USC Morning Buzz: A Coaching Hiring Trend

As I’ve said, the rehiring of Mark Trakh as women’s basketball coach just looks terrible from an optics standpoint.

But the truth is USC’s consistently shown a lack of ambition when it comes to hiring. Let’s look at some recent coaching hires: The men’s volleyball coach (Jeff Nygaard) was a USC assistant coach. The baseball coach (Dan Hubbs) was a USC assistant coach. The football coach (Clay Helton) was a USC assistant coach. The two previous football coaches (Lane Kiffin, Steve Sarkisian) were former USC assistant coaches.

Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn’t. But either way it’s not exactly an innovative way of finding coaches.

12 thoughts on “USC Morning Buzz: A Coaching Hiring Trend

  1. Mark Trakh isn’t a bad coach, but USC could have done better. I guess the comedy will continue under Lynn Swann, and thank goodness it wasn’t a major hire

  2. Scott will address the problem but he won’t identify who’s philosophy it is in hiring coaches…. Why… or does he know?

  3. Didn’t Swann at least look outside but had to settle for Trakh due to probable financial restrictions put upon him by the admin?

    • Sounds like it esp. the fiasco associated with both Kiffin and Sarkisian sackings that and whatever it took to get Haden to lateral his plundering back end up to his downtown LA rat hole.

    • I don’t agree – there is some truth here – Helton has, so far, been decent but is that due to Darnhold and the other strong recruits with some great coaching from the assistants Helton has picked? In fairness to Helton he has made some solid assistant picks but I’m still not sold he’s an individual that has worked his way to be the head coach at one of the Top 5 college coaching positions but for right now it appears to be working out.

      Now as to the rest – yeah there is a real sense of indolence in those picks – I do believe Haden attempted to get John Savage to abandon bel-air tech which didn’t happen and I think I did hear an inquiry was made towards Gillespie but not sure. Krueter was the first move Haden made when he became AD – threw his worthless back end out fast.

      USC was once feared in baseball and track and field – 40+ years ago and save for a brief blip in the 90’s baseball has been ‘….in the gloaming’ and track and field hasn’t mattered since the NCAA began limiting scholarships. Doubt much can be done with the latter but certainly something could with baseball – it is real mess since Garrett decided to sack Gillespie.

  4. Both Sark and Kiffy were head coaches at places before being head coach USC, so they had some experience from outside and inside. They were terrible people not just bad coaches. Besides it is not often that a head coach becomes a head coach before ever working as an assistant.

  5. Promoting from within is a pretty solid management philosophy that has worked well in other businesses. The Athletic Dept budget for coaches salaries might be tight with whatever the Kiffin and Sark pay outs are.

    • Golden Trojan, The hiring of Sarkesian by PH was absolutely incedulous. totally without merit. A stupid move that will forever be Haden’s Legacy.

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