USC RUNNING BACK DISMISSED

Coach Holtz Makes The Decision After Derek Watson Is Charged With Drug
Possession

Derek Watson's latest brush with the law cost the star running back his
S.C. football career on Monday and will send him back into the court
system. After the junior running back's arrest in Greenville on marijuana
possession charges over the weekend, USC football coach Lou Holtz
permanently dismissed Watson from the team Monday.

Upon learning of the new charges, Barney Giese, chief prosecutor for
Richland and Kershaw counties, said Watson was no longer eligible for
Pretrial Intervention he entered in August after being charged with simple
assault and battery.

That case, which stemmed from an incident May 7 in which Watson punched a
female USC student in the arm, now returns to the courts, where Watson
faces a maximum penalty of 30 days in jail and a $500 fine on the
misdemeanor charge.

The 20-year-old Watson also faces additional discipline from USC's Office
of Student Judicial Affairs, which could vote to dismiss him from school
within the next two weeks.

"I feel badly for Derek, but he clearly understood that if he chose to do
certain things, he would no longer be a part of the USC football team,"
Holtz said in a statement. "I truly care about Derek as a person."

Watson, who was unavailable for comment Monday, was arrested early Saturday
in the parking lot of a Greenville nightclub and charged with simple
possession of marijuana, Greenville police spokesman Lt. Mike Gambrell said.

Watson and Antwan Andre Galloway, 21, of Pendleton, were arrested when
narcotics officers said they saw one of the passengers in Galloway's car,
later identified as Watson, filling a cigar shell with marijuana.

Holtz met with Watson in Columbia Monday morning and first decided to
suspend Watson indefinitely. But after a review of the police report, USC
athletics director Mike McGee and Holtz spoke again and decided on the
harsher penalty.

"We received information from the Greenville police this afternoon that,
although Derek still has legal rights, makes this course of action pretty
clear," McGee said.

Watson also will not return to the basketball team, which he joined for two
weeks last month before returning to football to prepare for USC's 31-28
Outback Bowl win over Ohio State.

The marijuana arrest is Watson's fifth disciplinary problem in the past 14
months.

Greenville police said detectives saw three individuals sitting in a 1975
gold Chevrolet on Saturday at 12:30 a.m. in the parking lot of the
Salsatheque Night Club on Pleasantburg Road in Greenville.

Gambrell said detectives, riding in an unmarked vehicle, pulled up next to
the car and saw Watson filling the cigar shell with a substance from a
small, clear plastic bag. Field tests later showed the substance to be
marijuana.

Gambrell said Watson slid the bag down his right leg to the floorboard when
officers approached him, but was cooperative when he was asked to get out
of the car.

About 8.5 grams of marijuana was confiscated from Watson.

An additional 2.4 grams was found on Galloway. Both men were ticketed on
the misdemeanor charges. They weren't taken into custody.

They face $497 in fines and have a Jan. 30 court date in Greenville.

A former South Carolina Mr. Football from Palmetto High School in
Williamston, Watson was the state's top running back prospect when he
signed with the Gamecocks after Holtz's arrival in 1999.

In three seasons with the Gamecocks, Watson ran for 2,078 yards and scored
19 touchdowns.

Watson would be eligible to play this fall if he transfers and is accepted
into a lower-level school.

The deadline to apply for the NFL draft was Friday, so Watson would have to
petition for the league's supplemental draft this summer. If he went
undrafted, he could sign with any team as a free agent.