Coaching carousels are expensive
It is amazing — and disturbing — how much people are willing to spend in the often fruitless pursuit of a championship-caliber college football team.
Not only will they fork out millions of dollars for the next coach and staff, they’re willing to pay almost as much to get rid of the ones who couldn’t win enough games.
The Clarion Ledger this week reported that the firing of Ole Miss football coach Matt Luke could cost up to $17 million. An estimated $10 million will go to Luke himself, who had three years left on his contract. The rest would be due his top assistant coaches if the next head coach doesn’t want to retain them, although that $7 million could be reduced significantly if the assistants land jobs elsewhere.
Since Luke — an inhouse hire who got promoted after a one-season trial run — was a relative “bargain”as coaching salaries go in the Southeastern Conference, it’s likely that his replacement will be more expensive, as will the replacement’s assistants.
If the next coach is a smart businessman, he will insist on a four-year contract, the state maximum, with a one-year extension every season he survives without being fired. That way, the worst he can do, if he’s ultimately canned, is a three-year, multimillion-dollar parachute like the one softening Luke’s descent into unemployment.
Odds are the taxpayer-funded university won’t have to shoulder much of the cost of getting rid of the old and bringing in the new. That will come from well-heeled boosters. It’s a shame, though, they can’t figure out causes more beneficial to mankind to which to give this money.
Tim Kalich
Editor and Publisher
Greenwood Commonwealth
