of deflected credit. Defensive line coach Jethro Franklin, linebackers coach Ken Norton, graduate assistant secondary coach Kris Richard ...
“Sure, Pete always puts his stamp on the defense,” said Petros Papadakis, the broadcaster who played with Seto at USC. “But the guys up front have learned to play together in a short period of time.
Sometimes that takes all year. Players like Rocky so much, they don’t want to let him down.”
There was a limit to the nice.
“During practice, Rocky was a pest,” Papadakis said, laughing. “He would cut-block you. This did not go over very well in November with some of the guys. But everybody knew what walk-ons went through.
“To be honest there are some walk-ons that you never remember. Everybody remembers Rocky. He was a great teammate.”
He was not a walk-on for long. In a team meeting, Hackett announced Seto had earned a scholarship.
“That was big,” Seto said. “I went home to tell my parents in person.”
He has made that trip a few times, to deliver good news, nominally about defense, really about pursuit.