talhadfoursteals said:
On a side note...for our friends up in Poky (title IX, loooool). At USU Stew Morril makes 407K + benefits = around 500K annually. Their women's coach J Reagan Pebley makes about 83K. Kinda a disparity between the two don't ya think. I'm pretty sure that is the same from school to school. (Catdcat was the one who found the numbers).
Before he was let go, Al Givens was making 67K. Has nothing to do with Title IX. I think Bovee got hood winked.
You need to do a little more research Tal. There is a whole history of litigation (and out of court settlements) involving women's coaches who took action against schools because they were paid disproportionately. Keep in mind, there are a whole set of guidelines that go with Title IX, Title VII and the Equal Pay Act. They include breadth and depth of responsibilities, experience, demonstrated performance, and revenue generation. In the case of USU, for example, it would be very easy for me to make the case that Stu deserves five times more money than the women's coach because he's been coaching for 30 years, has won a dozen or so conference championships, his program brings in 20 times more revenue, etc.
In Weber's case, you could probably easily defend giving the mens' coach 2.5 times more than the women's coach because he has a few more years experience as a head coach, he's demonstrated performance, and his revenue stream is much higher than the women's program. Now, could you make the case that instead of giving the women's coach $105 K, she should only get $85K? Maybe so, but perhaps Boevee doesn't think quibbling over $20 K and tempting fait is worth it?
There's another factor to keep in mind when you're looking at your women's coaches salary -- it's a negotiated item. Weber obviously wanted this young woman and felt very strongly that she was the best candidate for the job. She is coming from a very high profile program at Louisville that probably pays their women's head coach three or four times what she is getting at Weber. Boevee offers her $90 K and she says, "Hey, that's less than the woman you just fired? You obviously think I'm a better coach than she is, other wise why would you fire her and offer me the job? I want at least a thousand dollars more than she was making." How can you logically argue that point?
Could you have gotten another coach for cheaper? Probably, but if you're convinced this woman was the best candidate and that she's going to do a better job than the coach you just fired so you could hire her, why wouldn't you pay her more than the other coach was getting?
Finally, on thetopic of women's sports in general: I can't speak to Weber State's budget situation, but if it's similar to just about everybody elses in the Big Sky (besides Montana and Montana State), I would say your problem is not paying a women's basketball coach $105 K a year -- it's subsidizing a football program that loses big dollars every year. Nearly every football program in the Big Sky (again, with the excepton of the two Montanas, who fill their football stadiums every game and generate independent television revenue) are subsidizing their football programs with either state money, student fees, or both. I would be willing to bet Weber is no different.
So it's not the pittance you are spending on women's athletics that's draining money from your ability to pay Randy Rahe more money -- it's your football program. Oh, and if you think having an extra $30 K or so around will make a difference to Rahe when/if a BCS level program comes calling, you are kidding yourselves. You'd have to double Rahe's $275 K salary to even be in the same league as those guys, and the biggest factor is not going to be pay anyway -- it's competitiveness. Any coach worth his salt wants to test himself in the best programs, and against the best competition. No Big Sky school can stack up when the big boys come calling.
PS--I just looked up Weber's athletic department budgeting data on the U.S. Dept. of Education web site and it shows the Weber football team spent about $40 K more than it brought in during the most recently reported year. It also shows over $2 M in "unallocated expenses" for the entire athletic department. Those are costs that are not assigned to any one sport, but are shared by all the athletic department. It is safe to assume that football "owns" a good proportion of those costs.
http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/Index.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The point being, Once we get back to the dance we're going to need to pay Rahe more. We probably need to be on par with what Northern Iowa did with their 10 yr $425,000 Salary with incremental annual increases to Jacobson.
:thumb:
