Why former absentee USC AD Mike Bohn was always going to fail

It was only a matter of time before Mike Bohn was going to be exposed as an absentee USC AD.

You don’t even know what all was going wrong during Mike Bohn’s controversial tenure as the USC athletic director.

The Athletic’s Justin Williams (subscription required) gave more insight into why Bohn abruptly resigned a little over a week ago. We knew Bohn carried some baggage with him over from Cincinnati, but on the surface, he appeared to be doing a great job returning the Trojans’ athletic department to glory. However, so much more besides sexual harassment allegations would have unraveled him eventually anyway.

From working remotely in Boulder for two years, to not learning people’s names, to not actively supporting Olympic sports successes, to no-showing meetings (even meetings he planned), Bohn was always going to fail at USC eventually for self-inflicted reasons. Had it not been for the global pandemic, one source told Williams they were shocked Bohn wasn’t outed even sooner than this.

Bohn could always sell the sizzle to galvanize boosters, but no attention to detail left him with no steak to be sold. All the while, we wonder how USC could have messed up this badly in hiring him.

Mike Bohn’s exodus from USC is all about Mike Bohn not being all that available

While I don’t think working remotely in Boulder for the better part of two years is the biggest offense Bohn made during his USC tenure, a lot of people hid in plain sight during the pandemic and did a terrible job at their place of employment throughout. What if I told you some people decided to try to see if they could work two jobs simultaneously remotely, just to see if they could do it???

I’m not going to touch on the sexual harassment allegations pertaining to Bohn because they are fresh, more information will come out and I will let the legal system do its thing. However, I think not caring about learning people’s names is a huge deal, showing no interest in Olympic sports as an athletic director is a massive character flaw and not showing up to your own meetings is sad…

The most well-run organizations thrive on communication and integrity. There is a corporate structure involved, titles and whatnot, but CEOs and figureheads who act like people who either can’t help them or aren’t on their level are beneath them signifies they got into leadership for the wrong reasons. These are positions of servitude and thanklessness, not a fat salary and prestige.

I understand that people are busy and time is a precious commodity we never seem to have enough of, but if you don’t take care of the little things, they will soon take care of you, as we have seen with Bohn at USC. Failing to realize that what worked at Colorado and Cincinnati was not going to work at USC. Not all Power Five jobs are created equally, as USC is a top-five job, period.

As for how USC could once again screw the pooch this badly, I think it has everything to do with timing. They had a new university president and wanted to hire somebody with previous athletic director experience because not everybody who played for either John McKay or John Robinson can do this job. It’s shocking, I know! Another thing we can’t overlook is USC used a search firm.

While you would think a search firm would be able to get all the necessary information on a prospective candidate, in situations such as these where you are trying to hire an active athletic director, you don’t want to tip your hand. Not every lower-level staffer can be contacted about a prospective candidate’s candidacy, even if they have an incredible amount of dirt on the candidate.

Overall, this just sucks for USC, plain and simple. From afar, we all thought everything was pulling in the right direction for once. The football team was humming. Caleb Williams won the Heisman. Lincoln Riley was here to stay. LeBron James Jr. is going to shoot hoops for us. And we are going to the Big Ten! All five of these things are still true, but Bohn played a role in making them realities.

Ultimately, I hope USC finds the athletic director the university and its rabid fanbase deserve. Just because Bohn was exposed as an absentee AD with insurmountable baggage doesn’t mean we need to hire guys who used to play for Robinson or Pete Carroll. Going outside the Trojan Family with another active, former or up-and-coming athletic director would be the path I would go in.

For now, I think it’s safe to say you have to do more than punch the clock, wherever your clock is.