This one’s mine, I think.
The NCAA’s release of its latest graduation rate figures on Wednesday allowed the association a chance to trumpet further academic progress by Division I college athletes.
It also allowed some coaches and athletics directors to celebrate the triggering of performance bonuses.
At least three Bowl Subdivision football head coaches – including Alabama’s Nick Saban – became set for bonuses of at least $100,000, and several AD’s picked up five-figure sums.
The kids work hard in the classroom and the adults get paid. Why, exactly? It’s not like Saban takes the tests or writes a paper. Saban’s boss, Bill Battle ($40,000 bonus), isn’t personally tutoring Alabama student-athletes.
We know why. It’s so the schools can point to this and trumpet that they’re really serious about academics. Funny, but I thought that was their stated mission in the first place. That their proof is tied to something with a dollar sign just shows what counts these days.
Get The Picture 
More cynicism – why a coach needs a bonus for graduating athletes is beyond me. How about fire their asses if they don’t meet targets? I still remember when Bob Huggins said his job was to win basketball games not graduate athletes when confronted with his 0% graduation rate at Cincinnati … At least he was honest about it.
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It chaps my ass when I see athletic directors getting bonuses when they have athletes that win championships in things like cross-country running. WTF did the athletic director do to earn that championship?
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How about it triggering a $100,000 donation into the school’s general scholarship fund instead of paying a multi-millionaire even more money?
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That makes too much sense.
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As if they don’t have enough incentive to give them phony grades in BS classes to keep them eligible on Saturdays.
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I’m trying to come up with a similar bonus program in the real world. Can’t think of one.
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I seem them pretty regular…they are just bonuses for doing a job you were hired to do.
However, don’t hate the playa…hate the game.
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I get what you’re saying about getting bonuses for doing what you’re hired to do. I see it all the time when guys that work in M&A groups get huge bonuses for completing deals. Like – that’s your freaking job, right?
The difference in the college sports world is that we don’t all get to play a game that is constructed such that it violates antitrust law by placing ceilings on the wages of workers.
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Gonna play devil’s advocate but those bonuses are basically commissions for bringing in business. Also if those guys stopbringing in business the bonuses don’t just dry up they get fired. Not that you’ll see me shed tears for MDs who make 7 figures for advising the likes of Kraft to spin off a unit only to then advise them to acquire the exact same unit they spun off just a few years earlier.
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Oh – I get that. My experience has been that folks brought in from other departments (Finance / Audit / Accounting) to do a lot of the ground work to ensure the deal is consummated smoothly get pittance for a thank you bonus compared to the six figures I’ll see some M&A guys get for just doing their normal day to day. Far be it from me to criticize an individual for making as much money as he / she can (this is America, after all), but I also see the inequity in the arrangement.
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A large part of my compensation is bonus based on financial results. But i don’t do it on the back of “student athletes.” It’s on the business. What I’m saying is I agree with the Senator on the whole hypocrisy of trumpeting “student athlete graduation rates” as a reason to give coaches more $$.
It’s just a mess.
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The school’s “stated mission” is academics, but if that’s the case most of the players wouldn’t qualify to attend, so the standards are lowered so the players can come, when the standards are lowered the coaches bring ’em in, when the coaches bring ’em in the raping and pillaging begins and the players flunk out, so the NCAA develops a “standards” for graduating players, the school then becomes more worried about graduating players than educating them and preparing them for life, the coach then gets a contract provision concerning graduating players, so then the coach won’t let players take the major they really want to take because the school doesn’t care about the major, just a diploma.
The previous sentence, in addition to being the longest and worst I’ve ever typed, also contains a UAB football reference.
Have a good day,
BD
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BD, your sentence may have been long, but it was right on.
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New Mark Richt contract:
#1- Yearly pay= $24,000.00
#2- Performance bonus= Win SEC Championship= $8,000,000.00 in small
unmarked bills.
#3- Graduation rate= we don’t give a shit. We have 30,000 kids going to
school at UGA, you get 85 football players. Keep them out of prison.
#4- Contract guarantee= Win SEC Championship and you will not be fired.
Win or be gone.
#5- This is a yearly contract and don’t ever ask for anything else.
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Lowered admissions standards for athletics.
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