Following the money
From the Twisted Priorities Department comes this:
ESPN put together an interactive online piece on major-college basketball and football coaches’ salaries, and the numbers are fairly mind-boggling.
For instance, the coaches involved in the recent Final Four basketball games had combined salaries of $7.2 million. The governors of all of our 50 states make a total of $6.9 million.
And it’s not just the head coaches at these “institutions of higher learning” who are commanding big bucks to guide their young charges. ESPN found that all of the 100 highest-paid college football offensive and defensive coordinators made at least $500,000, and 10 of those folks make more than $1 million.
Of course, their pay pales in comparison with that of the men leading the national powerhouses in football and basketball. Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh leads the way at $9 million a year, followed by Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari at $7.1 million, Alabama football coach Nick Saban at $6.9 million and Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer, who makes $6 million a year. Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino makes $5.1 million, despite truly shameful personal and program scandals that would have gotten someone fired immediately in almost every other walk of life.
As the old saying goes, “It’s good work if you can get it.”