When is paying one of your employees a yearly salary of $1.5 million plus
incentive bonuses a bargain?
When your head coach is Jim Tressel.
Take a gander around the college football world. These days his salary is
paltry, a pittance of what athletic departments and alumni are willing to pay.
It’s no longer a matter of wins and losses even, but rather balancing a
budget. If the men’s football program is not bringing in revenue, athletic
departments across the nation become black holes sucking all resources towards
themselves.
However, if a football team can be among the elite in the nation, each home
game alone can make millions for their cash strapped universities. Now multiply
that figure by seven in a lean year and eight in a season with 12 games.
Suddenly you see why Ohio State has been reaping the rewards of record football
revenues.
Hired after the disastrous Outback Bowl debacle in January of 2001, Tressel’s
approach to contract talks was a breath of fresh air. Instead of long
negotiations handled by lawyers seeking to leverage astronomical cash out of the
university possible, he quickly agreed to broad terms and allowed others to
handle the details. It wasn’t a bank breaker of a deal, but it assured Tressel
of a more than comfortable lifestyle. The university took initiative and put
together a modified extension following his 14-0 campaign in 2002.
That was four years ago. $1.5 million dollars a year is no longer a figure
commensurate with Tressel’s accomplishments. The fact of the matter is Jim
Tressel is barely among the top 15 highest paid coaches in the nation, and were
it not for the departures of Bill Snyder, Barry Alvarez, and Nick Saban, he
would be at the bottom of the top 20 highest paid coaches in BCS conferences.
That’s despite his taking Ohio State to three BCS Bowls in the past four
seasons, winning two Big Ten titles and three bowls, and managing to claim the
Buckeyes’ and Big Ten Conference’s first undisputed national title in the
last four decades.
No coach walking the sidelines in NCAA Division I-A outside of Pete Carroll
or Bob Stoops can match Tressel’s accomplishments since his last pay raise,
but more than a few exceed his paychecks.
|
Coach |
Salary Per Year in Millions |
Victories Since 2002 |
Bowls |
BCS Bowls |
National Titles |
Compensation Per Win |
|
Jim Tressel |
1.5 |
42 |
4 (3-0) |
3 |
1 |
35,714 |
|
Kirk Ferentz |
1.6 |
38 |
4 (2-1) |
1 |
0 |
42,105 |
|
John L. Smith |
1.5 |
25 |
2 (0-2) |
0 |
0 |
60,000 |
|
Charlie Weis |
3.0 |
36 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
83,333 |
|
Urban Meyer |
2.0 |
37 |
1 (1-0) |
1 |
0 |
54,054 |
|
Mike Shula |
1.5 |
25 |
2 (0-1) |
0 |
0 |
60,000 |
|
Phil Fulmer |
2.0 |
33 |
3 (1-2) |
0 |
0 |
60,606 |
|
Tommy Tubberville |
2.0 |
39 |
4 (3-0) |
1 |
Undefeated 2004 |
51,282 |
|
Jeff Tedford |
1.5 |
33 |
3 (2-1) |
0 |
0 |
45,455 |
|
Pete Carroll |
3.0 |
48 |
4 (3-0) |
4 |
2 (one shared) |
62,500 |
|
Bill Callahan |
1.5 |
24 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
62,500 |
|
Bob Stoops |
2.4 |
43 |
4 (1-2) |
3 |
0 |
55,814 |
|
Mack Brown |
2.6 |
44 |
4 (2-1) |
2 |
0 |
59,091 |
|
Dennis Franchione |
2.0 |
26 |
1 (0-1) |
0 |
0 |
76,923 |
|
Bobby Bowden |
2.0 |
36 |
4 (1-2) |
3 |
0 |
55,556 |
|
Frank Beamer |
2.0 |
38 |
4 (1-2) |
1 |
0 |
52,631 |
|
Larry Coker |
1.9 |
41 |
4 (2-1) |
2 |
0 |
46,341 |
|
Al Groh |
1.7 |
31 |
4 (2-1) |
0 |
0 |
54,838 |
|
Ralph Friedgen |
1.5 |
31 |
2 (2-0) |
0 |
0 |
48,387 |
*Salary figures for Joe Paterno and Lloyd Carr could not be found. It could
be safely assumed they would be among the top earners.
**If the coach has not been a head coach for the past five seasons, the
average number of wins was used to complete the data for salary per win.
Among the top performing coaches at a BCS conference school, Jim Tressel is
dead last in compensation per win. Ohio State is paying him less than $40,000
per victory. In fact, he is the only coach on this list to have taken his team
to multiple BCS bowls during the last four years earning less than $45,000 per
win. Coker, coach of Miami of Florida, is the other, but there is some question
as to whether he is in the same league as Tressel as a head coach. Meanwhile,
assuming Charlie Weis is earning just $3,000,000 per year, he is paid
somewhere in the neighborhood of $83,000 per victory and that number will drop
to $75,000 only if he manages 40 wins over the next four seasons. Considering he
might be long gone for the NFL in less than that amount of time, Notre Dame is
paying through the nose.
Granted, this isn’t a scientific measurement. Granted, a Dan Hawkins or Gary
Patterson would have probably been the best bargain out there with dollars per
win, but neither was coaching in the big leagues. Granted, Georgia’s Mark
Richt is being compensated even less than Jim Tressel (in the neighborhood of
$34,000 per win), but his athletic department is currently under renegotiation
in light of his accomplishments (44 wins, two SEC championships, two BCS bowls,
and three bowl victories). Further, Richt can’t go to his trophy case and pull
out five national championship rings like Tressel.
So what would be a fair figure for Jim Tressel to be earning?
Assuming a figure of $55,000 per victory based the salaries of his peers,
Tressel’s current value on the open market would be right at $2.3 million
dollars per season. Toss in the fun money others are earning for longevity, bowl
bonuses, etc. and Tressel should be pulling down over $2.5 million per year.
Before anyone mounts their high horse an attempt to ride down these numbers
as extravagant, we probably should ask, “Is this too much for a man to earn
coaching college football?”
The answer is YES.
Yet the fact that college football is such big business isn’t the fault of
coaches but rather a misplaced value system. The salaries of these coaches
simply reflect the market. Well, most of them do – all of them except Richt
and Tressel.
Tressel has arguably done more for the Big Ten conference and Ohio State than
anyone since Woody Hayes. The coaching required to turn around a team headed the
wrong direction in just two years is near wizardry. The extra BCS Bowls he has
gained the schools have amounted to tens of millions of dollars in increased
revenue, and his bowl victories have helped the conference repair a battered
national reputation. In short, if the Ohio State administration won’t then
perhaps the rest of the member schools should consider it for their own good.
In sum, it’s time to pay Tressel his due.
A few other bargain basement coaches deserving of a raise:
- Gary Patterson - TCU
- Mike Bellotti - Oregon
- Karl Dorrell - UCLA
- Greg Schiano – Rutgers
- June Jones – Hawaii
- Tom Amstutz – Toledo