NORMAN — Last week Bob Stoops’ portfolio got a little larger. He didn’t buy some stock that hit big or organize a ponzi scheme, a la Bernie Madoff. The University of Oklahoma football coach did it the old-fashioned way. He got a raise.
Stoops’ deal will pay him $30.125 million through the 2015 season. He will receive a salary of $3.675 million this coming season, but it will automatically increase by $200,000 every year. Stoops also will receive a stay bonus of $700,000 each July starting in 2010.
Stoop’s salary will top out at $4.875 million in 2011 with an additional one-time $800,000 bonus if he coaches through the 2010 season. He’ll make $4.475 million over the final three years of the contract. In fact, he may make enough money now that Clay Bennett could come to him for a loan if the Thunder started to falter.
I have no problem with this. I believe Stoops earns every penny he gets. Most of that is because I was once told you are worth what you can get.
“We say this every time there’s an increase in coaches’ compensation: There’s those who will always question why and how from one perspective,” OU athletic director Joe Castiglione said. “For us, we’re recognizing the growth and achievement of the programs they coach; the success that is present, not what just has occurred, but what we believe will continue to occur in the years ahead.”
Yet, it’s not just Stoops who is benefiting from overseeing a successful athletic program. The University of Florida President, Bernie Machen, recently said that football coach Urban Meyer’s salary of $3.49 million was not commensurate with Meyer’s talent. He wants to make Meyer the highest paid coach in the SEC, which already contains the likes of Alabama’s Nick Saban and LSU’s Les Miles. Both make more than $3 million a year. USC’s Peter Carroll leads all football skippers at $4.4 million.
In basketball the University of Kentucky recently hired coach John Calipari and gave him an eight-year $31.6 million contract. Oklahoma’s Jeff Capel also saw his pay increase. His deal will pay him $13.28 million over the next seven years. His salary will be $1.5 million for this coming season. It will escalate by $50,000 over the next three seasons and by $70,000 for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons.
If Capel is still OU’s coach in June of 2014, he will receive a one-time bonus of $1.1 million and will make $2.84 million that season. He’ll receive an additional bonus of $400,000 if he completes the contract.
So the question is not whether Stoops deserves this type of money, but whether any university coach does?
If you listen to the critics of big time college athletics, the answer is no. They believe the money would be better suited in the bank accounts of the school’s professors, deans and administration. The people who have the challenge of not only educating our youth, but also hopefully preparing them for life.
In a fair and equal world, they would be right. Those in the academic profession would be at the higher end of the pay scale. But if that were the case, college educators wouldn’t even be at the high end in their own profession. No one deserves to be paid more than a high school teacher. Compared to what they have to deal with on a daily basis — student apathy, lack of teaching materials, increase in violence, rising drop out rates — college professors have a walk in the park.
But since that fair and equal world does not exist, like most things, it comes down to dollars and cents. Since 85,000 people are not clamoring to get into the English teacher’s class every Saturday, they will never get the type of pay they deserve.
On the other hand, Stoops, Carroll and Meyer, they produce every year. They bring in large amounts of money to the university that helps fund other departments and they bring the school notoriety no other employee can generate.
So, like I said earlier, you are worth what you can get. Stoop’s salary may not seem fair to some, but it is consistent. Now if we can just get a few more BCS championship win to go along with the money.
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July 2, 2009
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