USC Athletic Director Pat Haden To Step Down In June

Pat Haden will step down from his role as Trojans athletic director on June 30, according to a USC alumni email sent by school president C.L. Max Nikias.

Though Haden will no longer be the AD, he will take on a new role involving the renovation of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. An excerpt of Nikias’s email, which can be found in full here:

Dear Fellow Trojan:

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Pat Haden, who has announced his intention to retire from his role as athletic director, effective June 30, 2016. I ask you to join me in thanking this Trojan legend for his leadership during a historic moment of transition for Trojan Athletics.

I am also pleased to report that Pat has agreed to a one-year term to guide our renovation of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Beginning July 1, 2016, and ending June 30, 2017, he will maintain an office in the Bovard Administration Building, working closely with me and reporting directly to me as he heads a fundraising initiative focused on renewing the nation’s most venerable stadium and the home of Trojan football.

In the summer of 2010, Pat stepped away from his longtime role as a trustee of the university in order to take the helm of USC Athletics, which bonds our Trojan Family together across continents and generations. He took on this role at a time when the department faced unprecedented pressure, externally and internally, requiring nothing less than a Herculean effort to rebuild its foundation for the long term. USC Athletics had received NCAA penalties of unprecedented harshness only weeks earlier; and its physical and academic infrastructure urgently required improvement to bring it in line with the university’s overall dramatic progress in recent years.

Pat has accomplished USC’s objectives here through his distinct blend of integrity, energy, wisdom, and character. He moved into Heritage Hall on August 3, 2010, the same day I stepped into the USC presidency. And during a time in which intercollegiate athletics has been undergoing unpredictable transformation at a national level, Pat developed and executed a blueprint for how athletics and academics can reinforce one another at an academically elite private research university with a public-minded mission.

Photo: AP

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