Staying in the Family, USC Promotes Garrett : Administration: After searching far and wide, Trojans find their athletic director at home.

When all was said and done, one of the most important considerations for USC President Steven Sample in selecting an athletic director was that the person be a Trojan.

No one is more Trojan than Mike Garrett, who in 1965 became USC’s first Heisman Trophy winner.

Fighting back tears, Garrett was introduced Friday at a packed news conference at USC as the head of the school’s athletic department. His selection ended an exhausting search, both for the committee formed to find worthy candidates and for Garrett, who had watched the process for two months from his office as USC’s associate athletic director.

“There has been no prouder moment then this for me,” Garrett said. “I came here in 1962 and we have been through a lot--a lot of good, a lot of indifferent. But you know the amazing thing about it, it’s still great to be a Trojan.

“My message is very simple: We will comply with all rules of the NCAA, because that’s the way we lived and we have always lived that way. We will educate kids, because that’s what we believe and that’s what we do best. And we also will win, because that is the only thing we know how to do.”

Outside the lounge in Heritage Hall where he was introduced, the Heisman Trophy that Garrett won as the school’s tailback sits encased in glass, next to those of O.J. Simpson, Charles White and Marcus Allen. Outside of Heritage Hall are the classrooms where Garrett earned his degree in sociology. And near the campus is the community where he was born and raised, East Los Angeles.

All of that weighed heavily in Sample’s decision.

“Mike Garrett not only knows the great Trojan athletic tradition, he helped create it,” Sample said.

Garrett, 48, played for John McKay from 1963-65 on teams that never finished lower than second in the Pacific 8 Conference. He set 14 NCAA, conference and school records in his three-year career, including an NCAA rushing record of 3,221 yards.

Garrett said Friday that he loves John McKay. He said that he loves John Robinson, too, and would have hired him as football coach if Robinson had not already been hired. More important to the alumni, Garrett says he loves winning.

“It’s a very simple mission for me,” Garrett said. “And that is, just be SC.”

Garrett replaces Mike McGee, who resigned Nov. 30 to take a similar position at the University of South Carolina.

McGee had said from the beginning that the next athletic director should be a Trojan, but not just to please the demanding alumni, who contribute millions to the school.

“It goes beyond the alumni,” McGee said. “It is so important. It says something to the community of Los Angeles to be a graduate of USC. It stands for something here.”

Garrett, who earned a law degree from Western States, joined the staff at USC in 1990 and was considered by some to be the handpicked successor to McGee. Before that, he had played eight seasons--1966 through 1973--with the Kansas City Chiefs and San Diego Chargers, becoming the first player to have 1,000-yard rushing seasons for two teams. An all-pro, he played in Super Bowls I and IV.

Just before he joined USC, Garrett was director of business development at the Forum. At USC, he oversaw the athletic department’s financial affairs, personnel, contract compliance, football scheduling and corporate sponsorship.

Garrett was vying for a lucrative beer distributorship when he came to USC, taking the job as associate athletic director with hopes of succeeding McGee. Garrett said that had he not been chosen athletic director, he had no idea what his next step might have been.

Sample, who was given a list of more than half a dozen candidates by the search committee headed by Pat Haden, said that Garrett was the only one offered the job.

Sample also said that he had had discussions about the position with USC basketball Coach George Raveling, but that Raveling had not been a candidate. Sample said that he had talked with Raveling Friday morning and told him Garrett was getting the job.

“Coach Raveling said to me some time ago, and I agreed, that he could best serve the school as basketball coach,” Sample said.

Garrett, who is known to be outspoken, and Raveling have had conflicts, but Garrett said he didn’t anticipate any problems between them.

“George and I are both professionals and we are both Trojans,” Garrett said. “And one thing about families is that you will argue from time to time. That’s the beauty of it, because if you don’t, you don’t have a commitment to each other.”

Another person rumored as having been a candidate for the job is Barbara Hedges, the former associate athletic director at USC who left two years ago to become athletic director at Washington.

Sources say that Hedges was interviewed by Sample when she was in town for the Rose Bowl. Hedges says, however, that the conversation focused solely on the department, and that she had not been contacted by anyone from USC about the job.

Garrett faces the task of rekindling pride in the football program, which has waned the last couple of years. But he says he expects Robinson to turn the program around quickly. Robinson was hired over New Year’s weekend to replace Larry Smith, who resigned under pressure after USC had lost to Fresno State in the Freedom Bowl game.

“Nobody represents the past and hope for the future more than Mike Garrett,” Robinson said. “I look forward to working with him and it’s a great day.”

Earlier in Garrett’s career, he had worked for the San Diego district attorney’s office and had been a youth counselor. He held management positions in the retail, construction and real estate fields and did commentary on USC football telecasts.

Garrett becomes USC’s sixth athletic director and is the fourth black athletic director of an NCAA Division I-A school.