Coaches' Salaries Explosion Concerns Colleges

[Ricky the Bull]

$177k for a Strength & Conditioning coach?

Coaches' Salary Explosion Concerns Colleges

By CURTIS EICHELBERGER Bloomberg News

Published: Apr 2, 2005

 

Jeffrey Madden, the strength and conditioning coach at the University of Texas in Austin, will earn $177,398 this season and says, ``We're worth it.''

At Auburn University, swimming coach David Marsh earns $160,000 a year. University of Georgia gymnastics coach Suzanne Yoculan gets $140,988. And Texas A&M track and field coach Patrick Henry takes in $229,999.

Numbers like that have some athletic directors worried.

As U.S. colleges press for winning programs, coaching salaries are booming, especially in sports that operate outside the glare of televised tournaments.

Revenue growth isn't keeping up. From 1997 to 2003, average coaching compensation rose 89 percent while sports revenue rose 66 percent at Division I-A schools, according to the Indianapolis- based National Collegiate Athletic Association.

``I feel like we are maxed-out in terms of what our budgets will allow,'' says Lee Fowler, 52, athletic director at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. ``We're offering big salaries, multiyear contracts, bonuses, moving expenses, and every time I have to replace someone, it costs even more.''

The N.C. State football team lost its offensive and defensive coordinators this past season to the professional ranks of the National Football League. Fowler says the average salary for college-level coordinators has increased to $200,000 from $135,000 in 2000, when he became athletic director.

One assistant football coach in the survey, defensive coordinator Carl Torbush at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas, earned $250,000 this season, an 85 percent increase from what the Aggies paid their top assistant five years ago.

Demanding Winners

Matt Painter, an assistant basketball coach at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., earned $190,000 this season, 154 percent more than what the Boilermakers' top assistant made in 2000.

Athletic directors say the rise in coaches' salaries is being driven by alumni, students and fans who demand winning teams. This leads to more coaching turnover, quickening the pace of hiring and salary growth. NCAA President Myles Brand, 62, is among those expressing concern.

``It's not sustainable,'' Brand says of the drain on college sports budgets.

In January, he appointed a task force of university presidents to examine the relationship of athletics to the values of higher education, including issues of fiscal responsibility and commercialism in college sports.

``I have a lot of empathy for the athletic directors because they are caught in the middle,'' Brand says. ``They are being asked to produce competitive teams in a marketplace that demands high salaries, at a time when revenue streams are getting smaller by the day. They are getting squeezed.''

More Than Professors

Many coaches earn more than professors. The average salary for a full professor at a university offering doctoral degrees is $104,411, according to the American Association of University Professors. That's about the same as the golf coach at the University of Texas and less than half the pay of the baseball coach at Arizona State University in Tempe.

Dutch Baughman, executive director of the Athletic Directors Association, which collects salary data, declined to provide an average for coaches.

Today, more than half of head football coaches at the 117 Division I-A schools - those with the biggest athletic programs - have agents or lawyers representing them in contract talks, says Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association in Waco, Texas.

``That's about four times what it was three or four years ago, before the salaries really started to jump up,'' he says.

Olympic Sports

Brand and athletic directors say salaries for coaches in Olympic sports such as volleyball, track and soccer, plus staff positions, such as weightlifting coaches, are putting more stress on budgets than the pay of the three-dozen or so elite football and basketball coaches making $1 million- plus.

Brand says the task force may consider requiring athletic departments to limit growth in sports expenses to that of the general university or making athletic departments adhere more closely to university-wide budgeting guidelines rather than operate as separate entities.

Joe Castiglione, 47, athletic director at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, says Brand's goals are admirable yet would require a complete overhaul of college athletics.

``They want to create this socialistic society where the playing field is level for everyone, where we create leaders in our communities, where there is a good spirit,'' Castiglione says. ``But the very nature of athletics is to compete and to crown winners.

``Part of that competition is to offer better salaries to lure the best coaches, and to build better facilities to attract the best athletes. So there's philosophy, and then there's reality.''

Antitrust Violation

Coaching salaries have faced scrutiny for years. In 1991, presidents and athletic directors, working through the NCAA, agreed to cap salaries for some assistant coaches at $16,000. They argued that it would create more coaching opportunities by keeping costs for some assistants low and would help contain costs. Federal courts ruled it a violation of antitrust laws and awarded more than 1,900 assistant coaches $80 million.

Brand's task force is headed by Peter Likins, 68, president of the University of Arizona.

Likins says the task force should ask: ``Are salaries driven by the need to attract coaches in football and basketball who can make money, as opposed to those who can provide students with the right kind of educational experiences? And what does that say about our values?''

http://tampatrib.com/businessnews/MGB88BI517E.html

[CoolBull1]

Some times I'm concerned it's following the path of professional sports.  When/if that happens, I will lose interest.

[WoolyBully]

NCAA sports are amateur in name only.

The only reason someone would pay $177K for a S&C

position is because.....they can afford it. It's not like

the money aint there.

And that  line about "

Are salaries driven by the need to attract coaches in football and basketball who can make money, as opposed to those who can provide students with the right kind of educational experiences? And what does that say about our values?

... well, duh? Next time you can get 80,000 rabid fans to fill a stadium to watch some kid do a chemistry experiment, gimme a call. Until then, of course it's about winning and making money.

'splalin to me the difference between paying a kid to play football (x-number of dollars) and having a "Golden" booster, who happens to run the local Ford dealership, let the kid "use" the car as a loaner?  It's a thin line...but a line none the less.

[bulls96go]

the only diff in the ncaa and the pros is the coaches are getting the big bucks in the ncaa...about time they start paying the players.

the play gets 10k per year for a scollie coach makes 2mil large per year...

there is inequity there.

the house of cards may implode!

[USFDan]

the only diff in the ncaa and the pros is the coaches are getting the big bucks in the ncaa...about time they start paying the players.

Well if they start paying players we will definitely be on the outside looking again.  Where will USF find the money to pay players?  We don't sell enough tickets, we don't compare to a lot of the upper tier of teams in donations, and we don't have the viewership to command bigger TV contracts.

If they start paying players then about 30-40 teams will comprise D1-A and the rest along with USF will be D1-AA.  I believe this even if the pay is only $100 month.  The courts will never allow the football team to be paid without paying the women's soccer players as well.

[smazza]

seems more like they have a problem sharing the money

players will soon demand piece of pie