COLLEGES PICK HIGH-$$$ COACHES OVER CLASSROOMS AND ACADEMICS
KC SPORTS & FITNESS
By John Landsberg, February 2010
The date was 1961. That was the year when athletics and money officially became more important to major colleges than anything that goes on in a college classroom.
Since that point more than a half-century ago the emphasis on the revenues generated by sports has gradually led us to the point today where most major colleges are more like Goldman Sachs or CIT Group than institutions of higher learning.
It all started at The Ohio State University. Legendary coach Woody Hayes’s team had just won another Big Ten title and qualified for the Rose Bowl. However, in those days a faculty council had to approve whether the school played in the game. They voted 28-25 that “the school’s academic reputation was suffering because of an over-emphasis on the football team.”
The Buckeye nation was stunned! The school was not going to the Rose Bowl? There was minor rioting by students in Columbus. Woody was not pleased by the decision (and it was not wise to make Woody mad).
Ohio State did not go to the Rose Bowl that year. It was a decision that Ohio State and every major college since then never made again.
Today we have a situation where Missouri went to the “Who-Gives-A-Crap” Bowl this year (and lost!). The school said even though it may have lost money by going to the bowl it had to go just to show potential recruits it is a bowl-caliber school---whether anyone ever heard of the bowl or not.
Can you imagine Alabama announcing that it was not going to go to the BCS title game this year because the school was going to focus on academics? It would be laughable. In fact, Alabama actually cancelled classes for three full days so that students could travel to the game (anyone think they refunded any tuition to the parents)?
The average pay for a Bowl-division head coach is now $1.36 million. And that doesn’t even include all the assistant coaches (some of whom make more than a million bucks themselves).
Texas head football coach Mack Brown gets $5.1 million per season. Pete Carroll, who coached at USC until he jumped to the NFL ahead of several potential NCAA violations, was making a cool $4.4 million per season tying him with Urban Meyer of Florida. Alabama’s Nick Saban makes a paltry $3.9 million (until bonuses kick in).
And while coaches are being lavished with millions of dollars the schools are constantly whining that they need additional funds. When was the last time a college did not raise its tuition?
It is important to note that the average tenured professor’s pay these days is $90,000 per year. The average pay of a college president is $225, 991. Yes, the average pay of a major college coach is about five times that of the president of the entire university.
And, let’s face it. Does anyone really think some of the top college athletes in football or basketball are even remotely on campus for educational reasons? Ever listen to a star basketball player try to even spit out a logical sentence? Many simply take courses that are a joke. They are there to help colleges win games and generate revenues.
While athletic budgets are skyrocketing at an alarming rate, where do many major colleges try to cut costs? With their instructors.
In colleges in the U.S about 50% of the faculty today are part-timers. Part-time professors are cheaper, you don’t have to offer them any benefits and you can fire them at anytime. And many part-time instructors do not have office hours, spend little time with students and often have little loyalty to the college.
The bottom line is that colleges are now profit-making businesses and just like corporations many of them are paying their top revenue generators the most money. Those aren’t teachers. They are coaches. So much for higher education.
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