Q&A with Lynn Swann: ‘It’s important to be a good caretaker’

If all goes well in USC’s major revenue sports, Lynn Swann could be in for a smooth ride as athletic director. Clay Helton was promoted to head football coach not long before Swann’s hiring. Basketball Coach Andy Enfield received an extension, too.

Former athletic director Pat Haden will remain with the Trojans to oversee the renovation of the Coliseum. USC has relatively new facilities for football, and also a first-class multiple-sport venue in the Galen Center. So, at his introductory news conference, Swann said he would be content being a manager.

Swann, whose tenure began July 1, spoke with the Los Angeles Times last week about his vision, Haden, Swann’s idea to create a “sports curriculum,” and how he will evaluate the football team. What is being published has been edited for brevity.

Experience in an athletic department, do you think that’s useful?

“I certainly think that if you were approaching this job and you had experience as an athletic director, yes it would be useful. Do I think it’s the only route to the job? Obviously not. I’m here. And I think other people have come to these jobs around the country from places that were not necessarily on the inside of that particular job or experience.”

Do you have a certain vision for where you want USC to be?

“Well, there are certain things that I would like to accomplish, but they go hand in hand with what’s already being done at USC. We’ll continue to fundraise for various projects. We have a Coliseum renovation which Pat Haden is spearing and has been heading up for a while. So we’ve got that project moving along. The cost of education continues to rise, so we need to continue to raise capital for our endowments to pay for the scholarships for the more than 600 student athletes we have here.

There are some other things you want to try and do to incent our student athletes to be better in the classroom. And so I have a a long-term goal to look at the possibilities of creating a sports curriculum. And one that is, that will be, very challenging. We have some pieces to it that exist already at USC in a couple different schools. But I’d like to see what we could do that would make it better.”

What is a sports curriculum?

“Well think about this: What is the business of sports, and how big is the business of sports and how do you define it? For a lot of people, when they look at athletes, they’re thinking, ‘Well, the athlete wants to be a professional athlete.’ And so that’s what they’re getting ready for. But when you think about the small numbers, the percentages of student-athletes who actually get a chance to try out for a professional team and then an even smaller number that have what you would refer to as success. It’s amazing how much time they’ve invested in it and how many more people who have been involved in sports don’t get a chance to play. But that’s not the only business of sport. There’s sports management, there’s sports negotiation, there’s sports design, there’s sports journalism, there’s broadcasting, there’s data analytics, you know, there’s sports administration. There’s all kinds of careers you can have in sports. And so a sports-centric degree curriculum would encompass all of those kinds of things. Elements of business and marketing and finance, OK? Elements of the legal side, contract negotiation, reading contracts, contract structure, understanding the various contracts within baseball, basketball, football, finance, capologists, as they refer to them in football -- you know, guys who develop systems and programs and how do we manage the salary cap and get all the players paid and keep our team intact?

“You make a lot of money. What’s a proper investment strategy for an athlete moving forward who could be making tens of millions of dollars for a relatively short period of time? … They’ve got to find an agent or an attorney who’s going to negotiate a contract. Should that agent recruit them or should they interview those people for a position with them?

“These are not going to be easy classes.”

Haden says that he raised about $400 million. Do you have a goal in mind? Of that $400 million, do you know if all of that is accounted for, or is just pledged? Are you expecting all of that?

“Well I don’t know. I mean, in terms of money raised while Pat was here, I don’t know exactly what that number is. But, you know, it’s an expectation that the director of athletics will be a fundraiser. I think it’s a requirement for the job. Certainly when I ran for governor of Pennsylvania, I did my share of fundraising. So while I didn’t do it for a university, I did it for a campaign. But an ask is an ask.

What do you think the most pressing issues facing USC are right now?

“Well, I don’t know if there are any pressing issues right now. I think sometimes people take leadership roles and they get too carried away with what they think their vision is going to be or what their, I don’t know, how they make their mark. I think it’s important to be a good caretaker when you have something that’s very solid and very strong. And I think the University of Southern California’s athletic department program is now very solid and very strong, has a great history, has a great tradition.

“Foundational things are still the core of what we need to do here. When we bring in student-athletes, we want them to graduate. We want them to have a great college experience, you want them to win. Those are the three pillars I set forward, I set down when I came in.”

How often do you consult with Haden?

“I’ve talked to Pat several times now. I talked to Pat before I ever took the job about a variety of things at USC. Not while we’re under this umbrella of possibly becoming the athletic director, but, you know, before that. I’ve talked to Pat since becoming the athletic director. I’ve met with him at Heritage Hall the day after it was announced. Pat and I, more recently, have been in meetings discussing the Coliseum and what’s going on there. And we even had a chance to play a round of golf together, and over 18 holes we had a chance to talk about a lot of different things.”

Who won?

“I’m not sure. I can’t recall what the score was.”

Very diplomatic.

“It was a good afternoon, let’s put it that way.”

You’re leaving the PGA of America board in November. You’re staying on the Fluor Corporation board. Why are you staying in one, leaving the other, and how much time do you devote to that?

“Well, I’m leaving the PGA of America board because my time is up. As an independent director you serve three years. And so that will be the end of my three years, and to my knowledge, they’ve never had an independent director stay on longer.

“I’m staying on the Fluor board because I enjoy the board. They’re great people. It’s a great company. Matter of fact, Bob Fluor, who passed away many years ago, was a trustee at the University of Southern California.

“It’s a great challenge. It’s a great education in terms of what’s happening in business in the world today. And the time frame in which that board meets, six times a year, fits into my schedule. And so it’s doable without interfering.”

That the majority of your time, six times a year?

“Well, in addition to the reading, but yes.”

At a school like USC, is it fair to judge the athletic director on the success of the football program?

“People will judge me any way they want to. … I think if you always worry about being judged and what other people are saying, then you’re not judging and you’re not making your own decisions for the right reasons.”

What about when you assess yourself? How much of that, at a school like USC, is the success of the football program?

“Oh I don’t know. After one month, I think I’m doing pretty good.”

What is success for the football program?

“Putting his team in position to win the national championship, I think, is what Clay thinks is success. And you build. You build on that. I mean, look, USC had some problems. Probation. Lost some scholarships. Couldn’t play in bowl games. I think Pat Haden did a great job of getting USC’s foundation back together, getting the scholarships back. We’re at our full load. Clay Helton did a great job coming in as an interim coach. Now he’s got his first year as a head coach and his first recruiting class. And so we’re going to move this forward.”

Being a former football player, how hands-on do you plan to be with the football program?

“I am not a coach. I am planning on doing no coaching whatsoever of athletes. I work with Clay to help him as best I can to make sure we’re compliant, make sure the athletes are moving forward. I’ll be a resource. I have an open-door policy.”

Do you watch games in a box? Do you you watch on the field?

“I don’t plan on being on the sideline during the game.”

What do you consider a reasonable expectation for the basketball program?

“Well, I think Andy Enfield’s done a nice job of raising the expectations, getting last year’s basketball team into the NCAA tournament. And if it weren’t for a last-second buzzer beater, they would’ve played deeper into the tournament. So I think he set the bar for expectations for the basketball program, that they’ll continue to move forward, make more appearances in the playoffs and eventually get there. One of my goals, certainly, for USC is for all those sports that have never won a championship, a national championship, I want them to win one. That means men’s basketball.”

Do you have any inclination to make a hire in one of the major sports that you could say, “That’s the person I picked”?

“Why press? I mean, why create a problem when you don’t have to? And I think in terms of leadership, I think that’s one of the traps people can fall in. They want to say, ‘It was my hire.’ I would be happy if Clay Helton were to go out and be undefeated in the 2016 season and win a national championship, be totally happy to say he was someone else’s hire. That doesn’t bother me.”

Given USC’s status as a premier athletics program, lets talk about some issues facing college sports in general …

“Well, I can tell you now that for most of the issues it’s going to be me doing a little bit of homework and coming up to speed on it. I’m probably not going to give you any of the specifics in terms of what I know or what I think at this particular time because I’m just getting started. And it would be disingenuous of me to try and tell you I’m going to do ‘X’ and I don’t have all the facts.”

One of the big questions in college sports is whether players should be paid. Do you think that players should be compensated other than what they’re getting now in stipends and scholarships?

“Well, it’s getting into a whole bunch of legal issues. Some of them are currently on the table that I’m not going to get into. But I already believe that the athletes are being compensated now. And at USC, that’s a pretty hefty sum in terms of the cost of a scholarship.”

Do you believe that the Pac-12 Conference needs to expand?

“Oh I don’t know. Expansion is an issue that’s surrounding a couple of different conferences as we speak. And the timing on when they want to try and expand and add teams, I guess, is being questioned heavily. But, you know, I think it’s an issue that all of the athletic directors and university presidents will discuss at some point in time as to whether or not you really think you need to expand. As it is right now, you can’t play every team in the Pac-12 without becoming too insular, if you will. You’d have no outside game whatsoever. … And I think the games outside the conference are equally as important because they become a measuring stick as to how good are you really, in trying to determine who’s the national champion.”

When Haden was with the Mayr Foundation, he directed donations to USC. More money went to USC than it did in the past, and less went elsewhere. Do you believe any of that money should be returned?

“I don’t know much about the details of that particular foundation and its governance and guidelines. I would imagine if there was something done that was improper that the foundation would request a return. They have not.”

zach.helfand@latimes.com

Twitter: @zhelfand

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