The fast-paced changes in college athletics these days are bringing about additional changes which speak to a need for folks in that landscape perhaps to find some perspective.
The University of Southern California, in what appears to have been a surprise move, yesterday announced the hiring of former University of Washington athletic director Jennifer Cohen to run their athletic department. Both schools will be leaving the Pacific-12 Conference after this school year joining the Big 10 Conference, so the move seems like it’s lateral at best. But the move by Cohen in light of the recent controversy surrounding the UW’s decision to join the Big 10 we feel sends a questionable message.
As you might guess, reaction from UW fans on social media to the news has been mixed, with some suggesting they’re not sad to see her go in light of what they view as her not great performance running the Washington athletic department; among the criticisms of her work was her hiring of Jimmy Lake to be the university’s football coach, a hiring which did not last one full season before the school had to let him go, and her continued resistance to making a change with the head coaching position for the Huskies’ men’s basketball program, a program which under current head coach Mike Hopkins has struggled in recent seasons. But whether you are fine with her leaving or not, there is a frustration that we have about this move that we feel is shared by many that support Washington athletics.
That frustration is in the idea that only weeks after Cohen was able to successfully negotiate admittance for the UW into the Big 10 at a reduced share of conference television revenues, a reduced share that after increased travel costs for Olympic and non-revenue sports are calculated likely makes their move to that league a financial wash compared to the revenue streams that would have been seen had the school accepted a deal with Apple for television rights and stayed in the Pac-12, a decision that helped spur the breakup of the league and in the process likely did irreparable harm to two other universities in the Northwest – those being their in-state rival Washington State University and regional counterpart Oregon State University – only to cut and run like this soon after suggests to us that perhaps there was more to this than meets the eye.
While WSU and OSU still have not figured out next steps and are not likely to do that until the University of California and Stanford University determine theirs following the Pac-12’s breakup, the threat of potential litigation from those universities, especially the two state schools, still exists and is real. And if there is litigation, one can expect Cohen, the UW and USC to potentially be defendants in that court action. So maybe there truly is more to this, who knows. All we can say at this point is that the timing of this move leaves a lot of questions and those are questions that folks ultimately deserve answers to.
While we wish Cohen the best in her new duties as USC’s athletic chief, we also hope that she and that university are ready to navigate challenging waters ahead. Because those waters could become challenging sooner than they may realize. Time will tell.