Nope. Someone is a professor who thinks sports at universities need to be placed in proper perspective. And, coaches work more like 70 hours a week (typically) --- obviously some more, some less. In the summer, it is more like 30-40, tops. And...$200,000 is a major wage by anyone's reckoning. Finally, 90% of the coaches "generate" more cost associated with what they do than revenue --- the overwhelming majority of whom do so measured in the 1-3 million dollar deficit per year range.
Bo fights back tears at team banquet
- Thread starter Nexus
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GSG
Assistant Coach
All I can think of right now is:
Regent Chairman: This is not a football vocational school. It's an institute for higher learning.
Coach Winters: Yeah, but when was the last time 80,000 people showed up to watch a kid do a damn chemistry experiment? Why don't you stick the bow-tie up your a$$?
from The Program, 1993
That's not really how I feel, but I had to post it, otherwise it would never leave my mind :lol:
Regent Chairman: This is not a football vocational school. It's an institute for higher learning.
Coach Winters: Yeah, but when was the last time 80,000 people showed up to watch a kid do a damn chemistry experiment? Why don't you stick the bow-tie up your a$$?
from The Program, 1993
That's not really how I feel, but I had to post it, otherwise it would never leave my mind :lol:
knapplc
International Man of Mystery
I think where you're going to get a lot of disagreement is where that "proper perspective" lies. On a sports-oriented website, I do not think you're going to get a lot of agreement with the contention that sports are less worthy of attention at colleges than academics. Sure, most (if not all) of us are huge proponents of Nebraska's tradition of excellent student-athletes, but we tend to focus more on the athlete part of student-athlete.
Also, out of curiosity, how much money does your department generate for ******** State University? Don't university programs typically drain the budget, which requires the school to charge tuition to stay afloat? Wouldn't you say it's similar to charging money for tickets to games?
HuskerJosh
Starter
And what? YOUR perspective is the proper one? You realize your perspective isn't universal, right?
You are right! I will not get much sympathy here... this is a sports website and college sports are fun and central to universities. True enough but paying millions to coaches seems wrong.knapplc said:
To answer your questions. I am at a mid-size university in the mountain west in a chemistry department. There are 11 faculty in our department and the composite salaries/benefits of the faculty is ca. $1,200,000 (about that for one football coach!). We are a modest producing department but our grants total ca. $4,500,000 a year. With grants, tuition & fees, and state line-budget as revenue minus our costs for offering our courses (lab and lecture), our department is in the black by ca. $2,500,000 annually. At a major research institution a typical chemistry department will be in the black by 10-15 million a year. In contrast, at our institution (who is terrible in sports) our athletic department runs ca. $2,000,000 in the red. These numbers are typical.
To answer your last question, many academic programs are not situated well to generate external grants --- just the nature of the discipline (foreign languages, English, history, etc.). In these departments, tuition and fees generated by students in the program (plus state appropriation for the program) minus costs often comes in the red... and can range from thousands to hundreds of thousands (but... athletic departments are typically the biggest drains for their costs are high and they do not generate tuition/fee revenue). These departments are balanced out but the grant-active disciplines. Generally, it can be viewed that tuition and fees across a state-wide campus plus state appropriations (state line budgets which cover ca. 20-30% of costs and is, generally, dwindling) enable an institution to cover costs. Growth of infrastructure largely comes from grants and donations. This is why there is so much pressure for faculty to get grants and why universities so aggressively seek after donors.
Last point... a good sports program definitely can help with donors.
VA Husker Fan
All-Conference
I don't get the point that "Nebraska football makes $xx million, so Bo is underpaid." Don't forget, it made money under Callahan. Granted, with a good coach, it'll make more money and have more of a chance of continuing into the future, but you can't say that Bo accounts for all of that any more than any CEO is responsible for all of the profits of their corporation. He's a key part, but so are the players, the staff, the AD, etc. No one person is bigger than the program.
Landlord
Banned
I don't know the logistics or details of any of this like robsker seems to, but anyone with half a brain should be able to realize that from an absolute standpoint, coaches/professional players/other sports-related careers get paid an absurd amount of money. The reason for it is that we value those positions by how much money they can make, not how they can positively impact our planet.
Money is always the problem.
Money is always the problem.
Define "positive" impact? Can you imagine how depressing the state of Nebraska would be without Husker athletics? What reason would alumni have to go back to Lincoln after they left? What would happen to the economic impact felt during game days? People that argue that other people who aren't worth what they make are just jealous that they don't have those skills, or didn't take that path. The market pays what things are worth, period. Successful D1 coaches are a scarce commodity, if you find one that makes it to a BCS game, that would mean a 17 million dollar payout this year. It's far easier to find someone who can "teach" classes, and by teach, I mean hand off half their job to graduate assistants, than someone who can lead a program to national prominence.
And even with that said, people in all professions that reach the top are paid very well.
knapplc
International Man of Mystery
Life isn't all about gaining knowledge. Sometimes it's about relaxing, or losing yourself in something entertaining. Football provides a worthy distraction to life's troubles.
It's like the story of the world's greatest wood chopper hired on at the forest. The first day he chopped down 50 trees and everyone was amazed. The next day he chopped down 40 trees, and the third day it was 30. By the fifth day he was barely getting through five trees a day, and the foreman went to find out what was wrong. The guy stopped chopping, leaned on his tree and said, "Nothing's wrong. I've just been so busy chopping trees that I haven't had a chance to sharpen my axe."
Sometimes you gotta stop and sharpen your axe.
It's like the story of the world's greatest wood chopper hired on at the forest. The first day he chopped down 50 trees and everyone was amazed. The next day he chopped down 40 trees, and the third day it was 30. By the fifth day he was barely getting through five trees a day, and the foreman went to find out what was wrong. The guy stopped chopping, leaned on his tree and said, "Nothing's wrong. I've just been so busy chopping trees that I haven't had a chance to sharpen my axe."
Sometimes you gotta stop and sharpen your axe.
Robsker's points are very familiar... my good Prof-buddy in Microbiology at UNL has many similar views. However, Robsker does end with, "Last point... a good sports program definitely can help with donors." That's the point too many seem to miss - for us Huskers, our sports are definitely a net benefit to the University as a whole. Just check out the size of our University Foundation - I believe it's among the top in the country for our structure of University. Sports help keep the University in the consciousness of donors as they move thru their lives.
As for the pay... even though we hate that we've got to compete salary-wise, facility-wise, with a world gone nuts, it's simply the nature of the beast. When the arguements rage, some people (not here - editorial page) seem too quick to want to cast off a net benefitthat other schools would kill to have.
As for the pay... even though we hate that we've got to compete salary-wise, facility-wise, with a world gone nuts, it's simply the nature of the beast. When the arguements rage, some people (not here - editorial page) seem too quick to want to cast off a net benefitthat other schools would kill to have.
I look at it as what does Bo Pelini(insert any pro athlete or coach) really do for me or for others. They may make me smile, be happy for a short time.
He basically pays the athletic bills at Nebraska, but so could just about any good coach.
I see Doctors working many hours, saving lives, teachers teaching our children, that have to have part time jobs to pay the bills. I see the state of California laying off teachers at a rate that is totally astounding. Classes with 50-60 students in them. But the state universities can pay astronomical salaries to a football coach.
Our love of sports and desire to win has totally over shadowed everything.
I see young men and women volunteering for our Armed Forces. Placed in harms way, and not seeing in a year what a college coach makes between half time. When some one is truly needed, who are we going to depend on? Out of control it seems to me.
No one playing a game or coaching it, deserves the money they are making.
He basically pays the athletic bills at Nebraska, but so could just about any good coach.
I see Doctors working many hours, saving lives, teachers teaching our children, that have to have part time jobs to pay the bills. I see the state of California laying off teachers at a rate that is totally astounding. Classes with 50-60 students in them. But the state universities can pay astronomical salaries to a football coach.
Our love of sports and desire to win has totally over shadowed everything.
I see young men and women volunteering for our Armed Forces. Placed in harms way, and not seeing in a year what a college coach makes between half time. When some one is truly needed, who are we going to depend on? Out of control it seems to me.
No one playing a game or coaching it, deserves the money they are making.