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Money Flowing in Big Orange Country

There must be a money tree somewhere in Mike Hamilton's backyard or maybe he discovered a wreck of a pirate ship laden with gold at the bottom of the Tennessee River just outside Neyland Stadium. How else can you explain the raises he passed out yesterday.

Both the University of Tennessee football coach and men's basketball coach got contract extensions with substantial raises yesterday. The often criticized Phil Fulmer, whose tenure at UT has divided fans as the memory of the Vols national championship in 1998 has faded, received a raise of $350,000 taking his salary up to $2.4 million and extending his contract to 2014. The new contract will extend automatically one year if the Vols win eight games. There are annual raises, incentive bonuses and loyalty bonuses also built into the new agreement.

Pearl received a $300,000 raise, taking his salary to $1. 6 million. His contract now runs to 2014 and also provides for annual raises, loyalty bonuses, and incentive bonuses. Since Pearl will be receiving an immediate $250,000 signing bonus and a $1,5 million retention bonus, his contract contains a $2.5 million buyout clause that decreases annually to $1 million should he leave by the end of the term in 2014.

UT's other high profile coach, women's basketball coach Pat Summit, is still in discussion over the modification of her contract so no announcement about the terms of her raise was made.

The sums being paid to these coaches is not too out of line with the rest of the SEC. Pearl becomes the third highest paid coach in the conference, while Fulmer will only be the seventh, which is stunningly low. The idea the there are six coaches in the SEC making more than $2.4 million per year says everything there is to say about how badly skewed we have allowed college athletics to get. The UT coaches got these raises at a time in which the UT faculty received no raises and the students faced substantial tuition increases because the university is facing over $11 million in budget cuts. Granted, the athletic department self-generates its funding, although that probably includes some amount for student fees, nevertheless, the message being sent is hardly the one college athletics should be sending in the face of the economic difficulties being faced all across the country, and especially at state universities.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on July 03, 2008 (boomark / email).