Geeks, Freaks, and Football

Team A has an aggregate total of 11 points in the Fulmer Cup. Team B has scored a paltry 3.

University A, only 5 years ago, was placed on NCAA probation for ‘Lack of Institutional Control.’ University B has had a grand total of 1 Major Infractions case, which occurred 16 years ago and was not serious enough to warrant probation.

University A has an athletics budget of $52 million, including $378,000 in salary and perks for its Athletic Director, and also has a Deputy Athletics Director, nine Associate Athletic Directors, with a tenth Associate Athletic Director starting next month who will make $222,000 in salary and perks.

University B has an athletics budget of $40 million, but abolished its Athletics Department five years ago, and coaches now report directly to the University’s Vice Chancellor for University Affairs.

Team A’s stadium, which opened in 1994, has a record capacity of 44,267, and is going through a $102 million expansion. Team B’s stadium, which opened in 1981, seats 39,790 and is undergoing $42 million in renovations.

Team A’s coach makes a base salary of $1.6 million, with incentives for another $400,000, a side payment of $250,000 from a sports marketing company, in addition to perks which include country-club fees, a new SUV, and unlimited use of helicopters and jets for University purposes. He has also received a total of 900,000 in interest-free loans which are being forgiven at a rate of $100,000 a year. Team B’s coach makes $1 million a year.

Team A graduates 46% of its football players, Team B 85%. On his off day last Saturday, the starting Right Tackle for Team B spent 5 hours in the Library.

One of these teams has a 5-0 record, including wins against two ranked teams, and its opponents have 4 National Championships and 46 bowl wins amongst them. One of these teams has a 1-4 record, with its sole win coming against a 2-2 FCS team in one of the worst DI conferences in the country. Which is which?

Team A, Rutgers, is the poster-child for what has become the conventional wisdom in the NCAA – that you must spend your way to the top. Team B is Vanderbilt, but it is Vanderbilt that has the 5-0 record.

Kudos all-around to the Vanderbilt administration, its football coach Bobby Johnson, and, most importantly, its STUDENT-Athletes on their 14-13 win over Auburn yesterday. There is an excellent article by Chris Low at ESPN which provides an excellent insight into the program. Here are some telling excerpts:

….
It's only been since World War II that the No. 19-ranked Commodores last started a season 5-0, but that's the opportunity that awaits them Saturday when No. 14-ranked Auburn visits Vanderbilt Stadium in the kind of storyline usually reserved for Hollywood.

Come on. Vanderbilt, a top-20 school academically, playing a game in October that means something in the SEC race and ESPN's "College GameDay" on hand to watch it?

"I have a lot of pride in the fact that I'm at a place like Vanderbilt," said senior safety Reshard Langford, one of the team captains. "Not everybody can do what we do. I keep my head high every day, because this is a special place." . . .

Bobby Johnson had a similar vision when he arrived in Nashville in 2002. At the time, he was the fifth different head football coach at Vanderbilt in the preceding 13 years.

But whereas some of his predecessors fought the rigid academic standards that make coaching at Vanderbilt such a daunting challenge in the SEC, Johnson embraced them.

His recruiting pitch, though, included a twist.

"We don't want you if you just want to come here to be a doctor or a lawyer," Johnson said. "But if you want to come here to be a doctor and a lawyer and you also want to be a good football player, then this is the place for you." . . .

"Bobby has just the right temperament and understanding of this place, and that's important," said David Williams, Vanderbilt's vice chancellor for university affairs and athletics. "Not only do you need time and stability to do this job, but you need someone who is on their own mission and that mission is, 'We're going to get it done here, and we're going to maintain it.'" . . .

Johnson, who coached powerhouse Division I-AA teams at academically renowned Furman before coming to Vanderbilt, estimates that probably only about 15 percent of the recruiting pool the rest of the SEC works off of is available to Vanderbilt because of the school's strict entrance requirements.

And just because that 15 percent consists of prospects with strong academic backgrounds doesn't mean all the other schools aren't recruiting them. . . .

Links: Fulmer Cup History; Rutgers AD Salaries; Greg Schiano Salary; Vanderbilt Reorganization one and two

IU, or IOU?

The Kelvin Sampson buyout is yet another indicator of the warped economics in DI athletics:

Counting the $750,000 given to Kelvin Sampson to resign, Indiana University has paid more than $4 million since 2000 to coaches and athletic administrators after they left the school.

As one fan noted on an IndyStar .com message board Saturday, perhaps IU should call itself IOU.

Sampson, IU's men's basketball coach until Friday night, is only the latest person to stop working for the school but is still collecting money.

Former Athletic Director Michael McNeely received the most: $839,000. Former men's basketball coach Mike Davis got $800,000.

Some others: former football coach Gerry DiNardo ($616,000), former football coach Cam Cameron ($489,000) and former men's basketball coach Bob Knight ($283,000).

Andrew Zimbalist, a Smith College professor and one of the nation's leading experts on sports economics, said the payments are another sign of how far removed college sports is from the rest of the university.

"This whole thing has spun totally out of control," Zimbalist said. "The economic parameters are way off."

Said IU spokesman Larry MacIntyre: "That's money out of the athletic department and does not involve public funds. It's part of the cost of doing business in college athletics."

Somehow I thought the 'cost of doing business' line would appear at some point in this article. Sad.

Compared to the buyouts of some other schools' coaches, though, IU got off cheap.

In 2006, Alabama paid $4 million to buy out the contract of football coach Mike Shula. Also that year, Minnesota paid a combined $4.9 million to say goodbye to football coach Glen Mason and men's basketball coach Dan Monson.

Sampson had a contract that allowed the university to fire him "for cause" and owe nothing beyond his regular compensation for that month.

But IU officials said they were concerned about a wrongful-termination lawsuit.

With $550,000 of Sampson's buyout coming from an anonymous donor, the officials said the school paid $200,000, making it a smart business deal (although because the donation will go through the IU Foundation, it's considered university money). That's not to mention heading off months of potential acrimony.

Zimbalist, however, had a different view.

"I think it's downright outrageous that people can violate NCAA rules left and right and then walk out with $750,000," he said. "Elsewhere, when you violate the law or the rules, you go to jail or pay a fine."

Amen.

Serfs of the Turf?

Thats how NYT op-ed columnist Michael Lewis describes FBS football players, in yet another column advocating paying them. He makes some excellent points along the way:

College football’s best trick play is its pretense that it has nothing to do with money, that it’s simply an extension of the university’s mission to educate its students. Were the public to view college football as mainly a business, it might start asking questions. For instance: why are these enterprises that have nothing to do with education and everything to do with profits exempt from paying taxes? Or why don’t they pay their employees?. . .

But between buyer and seller sits the National Collegiate Athletic Association, to ensure that the universities it polices keep all the money for themselves — to make sure that the rich white folk do not slip so much as a free chicken sandwich under the table to the poor black kids. The poor black kids put up with it because they find it all but impossible to pursue N.F.L. careers unless they play at least three years in college. Less than one percent actually sign professional football contracts and, of those, an infinitesimal fraction ever make serious money. But their hope is eternal, and their ignorance exploitable. . . .

The lie at the bottom of the fantasy goes something like this: serious college football players go to college for some reason other than to play football. These marvelous athletes who take the field on Saturdays and generate millions for their colleges are students first, and football players second. They are like Franciscan monks set down in the gold mine. Yes, they play football, but they have no interest in the money. What they’re really living for is that degree in criminology. . . .

Of course, no honest person who has glimpsed the inside of a big-time college football program could actually believe this. Even from the outside the college end of things seems suspiciously secondary. If serious college football players are students first, why — even after a huge N.C.A.A. push to raise their graduation rates — do they so alarmingly fail to graduate? Why must the N.C.A.A. create incentives for football coaches to encourage their players even to attend classes? Why do we never hear of a great high school football player choosing a college for the quality of its professors? Why, when college football coaches sell their programs to high school studs, do they stress the smoothness of the path they offer to the N.F.L.? . . .

Lewis' ultimate argument falters because he fails to address two fundamental points. First, a minority of FBS schools have profitable football programs. The immense profits at programs such as Notre Dame, Texas, and Ohio state represent the exceptions that prove the rule. Paying players would thus create an ever greater gap between the haves, who could afford it, and the have nots who are in some cases struggling with mountains of debt. The end result would be an escalation in the college football arms race. Second, if paying players were allowed, the NCAA, and Division I athletic programs would no longer be able to maintain their not for profit status, and the well of money which has enabled the the current profanity in intercollegiate athletics would dry up.

A Brief Minnesota Note

Check out the post at University Diaries regarding the University of Minnesota stadium saga. The entire interview where University of Minnesota president Robert Bruininks speaks with a forked tongue is also worth reading.

Four Notes

I. There was a tragedy in the basketball world on Monday which was, naturally, eclipsed by the massacre at Virginia Tech. Guy Alang-Ntang, a forward from Cameroon who currently plays at New Hampton High and was recruited by Wichita State, collapsed on the court during a pickup game, and was pronounced dead at a local hospital. Keep him and his family, friends, teammates and classmates in your thoughts and prayers.

II. SportsProf made an excellent post yesterday on how St. Louis University provides an excellent example of how NOT to play on the coaching carousel.

III. A search warrant filed in Hennepin County District Court has revealed a few more details in the case of the three University of Minnesota football players suspected of raping an 18-year old woman last week. Evidence seized included bedding, cell phones, couch cushions, mattress pads, and used condoms. It was also revealed that the victim had drank heavily at a party in the players’ apartment, and that the players sent her text messages after the incident which may very well be crucial evidence. The investigation remains open and any DNA evidence will likely be available in June.

IV. I praised Steve Spurrier several days ago, but, as fair is fair, I must rip him today. On early Sunday morning, several South Carolina football players were involved in a confrontation with gang members. This ended with running back Cory Boyd firing shots into the air, and gang members returning fire. Boyd was suspended for the 2005 season for violating team policy. This news breaks on the same day that Spurrier reinstated freshman quarterback Steve Garcia. Garcia was arrested on February 17 and charged with drunkenness and failing to stop for a police officer. He was suspended, reinstated shortly afterwards, and then arrested on March 3 for malicious injury to personal property (he keyed a Professor’s car). Insufficient and ineffectual discipline appears to be a pattern in the South Carolina football program Steve, and it is time that you cleaned things up.

Salary Inflation Hits Home

Adrian Wojarowski of Yahoo sports has some telling words about spiralling coaches salaries in a recent Column:

Now it isn't even basketball schools that are spending like crazy to build winning programs. Until Billy Gillespie arrived three years ago, Texas A&M's chancellor didn't know the Aggies had a basketball team. Just Friday, they announced his new $1.7 million-a-year contract. "While it's embarrassing for me to be compensated so well to perform my passion for a school I love …" started a statement from Gillespie, and well, he really isn't too embarrassed, is he?

More than Kentucky paying $3 million a year, it's Quinnipiac paying $300,000. Connecticut's Tom Moore had been an assistant for Jim Calhoun for 12 years and turned down a lot of small Division I jobs along the way. Before him, Moore watched Calhoun's assistants get DePaul and George Washington. He no sooner would have taken the Quinnipiac job than tell Calhoun to sit down and shut up as he berated his coaches on the bench.

Well, Quinnipiac built a $55 million gym, and just guaranteed Moore $1.5 million over the next five years, so there he was, working through the Hilton lobby Friday, leaving the Big East for the Northeast Conference.

"I was obviously pleasantly surprised when they started talking about figures in that vicinity," Moore said. "I think it's great for the whole league because every time a school in the league sets the bar high, I think everyone else tries to raise their level, too."

Is the world a better place if St. Francis (Pa.) and Monmouth want to ante up on winning programs? Really? Moore interviewed for five openings last year and heard two university presidents ask him: "How can we become the next George Mason?"

Here's the answer: You don't, so get over yourself. This is the voodoo economics of college basketball, the trickle down from Kentucky to Quinnipiac. NCAA president Myles Brand threw up his hands this week and said that the NCAA could do nothing to stop the runaway salaries in his sport. As history has shown, the bigger the rewards, the bigger the corruption. Cheating never has been so sophisticated in the sport, and the money changing hands has never been worse. Ask any coach in a private moment and he'll just shake his head and sigh. Most know they're living in a house of cards, and it all can come crashing down at anytime.

But they'll run the risk because one guaranteed contract, and maybe one extension, makes them multimillionaires for life.

The latest contracted multimillionaire is none other than SIU Carbondale's own Chris Lowery, whose seven-year, $750,000/year contract extension was announced yesterday.

The denizens of Saluki Nation are ecstatic that SIUC has managed to keep a coach who is, at the ripe old age of 34, both a veteran coach and one of the brightest rising stars in the coaching cadre.

As is our new Athletic Director 'Super Mario' Mocca:

Director of Athletics Mario Moccia said the contract sends a strong message about the University's commitment to keeping the 34-year-old head coach, who has been the youngest head coach in the NCAA Tournament each of the last three years.

"Our basketball program is not only a vital part of the athletic department, it's also a critical component of the University as a whole," Moccia said. "Given Coach Lowery's track record as a head coach, we felt it was essential to retain him. It gives our athletic program and our University the opportunity to expand their horizons."

As is SIU President Glenn Poshard:

"The success that he's shown, being the winningest coach in SIU history over the first three years that he's coached, he's deserving," Poshard said. "I know there's a lot of folks that think it's a lot of money and so on, but this is market demand. That's the way you have to deal with it if you want a good program."

As is Missouri Valley Conference Commish Doug Elgin:

"I think it is a statement of how committed Southern Illinois is to keeping its basketball program at a very high level," Missouri Valley Conference commissioner Doug Elgin said. "There's no question that this does send that message."

Do not get me wrong, I am delighted for Chris, who performs admirably in all three of the areas which should be demanded of coaches - he graduates his players, serves as an excellent ambassador for the University, and wins. At the same time, it is clear that the voodoo economics of College Basketball which Wojarowski decries has arrived at SIUC. Whether I should actually be delighted for the University is an open question.

At a University where, for the last year, the faculty and staff have been asked to both look for savings and prepare for future cuts, it is only natural that there was considerable grumbling in the hallways today about where the money for Lowery's half-million/year raise is coming from. Both AD Mocca and SIU President Glenn Poshard have been cagey on this question. The Southern Illinoisan reported:

Poshard said he did not know how much of Lowery's salary would be paid by public funds, but that several donors apparently helped make the deal easier for SIU to offer.

And according to our student newspaper the Daily Egyptian:

Athletic Director Mario Moccia said "a lot of the money" for Lowery's raise in pay will come from private donors, some of which he is meeting with in Atlanta, where he is with Lowery for the NCAA Final Four.

"All along we talked about targeting new sources of revenue like those floor seats, but in addition private money by individuals," Moccia said. "There's a big outpouring of support to keep coach Lowery among alumni, certainly during our run to NCAA Tournament, and a lot of those folks had pledged to assist in the ability to keep him."

Fine. The question for Dr. Poshard is why he has not been able to tap any donors for the bargain $2 million which will be required to complete the seventh and eighth floors of the library. Should that not be a higher priority than keeping a coach for an extra $3.5 million?