- Sep 8, 2014
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Anyone think we overpaid for Grantham? :D
Scott Stricklin: Surging coordinator salaries create uncomfortable optics
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/spor...-sp-football-sec-salaries-20180530-story.html
In 1997, Steve Spurrier became the first $2 million head coach in college football.
A little more than 20 years later, LSU gave defensive coordinator Dave Aranda a four-year deal worth $2.5 million annually.
In Spurrier’s day, a $1 million dollar head coaching salary was a king’s ransom. Now it is becoming the cost of business to hire a top coordinator in the SEC.
Alabama pays both of its coordinators more than $1 million each.
“It’s what the market bears,” Crimson Tide athletic director Greg Byrne said Wednesday at the SEC Spring Meetings.
It’s also becoming a bad look and serves as a textbook example of the excess of big-time college football.
“I think it’s one of the biggest challenges we have in college athletics, is what our coaches are making,” UF AD Scott Stricklin said. “They are in a market that allows them to enjoy those kinds of salaries, but I do think the optics of it are not helpful.”
UF announced earlier this month new defensive coordinator Todd Grantham’s three-year, $4.47 million deal. Grantham, who is scheduled to earn $1.39 million next season, is the UF assistant coach to earn $1 million annually.
He surely will not be the last.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said he sees no end in sight for escalating assistant coaching salaries.
“At the College Football Playoff I was asked the question, and I said, I do think there’s an end,” Sankey said. “Then the next question you’ll ask is where is it? I don’t know.
“There is an end, but where it is and what the cause might be I’m not going to jump into that prediction.”
Sankey said all SEC coaching salaries for decades have undergone university approval by independent governing body untethered to athletics.
A decade ago, escalating salaries concerned university presidents.
A 2009 Knight Commission survey of 95 Division I-A university presidents reported more than 85 percent called compensation levels "excessive" for football and basketball coaches.
Since then, many people have grown numb to rapidly rising head coaching salaries. Five SEC head coaches, including UF’s Dan Mullen, make more than $5 million.
Only Missouri’s Barry Odom ($2.35 million) makes less than $2.7 million.
But Mullen, Odom and the other 12 SEC head coaches are the face of a football program that also serves as for the entire university. Meanwhile, coordinators mostly remain behind the scenes, but are beginning to receive salaries that outstripped head coaching compensation not long ago.
In 2012, the average head coaching salary in Division-I college football was $1.64 million.
Some have suggest a salary cap for coaches, but legally it is not possible and would lead to anti-trust lawsuits, Stricklin said. At the same time, it is increasingly difficult to put a good spin on rising salaries that border on extreme.
“It would be great just from a budgetary standpoint,” he said of a cap. “I’m appreciative of the coaches we have and the job that they do, but the optics of that are really uncomfortable.”
Scott Stricklin: Surging coordinator salaries create uncomfortable optics
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/spor...-sp-football-sec-salaries-20180530-story.html
In 1997, Steve Spurrier became the first $2 million head coach in college football.
A little more than 20 years later, LSU gave defensive coordinator Dave Aranda a four-year deal worth $2.5 million annually.
In Spurrier’s day, a $1 million dollar head coaching salary was a king’s ransom. Now it is becoming the cost of business to hire a top coordinator in the SEC.
Alabama pays both of its coordinators more than $1 million each.
“It’s what the market bears,” Crimson Tide athletic director Greg Byrne said Wednesday at the SEC Spring Meetings.
It’s also becoming a bad look and serves as a textbook example of the excess of big-time college football.
“I think it’s one of the biggest challenges we have in college athletics, is what our coaches are making,” UF AD Scott Stricklin said. “They are in a market that allows them to enjoy those kinds of salaries, but I do think the optics of it are not helpful.”
UF announced earlier this month new defensive coordinator Todd Grantham’s three-year, $4.47 million deal. Grantham, who is scheduled to earn $1.39 million next season, is the UF assistant coach to earn $1 million annually.
He surely will not be the last.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said he sees no end in sight for escalating assistant coaching salaries.
“At the College Football Playoff I was asked the question, and I said, I do think there’s an end,” Sankey said. “Then the next question you’ll ask is where is it? I don’t know.
“There is an end, but where it is and what the cause might be I’m not going to jump into that prediction.”
Sankey said all SEC coaching salaries for decades have undergone university approval by independent governing body untethered to athletics.
A decade ago, escalating salaries concerned university presidents.
A 2009 Knight Commission survey of 95 Division I-A university presidents reported more than 85 percent called compensation levels "excessive" for football and basketball coaches.
Since then, many people have grown numb to rapidly rising head coaching salaries. Five SEC head coaches, including UF’s Dan Mullen, make more than $5 million.
Only Missouri’s Barry Odom ($2.35 million) makes less than $2.7 million.
But Mullen, Odom and the other 12 SEC head coaches are the face of a football program that also serves as for the entire university. Meanwhile, coordinators mostly remain behind the scenes, but are beginning to receive salaries that outstripped head coaching compensation not long ago.
In 2012, the average head coaching salary in Division-I college football was $1.64 million.
Some have suggest a salary cap for coaches, but legally it is not possible and would lead to anti-trust lawsuits, Stricklin said. At the same time, it is increasingly difficult to put a good spin on rising salaries that border on extreme.
“It would be great just from a budgetary standpoint,” he said of a cap. “I’m appreciative of the coaches we have and the job that they do, but the optics of that are really uncomfortable.”
