Coming back to USC today is really a joy. It’s a great pleasure for me to engage with the athletes, to work with the coaches, to work with the staff in managing people, and to help move the university forward.
We have a solid core of people and it begins with our staff. We’ve got a great chief financial officer in a gentleman by the name of Steve Lopes. He’s been a great partner to me and a great asset to the university.
Pat Haden left the school and the athletic department in good shape. There are some talented people who are there, so my charge coming into USC was not that I had to clean house.
My job was to get to know [new football head coach Clay Helton] a little bit. Fortunately for both of us, we got along well. [Andy Enfield is] doing a very good job coaching the [men’s] basketball team and building that program.
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I inherited a lot of good people. My job is to help them be better managers of what we have. There’ll be some processes we change along the way.
Governance committees are very comfortable for me, and when you’re looking at the rights of athletes and processes and due process for athletes today, the NCAA rules, the Pac-12 rules, it’s important for them to understand where they stand from the beginning.
The Trojan family are very loyal, and so if I call, people take the phone call. But there has to be something beyond just saying “Hi, I’m Lynn Swann.”
We have a strong alumni group. [The Los Angeles Coliseum is] going to be an expensive project, but it needs to be done. There’s not ever been a major renovation of the Coliseum since it was built.
I’m a financial conservative. I want to be a good fiduciary of [USC]. I came here, we were in good financial shape. The day I leave, I want it to be in better shape than when I found it.
I don’t care if you played, coached, owned a football team, if you’ve been an athletic director and the head coach and you’re now the AD. Your job is not to call the plays. You hire someone to call the plays and let that person do the job.
Thirty years as a broadcaster — I think I understand a little bit about television and what goes on in the business of television.
Boil it all down, everything I’ve done in my life, professional life and building up, I now do at USC. It’s all under one umbrella. Raise money for the university, be a good fiduciary, be a mentor to the student athletes that are out there, be there as a voice and a leader in managing people who have the job of coaching teams.
We have a tremendous head coach, Caryl Smith Gilbert, she’s a UCLA grad, an Olympian in her own right. She’s doing a wonderful job in our men’s and women’s track program, and there are five women who are the head coaches of both men’s and women’s track programs at five Division I schools.
She took it upon herself to host a track meet where all five of these women brought their teams to USC to compete. That shows what these women are doing, pioneering in the area of track and field and running these programs.
The Rams have been great partners, in terms of their involvement in some renovations at the Coliseum. They’re not playing any night games in the early part, so we don’t have to put up temporary lights.
I don’t care if you played, coached, owned a football team, if you’ve been an athletic director and the head coach and you’re now the AD. Your job is not to call the plays.
Playing with the Rams is normal. When I went to USC, it was USC, UCLA, and the Rams all in the Coliseum. I’m accustomed to seeing three football teams playing in the same facilities. I was hoping that the Chargers would play at the Coliseum at the same time.
Fundamentally, I’m not in favor of athletes being paid. If we get to the point where we’re paying athletes, every athlete in every sport will feel like they deserve a share of whatever that money is.
Don’t you think that if you said the basketball team should get paid, the women’s basketball team would want to get paid? If schools are having problems now meeting their budget, what’s that going to do to the budget? What does that do to the overall cost?
The student athlete today is very different, and they’re looking for more of a collegiate experience. How do you have that time to enjoy college life?
The one thing [students] can’t get any faster is maturity. Time and experience gives them maturity, and so we’re trying to help them mitigate bad decisions along the way so that they do have a great college experience.
My goal when I took the job at USC was to have every student graduate. That’s always got to be the first goal. No. 2, we want them to win. And 3, to have a great college experience. If we can accomplish those three things, I think we’ll be successful at USC.
