Inside The Huskies

Jen Cohen Leaves UW to Become USC Athletic Director

The Husky leader was at the school for 25 years, in the top job for eight.

Dan Raley

Jen Cohen Leaves UW to Become USC Athletic Director
Jen Cohen Leaves UW to Become USC Athletic Director /
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Just when the athletic landscape couldn't get any stranger for the University of Washington — with its teams headed for Big Ten membership in 2024 — athletic director Jennifer Cohen in a surprising development on Monday left to take the same job at USC, which also is Big Ten-bound.

The school introduced Cohen in her new position in an early afternoon news conference in Los Angeles, describing her as a forward-thinking administrator.

“USC is a national powerhouse in every measure of college athletics and I look forward to honoring the Trojan heritage while working alongside the incredible USC Athletics team as we embrace both the opportunities and challenges of this complex moment,” Cohen said.

UW fans reacted with shock and/or the sense that Cohen was disloyal, especially when considering she is joining forces with a long-time Husky rival. 

"It feels like a big-time betrayal," one long-time Husky follower said.

In the top Husky leadership role for eight years, Cohen, 54, oversaw the Husky football team make its only appearance in the College Football Playoff on her watch, which happened in her first year as the department head in 2016, and negotiated the UW move from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten when the conference TV dealings proved inadequate.

Perhaps Cohen's greatest UW accomplishment is her hiring of football coach Kalen DeBoer to right the program after it tanked badly in 2021 under Jimmy Lake, and DeBoer produced an 11-2 season and became one of the nation's hottest coaching properties. The Huskies will be under great pressure to retain the football coach should he continue his career ascent.

Ironically, Cohen, who spent 25 years in the Husky athletic department, will go to USC from the UW, which was the opposite career path for one of her Husky athletic director predecessors, Barbara Hedges.

After serving as an associate AD for the Trojans for a dozen years, Hedges led the UW athletic program from 1991 to 2004 — becoming the longest-serving female AD for a Division 1 program. Hedges currently lives in retirement in Palm Desert, California.

Cohen and Hedgers overlapped in the UW athletic department for six seasons.

While Cohen improved or maintained successful programs in her nationally rated softball, rowing, soccer and volleyball teams, both men and women, and had high graduation rates among her athletes, her notable drawback was the inability to return the Husky men's basketball program headed up by Mike Hopkins to program stability and regular NCAA tournament appearances. 

A California native who later moved to Tacoma, Washington, Cohen graduated from San Diego State, giving her an affinity for Southern California.

In 2016, she became the 15th UW athletic director when she replaced Scott Woodward, who left for Texas A&M and is now at LSU. She currently serves on the CFP executive committee.

For three months, USC has been seeking a new athletic director after Mike Bohn resigned amid claims that he oversaw a hostile work environment and had other leadership shortcomings.

The recruitment of Cohen was either a well-kept secret or happened overnight. In sizing up potential replacement candidates, the Los Angeles Times recently named a number of people who would be a possible good fit for the job and Cohen wasn't one of them.

Just two weeks ago, Cohen sat next to UW president Ana Mari Cauce in a virtual news conference as they explained the school's reasons for leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten. Little did anyone know the AD was on her way out, too.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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