A nearly two-month long search and we now know who will replace Lynn Swann as the newest Athletic Director of USC. Mike Bohn is set to join USC after spending the last five years in the same position with the University of Cincinnati. For those of you who may not know a lot about the next Director of Athletics for the Trojans, here is a brief synopsis of where he came from.
Mike Bohn was a two-sport athlete at the University of Kansas in the early 80’s. He was a part of both the football and baseball teams for the Jayhawks. He spent time at Air Force and Colorado State before landing his first AD job at Idaho in 1998. He left there in 2003 to take over at San Diego State.
After two years with the Aztecs, he returned to the state of Colorado in 2005 as the University of Colorado’s AD. He was there for almost a decade until he was fired in 2013. He took the same job with Cincinnati in 2014.
Bohn has been recognized for his athletic department’s academic achievements as well as achievements on the field and court while with the Bearcats. While at Cincinnati, the football and basketball programs have thrived and achieved high levels of success. Cincinnati was even being thrown around as a possible addition to the Big 12 conference during Bohn’s tenure.
Now that he is coming to Southern California, he will have every opportunity to continue and build upon his reputation. One of his first items to address is the football team’s current head coaching situation. We will see if Clay Helton is someone Mike wants to keep on or if there is someone else we may see on the sideline. His previous coaching hires at Idaho, Colorado, and Cincinnati turned out well overall. Most of his hires have been unproven guys who haven’t really been in a head coaching role before. We will see if this is a trend he will continue or if he was sort of handcuffed to those types of hires due to the school he was with. Now that he is in his biggest pond yet, will he go for the biggest fish in the water?
University of Cincinnati Nippert Stadium. Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons | Under Creative Commons License