When he lived in Los Angeles earlier than, labored at one level as a telemarketer. He was 18 on the time, making requires a Google advert companies firm based mostly out of the Flynt Constructing in Beverly Hills. Day-after-day, lots of of instances per day, folks on the opposite line would discover colourful methods to share how sad they had been to listen to from him.
It was a thankless job. For some time, it wore him down emotionally. However “it was the best expertise,” he says.
Seems, as Bowden realized later, it was good coaching for a profession in main school soccer.
“As a result of I’m so used to folks telling me no,” Bowden says, “and attempting to get them to say sure.”
That conviction is a part of the explanation why Bowden has risen so shortly via the front-office ranks and why made him one of many highest-paid personnel administrators within the nation in late January, plucking him for Notre Dame with a seven-figure wage.
However at USC, he hasn’t needed to do a lot convincing in his first six weeks. Since his first conversations with coach and athletic director , it was made clear to Bowden that they believed in his imaginative and prescient for what USC may develop into — and would supply the assets to make it occur.
These components weren’t all the time in his full management at Notre Dame.
“I knew I used to be coming to USC when, in an hour’s time span, I spoke to Jen and Lincoln and had voiced my aspirations and what I consider school soccer goes to be and the way aggressive I’d prefer to be in that new period,” Bowden stated. “They shared a whole lot of the identical ideas as I did.”
“That’s an enormous motive as to why I selected to go away a terrific scenario. As a result of I felt like this was higher.”
His arrival at USC has since been heralded as one of many largest strikes of the faculty soccer offseason to this point. However whereas Cohen and Riley have raved about their new common supervisor, nobody appears happier about these new circumstances than Bowden.
Each morning, he says, he appears into his closet stocked with cardinal and gold attire and has to pinch himself.
“I all the time felt like USC was the sleeping big of school soccer,” Bowden stated, “and I keep in mind considering if I ever received that chance, deep down, I’d wish to take it as a result of I do know what this place can do.”
He’s been thrilled with Cohen, whom he referred to as each “a friggin’ animal” and the “greatest [athletic director] within the nation.” He’s overjoyed with Riley, whom he says “can do all of it,” together with grilling up a imply balsamic steak, one Bowden was nonetheless fascinated about weeks later.
The place there have been issues previously about USC having sufficient assets to compete with different blue bloods, Bowden says he has no such fear.
USC “gained’t be slowed down” by the brand new period of income sharing, he assured. And its NIL strategy can be amongst “probably the most aggressive” within the nation.
“USC has all the things,” he says. “There’s not one factor that this place doesn’t have.”
What it lacked was a imaginative and prescient — and the mandatory infrastructure — to maintain up within the incoming period of revenue-sharing in school soccer. However since Bowden’s arrival, USC has put an amazing quantity of belief in its new common supervisor to fill in these blanks.
That’s led naturally to questions concerning the dynamics across the new common supervisor function. Bowden technically reviews to each Riley and Cohen. However he shrugged off any suggestion of a possible “energy wrestle”.
“We’re all on this collectively,” Bowden stated. “I’ve all the time considered it that means.”
Already, the plans Bowden specified by these calls with Cohen and Riley are beginning to come to fruition. Bowden has stocked the entrance workplace with rising star personnel staffers that he labored with at each Notre Dame and Cincinnati, three of which — Dre Brown, Max Stienecker and Weston Zernechel — Bowden stated had been common managers in their very own proper.
The main target since has nearly completely been on the recruiting path, the place lately, Riley has spent a whole lot of time chasing big-time prospects exterior of the state, lots of whom ended up flipping to native colleges late within the course of. However that strategy has been scrapped since Bowden’s arrival, as USC now plans to focus most of its effort on recruiting Southern California.
“Again when nationwide championships had been gained right here, when Rose Bowls had been gained right here, you recognize, you look again at Pete Carroll’s courses — ‘02, ‘03, ‘04 — over 80% of the recruiting courses had been from the state of California,” Bowden stated. “Historical past repeats itself. It all the time does. And in case you look into the tremendous particulars of how applications are constructed and the way the place was constructed and when success had occurred, that was a key a part of USC being on high. My plans and my imaginative and prescient is to carry that again and maintain the state.”
It’s an necessary time to start out significantly recruiting the state, contemplating the wealth of expertise within the 2026 class. Bowden stated he believes it’s “one of the best class that California has had in twenty years.”
With that in thoughts, he has spent the higher a part of the previous 30 days dropping by native excessive colleges and assembly with the game’s native powerbrokers. He prefers to say he’s “enhancing” these native ties, slightly than “restoring” them; although, it’s clear lately that they’d light.
“We’re going to maintain these folks and so they’re going to know that we’re right here,” Bowden stated. “That’s not carried out over one name. That’s not a textual content message each day. It’s carried out via constant communication and motion.”
A brand new common supervisor and new imaginative and prescient gained’t change a program in a single day on their very own both. However as Bowden sees it, USC is “lots nearer than folks assume.”
As for the remaining distance? Bowden appears content material to hold USC himself.
“I’m gonna give each ounce of me to no matter is important for USC to win,” Bowden stated. “No matter this place wants, I’m gonna do it.”
