Seventeen years ago, former USC and Los Angeles Rams quarterback Pat Haden joined the board of an old, little-known charitable foundation that helps needy young people get an education.
The George Henry Mayr Foundation, established in 1949, has no office of its own, no full-time staff and no website. Its founder and namesake wanted it to be a thrifty operation that gave as much scholarship money as possible to California educational institutions.
Under Haden's leadership as board chairman, however, the $25-million foundation became a lucrative source of income for him and two of his family members -- even as its scholarship spending plunged to a three-decade low and the size of its endowment stagnated, a Times investigation has found.