Posted by
Ed Lilly on Thursday, December 06, 2007 8:21:43 PM
Michael McCarthy wrote a piece in this morning's USA Today on the growing tension between university athletic departments and academic departments as the two sides compete for general university funds. Always good to see Myles Brand, head of the NCAA, dispensing pearls of wisdom like the following:
"You're getting a lot more tension in the university. And no one is talking about it. Almost a quiet crisis," said Brand. "That tension between faculty needs, academic needs and the desire of athletic departments to be competitive is really a very serious, and growing, issue."
The average earnings of the 120 major college football coaches nationwide hit $1 million for the first time this year, according to a USA TODAY analysis published Wednesday. But Brand doesn't blame spiraling head coaching salaries for the rise in athletic department spending. Roughly 75% of a head football coach's salary is generated by outside sources, such as TV/radio deals and endorsements, he noted.
Instead, he blames the "coattails effect" of pricey assistant coaches, trainers, video technicians and equipment. "It's everyone else. It's the $400,000-$500,000 coordinator," Brand says.
Check me if I'm wrong, but to have a "coattails effect," doesn't there have to be a coat to begin with? I mean, presumably without the multi-million dollar head coaching salaries that Brand says are not a problem, there wouldn't be the excess of half million dollar assistant coaching salaries, trainers, video technicians and equipment that are causing all the trouble. So I guess the head coaching salaries are just an inconvenient problem that Brand doesn't want to recognize. Better to stroke the egos of the millionaire coaches who are the faces of college athletics, and who just by coincidence happen to help the NCAA, under Brand's leadership, make billions of dollars from television revenues.
But wait. Isn't Bob Knight, long-time
bete noir of Myles Brand from their days together at Indiana University, one of the coaches with a mega-salary? What's the world coming to? Reminds me of the movie Ghostbusters,
when the title characters are explaining to the mayor of New York the ramifications of their findings about ghostly activity in the Big Apple:
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria.
None of the above is even close to the cataclysmic nature of Myles Brand and Bob Knight seeing eye to eye on the size of Knight's salary.