The Bottom Line: USC Athletics needs to recover with fresh start


Dear President-elect Folt,

As I’m sure you know, the University of Southern California is known for its prestigious athletics program. Upon being admitted to USC, many students assumed they were entering a school that excelled in both academics and athletics. However, Trojan sports have not met their lofty expectations lately.

The bottom line? USC Athletics needs an overhaul.

Many alumni take pride in following their favorite Trojan sports teams. Many former Trojans still enjoy coming back to watch the football team play on game days. However, fans were left in shock as the football team finished below .500 on the year with a 5-7 record.

While it’s unrealistic to expect a replica of the early 2000s glory days, there is no excuse for this team to fall below .500. Not only has the Pac-12 conference been abysmal for the past few seasons, but also USC is the premier school that California-native recruits want to play for — or at least it used to be.

According to 247Sports, USC only managed to recruit two of California’s top 20 best players in 2019. There are a number of factors contributing to this besides USC’s disappointing season, but none more than how the program was handled in the offseason.

Many fans wanted to see head football coach Clay Helton fired after the football team’s disappointing year. Instead, Athletic Director Lynn Swann made the call to keep faith with his head coach and completely overhaul the program’s backroom staff. Some of these coaches were even recruiting players the night before they were fired.

Swann originally made a great hire by getting Kliff Kingsbury to join the Trojan family, but Kingsbury was overqualified to stay on as the offensive coordinator — hence why he became an NFL head coach within less than a month of his hiring. Had Kingsbury been offered the head coaching position at USC, it would have been much harder for him to withdraw his acceptance and leave the program.

Moreover, with the coach so in-demand, Swann should have negotiated a higher buyout than the reported $150,000 when signing Kingsbury.

Losing Kingsbury caused a few recruits to decommit before National Signing Day. However, the biggest loss was California’s second-best prospect Bru McCoy, who did not want to join a program that looked so dysfunctional.

Additionally, other dollar-driving programs have been unsuccessful in recent seasons. Men’s basketball has been especially disappointing for the past two seasons. Two years ago, the team failed to meet expectations when it was ranked No. 10 before the season started but didn’t make the tournament. This season, the team missed the tournament again despite the Pac-12’s mediocrity.

The baseball program has also been a disappointment to the Trojan Family in recent years. In the past, despite the school’s tremendous success in football, some considered USC to be a baseball school due to its winning history.

The Trojans have won 12 National Titles in baseball, twice as many as any other school. California is known for having great baseball talent, and USC is able to get the top baseball recruits in California. Yet, the team has not had a winning season since 2015 and is on track for another losing season this year.

Unlike in football and basketball, however, the Pac-12 has remained strong in baseball and is getting even stronger. While USC is continuing to recruit very well, the team is not getting any better and is falling further behind other California programs like Stanford and UCLA.

Not only has the on-field success been disappointing over the past few years, but off the field, the USC athletic department has been a mess.

As everyone is aware, USC played a big role in the college admissions scandal — no other school had as many “athletes” involved in the scandal. Moreover, no other school had such a high profile senior official in their athletics department charged in the case.

In a business, some operations understandably fly under the radar. However, for something so big to go under the radar for so long is disgraceful. Swann said he had no knowledge of what some of his staff members were doing. If this is true, then Swann clearly had no control of what was taking place in his athletic department and therefore has no business being in charge of a program he cannot oversee properly.

Lastly, the athletic department has not been transparent with its students or the student media. When reaching out to USC Athletics for information about the scandal, students are redirected by the department to the University’s statement regarding the situation instead of making their own statement about the events.

Swann himself has declined to face members of the student media on multiple occasions, instead opting to conduct interviews with bigger publications. Rather than owning up to the wrongdoings of the department in front of the school and its media, the department has decided to lay low and prevent coaches, players or anyone affiliated with Athletics to speak on the matter.

Finally, on April 2, Swann released a press release defending himself after a Los Angeles Times editorial criticized him. While he did not admit to mistakes, he did acknowledge that the department is continuing to learn and is trying to solve problems.

USC Athletics has not fulfilled the University’s goal of increasing transparency, and has not owned up to its mistakes despite multiple opportunities to do so.

In the past year, the athletic department’s mismanagement has become clear.

While success on the field is important, fans should accept that not every year will be a good one. However, not only have USC’s teams been subpar this year, but its athletic leadership has shown an ineptitude to make the right decisions and oversee everything that is taking place within it. This calls for an overhaul.

President-elect Folt, if you are reading this, I hope you take this under consideration when you begin your term this summer. Instead of making headlines for its scandals, the Cardinal and Gold should be in the headlines due to positive results on the field and winning trophies.

Robby Aronson is a sophomore writing about sports. His column, “The Bottom Line,” runs every other Wednesday.