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Friday Quick Hits: Regents Approve Basketball Practice Facility
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4 Comments- When totaling up his salary, the money Michigan paid for his buyout and the taxes on the buyout, and other compensation, Rich Rodriguez earned $6.6 million in 2008. Of course, the Ann Arbor News decided to write an article that bashed Michigan for paying so much money to a football coach. And what better way to do that than find a random person from a random school to act as an “expert” on the matter?
Altogether, the coach cost Michigan $6.6 million in 2008, a number that dwarfs the $553,500 earned by school president Mary Sue Coleman and the $380,368 earned by athletic director Bill Martin.
Neither Martin nor Rodriguez responded to requests for comment made through athletic department spokesmen. But Kadie Otto, an assistant sport management professor at Western Carolina and president of The Drake Group, a national organization devoted to reforming college athletics, said the millions spent on Rodriguez speaks volumes.
“It says a lot about our value system,” Otto said. “For an employee of higher education to be making that kind of money when faculty wouldn’t even approach that in their lifetime seems to be sending a mixed message.”
What exactly is that mixed message, Kadie? To me, this whole matter is pretty simple. Football brings in lots of revenue for the University of Michigan athletic department, which has been profitable for some time now thanks to many different things. In turn, the athletic department uses the revenue it makes to pay its coaches. For college football, coaches make lots of money. That’s just the way it is, and Michigan has to pay millions and millions of dollars to keep up with other schools around the country. Can it be argued that coaches make too much money? Sure, but that is an entirely different argument and has nothing to do with how much money faculty are paid. If the university paid Rodriguez then that would be different, but the athletic department uses the money it generates to do that.
I just love how the Ann Arbor News felt it was necessary to make an issue out of something that isn’t even relevant to the main part of their story. They could have talked about where Rodriguez’s total compensation ranked with other coaches around the country or, if they were looking for something negative, talk about how Rodriguez earned $2.2 million a win. But no, they decided to try to make an issue out of the fact that college football coaches make more money than faculty. Thank you, Captain Obvious.
- U-M Regents approved the building of a basketball practice facility on Thursday. The next step is to design the facility and then present the construction schedule and schematic design to the Regents for approval.
- This weekend’s hockey schedule:
Friday: Michigan vs. Michigan State at Joe Louis Arena; 7:35 PM; FSN Plus
Saturday: Michigan vs. Michigan State at Yost Arena; 7:35 PM; FSN Detroit - Michigan’s game against Northwestern in basketball on Saturday starts at 8:00 PM and will be on the Big Ten Network.
- Michigan commit Justin Turner is now the #1 ranked recruit in the state of Ohio.
- Michigan came in at #8 in ESPN’s countdown of the most prestigious college football programs.
I agree. My question is “Can a person actually be paid too much”? The person who eventually cures Cancer will probably not be getting paid 6.6M a year. So, obviously a person is worth whatever the market bears. If baseball takes in billions of dollars then players like D. Jeter should earn their millions, right?
Sure one might debate whether Michigan got its money’s worth in year 1 of the Rodriguez era. Football bowl games bring in millions of dollars for schools, and Michigan has been to one (almost) every year since 1975.
Mathematically speaking, paying coaches well and attracting the best talent definitely pays dividends for the school both in the short and long run.
Perhaps the main problem with Mr. Otto is jealousy? Schools like West Carolina Catamounts would kill to have an athletic department balance sheet and annual budget like that of the University of Michigan.
The amount paid to Rodriguez was enough to pay off the amount owed WVU for the buyout and thengrossed up enough to cover Mr. Rodriguez tax liability for the year in which it was paid. If Mr. Rodriguez ever leaves UM, then he will owe money back to Michigan. It would appear that West Carolina University professors are somehow incapable of performing 4th grade math calculations.
Markusr2007,
You are SO WRONG!!!
They are incapable of performing 1st/2nd grade math, not 4th grade math! lol!
On a related note, I can tell they never have taken an economics course as anyone’s salary is simply an application of supply and demand.
FUCK STATE-video of Kampfer's assult at 41 sec mark
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYUWFyHqYog&eurl=http://mvictors.com/