Several college coaches have taken voluntary pay cuts after the struggles created by the coronavirus pandemic. Many basketball and football coaches in the NCAA are among the highest-paid employees for their schools.
“Our state is going through a really difficult time; our university is going through a really difficult time,” said South Carolina football coach Will Muschamp. “I’ve been fortunate in my coaching career.”
However, some of the highest-paid coaches in the NCAA have not taken any pay cuts. Even without the announcement of troubles for a certain school, a large majority of universities are accepting tax relief during the pandemic.
Coaches Not Opting to Do So
Eight of the 10 top-paid college football coaches have not opted to take voluntary pay cuts. And at least five of the top 10 basketball coaches have yet to do so.
Perhaps two of the biggest names in each sport, Clemson’s Dabo Swinney and Kentucky’s John Calipari, have not taken pay cuts. But Kentucky has announced they were reducing some employees’ salaries.
Calipari made $8.2 million last year, while Swinney made $9.3 million. Along with them are Alabama’s Nick Saban ($8.9 million) and Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher ($7.5 million) in football, and Tennessee’s Rick Barnes ($4.7 million) and Texas Tech’s Chris Beard ($4.4 million) in basketball.
ESPN Survey
ESPN contacted all 65 power five schools, along with 10 other universities, to see the extent to which college coaches have financially helped during this time.
Thirty-three of the 75 schools said they had at least one coach that was willing to negotiate and take a pay cut. This includes Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh, who took a 10% cut on his $7.5 million salary.
Bill Self of Kansas is also among those who accepted a cut in pay. His salary is reduced by 10% for six months. Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley has taken a 10% pay cut for one year.
At 26 of these schools, no coaches have taken a pay cut. However, that doesn’t always mean that they haven’t agreed to do so. Some of these coaches are the highest-paid public employees in their entire state.
UCLA has said that basketball coach Mick Cronin ($5.5 million) and football coach Chip Kelly ($3.5 million) have agreed to take cuts, but they are waiting for more information from the president’s office.
Sixteen of these schools that were polled were not willing to respond. Most of them were private.
“Clearly, even if the schools don’t decide that they are going to reduce the coaches’ salaries, as they did to the teachers and to the students’ classes, the coaches can decide to do it themselves,” said Steve Ellis, the president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog. “A lot of Americans are hurting right now because they can’t work because their job is closed.
“And so it’s a really difficult time. And so that’s really where it comes back to these coaches. Are they in this with us?”
Northwestern, Notre Dame, Stanford, and Duke are the only schools interviewed that did not receive coronavirus relief from the CARES ACT.
