Here’s hoping HY isn’t on their list.
Southern Cal will have a lot of Big Ten money to throw around, but I’m not sure that it’s a better or easier job than being the Arkansas AD.
Having a daughter that just relocated from the LA area…The cost of living in the area is extremely high compared to Arkansas.
It has proven difficult to become the USC athletics director if you didn’t play football there.
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Aloha Matt,
Very true. Also difficult for the school to enjoy any stability with it’s AD billet.
UA…Campus of Champions
It’s a better job. Clearly. Not even debatable.
But I do agree they tend to stay in house.
Why?
I thought the same thing. What makes it better? Better pay? I have no idea about that, but Hunter is well compensated. More support from fans and administration? Really? Better facilities? That one is not even close. Better programs? If so what? Track and field? Baseball? Basketball? Football - perhaps? Fayetteville v LA? That of course is personal preference, but that would be enough for me right there. I am not going to live in LA or anywhere along the CA coast. Unless I can’t avoid it, I will not even go through LAX.
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People are leaving that part of the country in droves to get to our part of the country.
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It’s very debatable. As coloradohog has very eloquently written.
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Objectively it’s not debatable.
LA compared to Fayetteville? Come on.
Subjectively? Yes, of course. I might personally prefer Fayetteville.
Football and the national prominence of it drives it all. And our beloved Hogs can’t really hold a candle to USC, football-wise.
What they are doing to Mike Bohn may not help. I know Mike personally and have always found him to be a gentleman who typically has a kind word for everyone. Old school and woke culture don’t mix very well. If he were inappropriate as they are saying it would have been out of character from my experiences.
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The problem for UCLA and USC (and I’d certainly say USC is an easier job than UCLA) is two-fold: 1) Pro sports are much, much more important to SoCal fans in general than college sports, including USC football; and 2) SoCal fans generally tend to be front-running casual fans. That makes it harder for both athletic departments to maintain their financial stability and relevance.
In turn, that explains in large part why those schools are heading to the Big Ten. They want and need the extra money they have not been able to generate despite being the two Power Five schools in SoCal.
Selecting football as the measure of the desirability of an athletic director’s job is just silly. The AD’s span of control and responsibility dwarfs football, as do the challenges and rewards of the job… The AD of a Power Five school is the CEO of a fairly large business enterprise with a very public face. The athletic department at USC still lives in the SoCal fishbowl, which creates a lot of additional headaches than the AD has at an SEC school.
A bad football hire or two can get an AD fired most anywhere, and there’s certainly pressure to win in football at USC. But that’s just not a legit reason for saying the USC AD’s job is better than Arkansas or a lot of other places.
One thing that I have learned is that schools in large urban areas get short shrift in media coverage, unless they do something spectacular (whether bad or good.) My Arizona State fan friend has often noted how little coverage the Sparkys get, even when they are good. USC-W and UCLA not only compete against each other, but against the Dodgers, Angels, Rams, Chargers, Lakers, Clippers, and a myriad of other sports teams. That makes the AD job pretty tough, even if paid enough for the higher cost of living.
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I think USC football is a lot different. This isn’t SMU in Dallas. USC is a blue blood as much as Georgia and Bama. They get plenty of attention in LA.
Big difference between USC and UCLA (except in basketball). Historically, the quarterback at USC has been the prince of college football.