Does USC Care That Its Track Coach Quit?

Did USC care that track coach Caryl Smith Gilbert is headed to Georgia after winning her second national title in three years?

I’ve heard from an athletic dept. administrator that Smith Gilbert tried to get athletic director Mike Bohn to make a counter offer, but never got one.

Bohn couldn’t even be bothered to attend the NCAA championships in Eugene, Ore. Do you think UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond would have missed them if the Bruins had been favored to win a national title?

The same USC administrator tells me Smith Gilbert went to USC president Carol Folt about her job situation but Folt did not intervene in the situation.

“Smith Gilbert was dismayed by what (new women’s basketball coach) Lindsay Gottlieb is getting paid ($1 million) when Smith Gilbert already proved herself,” the administrator said.

I heard from a source at Georgia that her performance bonuses are worth more than her USC salary.

USC could make a case that it does not make sense to pay a track coach a half-million dollars. Track, unlike women’s basketball, rarely gets on TV, outside of the NCAA championships, so there isn’t even much of a publicity bump when the program wins.

One athletic dept. source speculated she might not have been popular enough to keep.

“I don’t know how much they liked her because she could be hard on the kids,” the source said.

She could also be hard on co-workers, especially assistant coaches. Smith Gilbert fired around 7-8 assistant coaches during her eight seasons at USC.