Steve Berkowitz

USA TODAY Sports

The University of Southern California’s soon-to-be departing athletics director, Pat Haden, was credited with more than $2.9 million in total compensation during the 2014 calendar year, according to the university's new federal tax return.

The figure almost certainly makes Haden the nation’s highest-paid college athletics director. It represents a more than $400,000 increase over the total pay reported for him in 2013.

The new return — provided in response to a request from USA TODAY Sports — shows that Haden’s total includes nearly $1.4 million in base compensation and $1.2 million in bonus pay.

Most of Haden's increase occurred in the bonus component of compensation, which had been $900,000 in each of the past two years and $800,000 in 2011. His base rose by about $50,000 in 2014.

As a private school, USC is not required to make its employment contracts public.

Haden's total compensation for 2014 is almost $300,000 greater than the sum of amounts recently reported for that year for Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick ($1.605 mlllion) and Duke AD Kevin White ($1.04 million).

"Pat Haden's compensation was set by the president and approved by the compensation committee of the USC Board of Trustees," USC President C.L. Max Nikias said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports. "We believe that Pat Haden was the very best AD in America. He took a significant pay cut when he accepted my offer to become the AD at USC. He was a great administrator, excellent communicator and proved to be a great fundraiser.

"He inherited a very challenging athletics department with the harshest penalties imposed by the NCAA and did an outstanding job turning things around. The Trojan family was lucky to have him."

Haden left a private equity firm to become USC's AD in the summer of 2010, when the school athletics program was in disarray in a variety areas, including NCAA sanctions against the football program. When Haden announced his retirement in February, Nikias issued a lengthy memorandum to the USC community that was effusive in its praise of Haden, saying in part: "Our campus now bears Pat Haden’s stamp in perpetuity."

Haden is stepping down this summer and will be succeeded by former Trojans football great Lynn Swann.

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In addition to the information about Haden, the document also shows that USC paid more than $2.4 million in severance to former football coach Lane Kiffin, who was fired in October 2013, and that then-current football coach Steve Sarkisian was credited with total compensation of just under $3.7 million. Sarkisian was fired in October 2015.

The return also provides the first look at the compensation of men’s basketball coach Andy Enfield, who was hired by the school in April 2013. In his first full calendar year at USC, Enfield was credited with a total of just more than $1.9 million, including $1.55 million in base pay and $124,500 in bonus money.

During the 2012-13 season, when he led Florida Gulf Coast on a run to the NCAA tournament round of 16, Enfield worked under a contract that included $157,500 in base salary and a maximum of $95,000 in incentives.