into the 1981 season as starter, but was injured midway through the season. After the season, while recovering from knee surgery and contemplating retirement, he got a call from CBS about a broadcast job and decided to take it. Broadcasting career After spending a few years at CBS, Haden was hired as the color commentator for NBC Sports' coverage of Notre Dame college football, and held similar duties for their Arena Football coverage from 2003 through 2006 and Fox Sports' Bowl Championship Series coverage in 2008. His position as the Notre Dame color commentator is ironic in that he, as USC's quarterback in 1974, helped orchestrate one of Notre Dame's greatest losses (and, conversely, one of USC's greatest wins, known as "The Comeback"). The Trojans won 55–24 despite trailing 24–0 at one point and 24–6 at halftime. Haden admits that his mother wanted him to go to Notre Dame and always lights a candle in her memory at the grotto whenever he is on campus. Haden also was a color man for CBS Sports' college football coverage (being one of a three-man booth with former Notre Dame coach Ara Parseghian and play-by-play man Brent Musburger, and later working with Jim Nantz [as a color analyst on games, and a co-host in the studio with Nantz before that in 1985]), and provided color commentary for TNT's Sunday night football coverage and Westwood One's radiocasts, primarily working the Sunday night schedule which immediately followed his TV commitments (at the time, TNT and ESPN split the Sunday night games between them, with TNT broadcasting the first half of the season and ESPN the second half). Haden also called one and some NFL on CBS games in 1988 and 1989 during the busier weeks of the 1988-1989 NFL Season, when the network's seven announcing teams weren't enough to cover the network games. Private equity career In 1987, he joined Riordan, Lewis & Haden, a private equity firm based in Los Angeles that focuses on making investments in growing, profitable businesses with $20 – 200 million in revenue. He has served as a director of a number of RLH portfolio companies including TetraTech, Systems Management Specialists, Data Processing Resources Corporation (formerly NASDAQ: DPRC), The Apothecary Shops, and Adohr Farms. Haden remained a partner at RLH until assuming the position of athletic director for the University of Southern California. Athletic director Haden replaced Mike Garrett as