Thanks to Fox71 for pointing us to this post from SportsByBrooks back in January which noted the incoming Trojan Athletic Director Pat Haden was one of two key figures leading the search of Trojan's next football coach:
Sources familiar with the USC Board of Trustees and the Trojans coaching situation told me today that USC Board of Trustee members Pat Haden and Ed Roski are leading the search for USC's next football coach.
Trustee Chair Roski is a billionaire real estate developer who also is the leading figure in the push to bring the NFL back to L.A. and Haden is a former USC and NFL QB, current football announcer and prominent local businessman.
We all know how that turned out. Interestingly in the same post SbB also nailed the prediction that Trogans would end up hiring Pat Haden after booting Garrett out of the program. So good for him.
Now, we don't really care if Southern Cal brought in the Pope to clean up their shady program, it doesn't matter much when the new guy in charge played a role in one of the sleaziest head coaches in the game (who BTW was a key part of the stained Reggie Bush era under Cheatey Petey). Also, as one of our commenters pointed out in our last thread Haden was part of the same Board of Trustees that sat by passively and basically nodded while Petey was "cheating forever" during all those tainted years at Southern Cal.
So color us not being all that impressed. In addition from the LA Times story today:
Haden also said one of his first moves would be to create the position of associate athletic director for football, a liaison to Coach Lane Kiffin, and fill it with J.K. McKay, an L.A. lawyer who is a longtime friend. McKay, son of USC Coach John McKay, was a star wide receiver on the USC teams Haden quarterbacked.
That should raise more questions. How much control will he have over Kiffin's shenanigans? Haden mentions a liaison for the football program is he already passing the buck for overseeing the football team? More after the jump.
Southern Cal's new President has released a shiny memo about how they are intent on cleaning up their program with key hiring of high ranking compliance officials. They are also making a big show about returning Reggie Bush's tarnished "Heisman" (guess it is official now ... LOL) and trashing images of OJ Payo's stained "career" from their athletic facilities. Yet, interestingly I guess they are still going to keep the Heisman award and trophy won by OJ Simpson.
Making reactive (but insufficient) changes now doesn't change the systematic cheating that gave Trojans unfair advantage for years. So it NCAA would be foolish if it is actually impressed by moves that are too little too late.
If Pat Haden and the new Trojan President is really intent on making a sincere statement about their commitment to bringing some kind of integrity to a program (that has never cared about it), they would drop the bogus appeal. Until then talk is a little cheap. Then again when it comes to Trogans, the splashy words about integrity are always just that ... talk.
Now we know it's a good bet that ESPN and the traditional media in Southern California will eat (no we are not talking about just SChilly Smith) them again. Hopefully the NCAA is not dumb enough to fall for the PR stunt and sticks to substance.
GO BRUINS.