It's time for college football to learn yet another lesson from professional sports. They already have the TV revenue stream combined with exploitation of the athletes down, but now it is time to control salaries. While this could mean the benefits players at nearly every institution seem to be getting, I am talking about the coaches. In a landscape that is becoming more and more difficult to be competitive in, smaller schools are being forced to cut back in order to control their losses. Yes, losses. Most universities lose money with their football program. In fact, in 2009-2010 only 22 programs saw a profit...and that was up from the year before!! We know that there are many more than 22 universities with football programs that rely on tax dollars and student fees to operate. So why is their no outcry about our money being wasted on these coaches? Going into the 2010 season, of the schools with salaries open to the public, only 7 programs in BCS conferences were paying their head coach less than one million dollars. ONE MILLION DOLLARS!!! That is a large sum of money to be paying out in university funds to mostly unsuccessful coaches overseeing unsuccessful programs. This doesn't include revenues for the coaches from outside the university or potential bonuses. Adding in the guaranteed revenue and only 4 coaches in BCS conferences make less than one million dollars. Am I the only one that finds this insane? Of the 7 programs, only 2 could be argued as being successful in recent years, North Carolina State and West Virginia. The other 5 schools are Baylor, Indiana, Minnesota, Purdue and Washington State. This makes it pretty clear that if you want to have a top program, you need to spend big bucks. The problem is that most schools simply can't afford to spend what Texas, USC and Florida spend on their coaches, and that is only one facet of a football program. Another high cost aspect is becoming assistant coaches. Head coaches have always know the importance of their assistants, but now are getting more and more money in an effort to attract and retain the top guys. At Florida this year, their assistants will make well over two million dollars combined, with Charlie Weis leading the way at over $700,000. Now Florida can get away with this since they are one of the haves. But I was under the impression that college athletics were supposed to be about equality and fair competition, cough cough. Now, I certainly know this isn't the case, nor will it probably ever be the case. But shouldn't something be done to try to keep things balanced. The money is coming in either way, how about the schools use extra revenue for all the other sports or, gasp, academic programs. If players salaries can be capped in professional sports, there is no reason college athletics can't cap coaches salaries. This will give mid major and smaller schools a much better opportunity to find good coaches and possibly keep them. Along with a cap on salaries, something would have to be done for bonuses. Head coaches should only see bonuses for three things, a high graduation rate, winning a conference title or winning the national championship. That's it...no more. This will keep schools from creating bonuses for things like training table attendance or golf tournament appearances. Yes, I realize this would be a crazy concept, but other than the coaches themselves, who would this hurt? The students attending college could possibly see fees dropped or certainly not increased while taxpayers could see their money going to something more beneficial, such as roads and public education.
The twitter picks are now hovering just above the .500 mark at 8-7. Tonight we are going with the Mets as they take on the Marlins in Florida. Saw a stat that the Mets are a .542 team when David Wright, Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes are in the lineup together, and all are once again healthy. They are an underdog so enjoy the value and cashing yet another winning ticket. Be sure to follow my daily picks on twitter, handle vegasobie. Good luck, and remember, never bet what you can't afford to lose.
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