Los Angeles Press Enterprise: Leinart's lunch special

The superstitious QB never misses this meal with dad

By DAN WEBER / The Press-Enterprise

It was just lunch.  Not one of those "Let's do lunch" Hollywood deals.  It was just a father and son getting together back in August 2003, back in the days before Matt Leinart had started a single game at USC -- or thrown a single pass.

Bob Leinart had driven down from Santa Ana to the eating spot not far from campus that is secret to this day.  "I can't reveal it," Bob Leinart said of the location that has been the spot for 35 straight game-week Wednesdays double-dips -- first lunch, then practice, with Matt.  At the beginning, it was just a low-key, one-time deal.  But after USC's 23-0 win in the opener at Auburn, with Matt throwing for a touchdown on his first college pass, he reminded his dad the next week that they'd be having lunch the next week.  Same time, same place, same menu.  "Dad, you're coming to lunch again, right?" Bob Leinart remembers Matt saying.  "Matt's definitely got a few superstitions," his dad said.  "We went to lunch and he had a good game. It's as simple as that."  It's a bit more complicated now, with a Monday dinner with older brother Ryan and a game-day Trojan Walk that starts with Matt stepping out of line as USC enters the Coliseum, or an opponent's stadium, and kisses his mother, Linda, then shakes hands with his brother and father.  But the lunch came first and has been there for all 35 games of Matt Leinart's college career -- 34 wins and one loss.  Except for one glitch.  The week of the Cal game in 2003, the last loss before 31 straight Trojan wins, there was a hiccup in the routine.  Like always, Bob Leinart was there precisely at noon, picked Matt up, and they headed to lunch.  "But they didn't have the same food for us, the food we'd always ordered," Bob Leinart said.  They went ahead anyway, ordered something else and that Saturday, the Trojans found themselves 34-31 losers in three overtimes.  And so Bob Leinart got another call from Matt.   "Dad, we can't go there if they don't have the same food," Matt said.  "So I went down there first, before I picked Matt up, to make sure they had it," Bob Leinart said. "And they did. So we went back there. Now they tell me if they ever didn't have it, they'd go out and get it special."  Father and son then head back to campus, where Bob drops Matt off to watch film.  If Bob Leinart won't reveal the location or the menu, his son is even more closemouthed.  "I'm very superstitious," Matt said this week, his grin widening as he said it.  "But I can't talk about that."  "I know he has lunch with his dad," roommate Dwayne Jarrett said. "But that's the only superstition I know about."  With just three lunches left, counting the bowl game, where does this go from here?  "We'll figure out something," Bob Leinart said of an NFL future for his son.  "Maybe I'll fly in every week."