BASKETBALL, FOOTBALL

Today Is A Reminder USC Always Has Money

The hiring of Lindsay Gottlieb as women’s basketball coach is a good reminder of something that is always true of USC: It always spends the money when it wants to.

Mark Trakh was one of the lowest-paid coaches in the Pac-12 at around $325,000. Gottlieb should easily make more than $1 million per year. She might make a million more than Trakh. Plus her assistants will be paid a lot more than Trakh’s staff.

And this is during the pandemic.

That’s why the Clay Helton decision was never about the cost of his buyout. USC could pay it. It had a donor who offered to pay it. That was about Carol Folt not wanting to fire Helton or be beholden to a donor.

  • Today’s newsletter has another example of how absurd things can be at USC.
  • USC reported zero positive COVID-19 cases for the fourth consecutive week.

21 thoughts on “Today Is A Reminder USC Always Has Money”

  1. Yes, the money has always been there.

    The question is why is Folt committed to Helton? Why does she think that USC is better off with him?

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    1. Maybe, just maybe she committed to Bohn and his plan to reorganize the athletic department before bringing in a new coach. We’ll see. But I’d bet dollars against donuts that Clay is on the clock and knows it.

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      2. Tick Tock.
        Tick tock.

        Only question is, “what is an acceptable record for the 2021 USC Trojan FB team?” I’ve laid it down that 10-2 going into the Pac 12 champ game should be considered a disappointment–COVID or not, injuries or otherwise.

        At 11-1, I’ll be happy and willing to stay this course.
        At 10-2, I think the season is a disappointment unless the Trojans dominate in the champ game and win a major bowl game (RB, preferably).

        Liked by 2 people

      3. I can’t pretend, like some others, to know what the immediate tolerance for wins and loses is. But I’d say that there will be a need to look competent as well.
        I can’t remember an AD who liked to be saddled with another’s choice, especially if there’s no sign of improvement.

        Liked by 1 person

    2. toejam1967, Cal hippie, Michael Guarino and gotroll22’s trumplican brethren in Arizona doing the re-count are checking the state’s 2020 election ballots for, hold onto your tin-foil hats…bamboo fibers.

      LMFAO!!!!!!

      Trumplicans believe 40,000 illegal ballots were shipped in from Asia to Arizona

      “The ballots are being hand counted, and an audit official earlier this week said at least some of the ballots are being scanned for bamboo fibers, in line with an absurd conspiracy theory that 40,000 forged ballots were shipped into the state from Asia”

      OH MY SIDE HURTS FROM LAUGHING SO MUCH!

      BWA HA HA HA HA HA!

      HOLY HELL! THESE TRUMPLICANS HAVE GONE FULL BAT-SHIT CRAZY!

      I CAN’T STOP LAUGHING!!!!

      CLASSIC!

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      1. USC should have money, in 2017 alone that groveling pandering crook C.L. Max Nikias begged the U.S. Government for money and the university received $450,000,000+ for “Research & Development”.

        Liked by 1 person

    3. So by the end of this year either USC hires a new head coach for football or needs to extend Helton’s contract. You cant have a coach that is getting to the end of his contract without a renewal, it will really hurt recruiting.

      My guess is that the decision is already made. Bohn/Sosna have run an analysis of the football program and also modelled out the financial implications of different scenarios. It simply does not make sense to keep on Clay. This decision is not based on any one year, it is based on his full job performance, which is underwhelming.

      But they have used the last year wisely to rebuild the recruiting program, which will make the head coaching job even more attractive to the best candidates. With a nice pipeline of top talent in the 2022 class and 2023 class, a good HC can turn around SC football rather quickly. Some of the new coaches, like Stiner, So’Oto and Donte are also gems and will be retained. TO is a big question mark – will he be retained by a new HC? I imagine Keary Colbert is safe. Maybe Naviar is safe. Cant imagine much of the rest of the offensive staff will be retained.

      It will probably still be a $12-15 million dollar hit the university needs to spend to move forward.

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      1. Please, it only hurts recruiting if you hire the wrong replacement. By your logic Carroll would have never recovered from the firing of Hackett.

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    4. It’s not so much a commitment to Helton as having to deal with major scandals at the very same time that we all found out that CH was in way over his head. You are aware that the University came before the football team, right?

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  2. USC always has money? We will see if that is true once the football attendance shrinks to an all time low after this season which I predict will be another fiasco.

    We will also see if the new Women’s basketball coach is worth the million dollar salary. Can USC become a perennial national power maybe, and the new coach will have heavy competition in this order every year. 1) Stanford 2) Arizona 3))Oregon and 4) Oregon State.5) Arizona St. varies year by year. Realistically the new coach is going to have climb over 4-5 programs consistently in a 5 year period to justify that type of salary.

    Yes, she built an impressive program at Cal, but it is not going to be easy to make a jum in the Pac 12 yet along nationally.

    While USC has been sleeping in football, women’s basketball, and baseball the other programs in the Pac 12 have been improving. In baseball USC and Arizona State use to dominate now the programs at Stanford, UCLA, CAL, Oregon, Oregon State, Arizona, and Arizona State are much better. Don’t give me this private school excuse for baseball scholarships Stanford, TCU and Vanderbilt are private schools that have built solid programs which is clear evidence USC has not given priority to baseball despite the long history of success.

    Mike Bohn talks about building national powers by adding resources to the programs. Show us Mr. Bohn, but it is hard to reach the top of the mountain after most of the USC athletic programs have been asleep the last few years while the rest of the Pac 12 laughs, and makes a strong committment to winning.

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  3. I don’t know how you lose money with football. I would question paying a woman basketball coach a million a year. Woman basketball just doesn’t make that much money. But football does. They keep talking about how they can’t spend that much on football because of all the lawsuits. But what difference does it make if you have lawsuits? You’re not losing money with football. Football brings in money that you can help pay the lawsuits. I don’t know for sure but I would think that womans basketball doesn’t make the university any money, not if they are paying the HC 1 mill a year.

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    1. Who said that they aren’t paying out money because of the lawsuits? I’d really like to see that quote. I know a lot of people here say, even scottie on occasion, but I’ve never heard of Bohn or Folt making such a statement.
      Didn’t they just announce a $6.9B endowment, one that started as a $3B fundraiser that people said they couldn’t raise because of all the “scandals” and because of the football program. Seems like they more than doubled that. At the same time they initiated a scholarship program for kids whose families earn less than $80K… there must be money coming in from somewhere. Obviously.

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      2. The endowment is the total amount, not an amount that was raised during any time period. It grew due to stock market gains, not donations. The fundraising is probably doing horribly. And that 6.9 billion could shrink rapidly in a declining stock market, so dont get too excited about it.

        The reason that the womens program spent lots of money for a new coach is the importance of “equity”, another of the woke theories of the liberals. You have to spend tons of money on a womens program that makes no money because that brings up the equality.

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    3. Women’s hoops (college and Pro) is fairly quickly gaining TV interest among a younger, diverse generation.

      I’ve always enjoyed watching two great female tennis players slug it out. Same with women’s VB. Time to invest more in WBB and market to this younger, more diverse group coming up.

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      1. I know this. WNBA Basketball Cards are very good investments since they don’t make too many. Sue Bird, Taurasi, Breanna Stewart’s. They are crazy expensive. I have to agree they just need dunking in the game every night consistently to get them over the top with the greater public to stay interested.

        Liked by 2 people

  4. If I had to guess he got to her with the “I’m a Christian man” talk and she ate it up.
    I’m kidding but that’s what he does in his press conferences to get out of the tough subjects. He brings in the man upstairs instead of explaining why we can’t run the football.

    Liked by 2 people

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