Would Leavitt be Big East's highest-paid coach?

The lucrative seven-year contract offered by USF to football coach Jim Leavitt is just the latest in a slew of new deals to Big East coaches. The league's success and national exposure has helped four coaches negotiate new deals since the end of the 2007 season, and Leavitt's current contract, officially signed way back in January 2006, is somehow the oldest unaltered contract in the league.

Would the new deal make Leavitt the league's highest-paid coach? At least in terms of guaranteed per-year money, it appears it would. Much like USF, Rutgers has re-upped coach Greg Schiano twice since 2005, and while he earned a reported $1.73-million in 2007, Schiano's new deal through the 2016 season was announced this month as raising his guaranteed pay from about $1-million to $1.5-million. Leavitt's compensation would jump to $1.8-million per year over the seven-year offer.

West Virginia's Rich Rodriguez had been the league's highest-paid coach, but since he left for Michigan, his replacement, Bill Stewart, is now the league's lowest-paid, announced at $800,000 a year. Everybody else is making at least $1-million a year.

Leavitt and Schiano aren't the only coaches who have gotten a bump in 2008 -- Connecticut's Randy Edsall and Cincinnati's Brian Kelly got new deals, with Kelly coming just a year into his last agreement. The other three league coaches were publicly courted for high-level BCS jobs; if Leavitt has gotten calls about such jobs this off-season, he's kept that out of the public's earshot. So give credit to Woolard for being pre-emptive here, at least as far as we know.

-- When Leavitt signed his old deal, we said it wasn't intended to last very long because his total compensation was fixed at $1-million per year, which was a huge bump for 2006 but progressively less impressive as he stayed at that level each season. The new deal has standard annual escalations, starting at $1.5-million and increasing by $100,000 each year, so it'll be more impressive if he's renegotiating in another two years.

-- The new $1-million buyout, while amazingly 20 times larger than what it would have cost another school to land Leavitt in 2005, is hardly prohibitive. Just ask West Virginia, which had huge buyouts in the contracts for Rodriguez and basketball coach John Beilein and still lost both. If a school's going to offer $15-million over six years, for instance, as Michigan did to get Rodriguez, Leavitt could pay the buyout himself and still make an extra half-million a year. No contract will effectively prevent those kinds of offers from luring coaches out of their old deals, but nobody will accuse Doug Woolard of not taking action to help keep Leavitt here in Tampa.

-- Leavitt's nearly tripled his salary in a three-year period, but he has helped his assistants along the way. His pool for nine full-time assistants was $690,000 in 2005; that same pool would be $1.25-million for 2008 under the proposed deal. That's an 81 percent increase over three years, even if only three assistants (Wally Burnham, Carl Franks, Greg Gregory) actually bridge the gap from the '05 staff to the '08 assistants. Leavitt gets to choose how to split the money among his staff, but it's probable that only perhaps one or two assistants will make less in 2008 than Rick Kravitz did as the highest-paid assistant in 2005 ($104,000). Just the bump from 2007 to 2008 amounts to a 31.5 percent raise; by comparison, the coaches' pool will increase a total of 32 percent from 2008 to 2012 in going from $1.25-million to $1.65-million. (Read: They aren't going to be working off this contract in 2012)

-- I find it peculiar that in a contract offer that would increase Leavitt's pay by an extra $700,000 a year between now and 2012, USF still feels a need to alter the deal to upgrade him from a $450/month car allowance to a $900/month allowance for two cars. It's a line item that totals $5,400 a year in a $1.5-million annual package. If you made $100 a day, by comparison, this would amount to specific language to get you an extra 36 cents a day for, say, gum. I don't like making my car payment each month either, but seriously ...

Hey, remind me to tell you guys this afternoon about another new big man who just got a scholarship offer from Stan Heath. Thoughts on the new offer to Leavitt? Blog staple Dave W. has already checked in with a cautionary voice, wondering about this spending as the university as a whole faces major cutbacks. Will the assistants' bump make it possible for Leavitt to not lose any of his staff after signing day? Will Leavitt now upgrade himself to the highest tier of Netflix, sapping his productivity and sending USF back to the Papajohns.com Bowl in 2008? He says he's watching film all the time, but maybe what he doesn't tell you is that it's the director's commentary from "Meet the Robinsons." How could they delete those scenes??

Comments

[Jerome]

The average attendance went up by 22,000 per game this year. If Doug Woolard wasn't sharing that money with the coaching staff then there would be something very wrong with our commitment to football. Plus, with the Under Armour deal, the team will get all the gear and equipment they could ever hope for and that trickles down to to non-revenue sports too. The success of this football team not only powers what the whole athletic department does, but it helps the University as well. Do you know how much free publicity our school got this year because we had a good football team? Pay the football staff whatever it takes to keep on winning as long as they are doing it the right way, which they are.

[Windbane]

I agree, Jerome. I posted this in the last topic but let me copy it here since most likely we'll migrate.

Dave W, I expect that argument from people that don't like or follow university athletics, but it disappoints me to see your comments here. A successful football program not only pays for itself but the rest of the sports at the university. Now, this isn't true for all universities, but clearly we are getting into the top half of Div 1 that does make money. Most of the time, men's basketball is the only other sport that can make money at a University. Giving more money to football and basketball is an investment, and we are already seeing the returns in football. If you want to know more about athletic spending I suggest you take "Issues in Sport" offered by USF. It's a great class that discusses a lot of ethical topics related to sports.

This is a great move and insures that both Leavitt and his assistants are more likely to stay.

[AGW]

Who is the new big man that Stan Heath just offered? I hope he is at least a 3 star player or higher....

[sv]

Any word on the 2008 bigeast football schedule?

[Ari Hinkelberger]

I heard Stan Heath offered Moses Malone??

Any truth greg?

[Reality]

Jim Leavitt was a $3 million/year coach for the first 6 games of this year. He was a $40000/year coach for the remaining 7 games. The game preparation and decisions were below average. He went from coach of the year candidate to not even finishing in the top 3 coaches of the year in the Big East. I don't think that a raise was due at this time.

[Ari Hinkelberger]

Reality makes some good points.

First 6 games was solid.

Rutgers -- they got luck

Uconn -- a horrid offensive play calling game + some more missed field goals by my boy delbert.

Cinci -- Grothe forgot that you are suppose to throw the ball to the guys in the white jerseys, not the guys in the black jerseys.

[Jonny]

Do athletic programs not generally operate independently of academic costs?

I don't see how anyone can connect Leavitt's salary and cutbacks in expenses in the classroom.

[Jake]

I am glad to see more intelligent posting going on in here. The front page comments are the most un-educated responses I have seen in a while. This is a good move all around for athletics. The more success football has the better the school is not only for athletics, but for education as well.

Its not like this money is being taken out of the education pool. It comes from athletic endorsements and tv revenue.

[Tom]

The amount of exposure the football team gave the university this season was unprecedented. I went back home to Miami during the season and it was amazing how many more people new about USF. It is difficult for many people to see the significance this plays in attracting people to the area. Plus I'm sure we've gotten plenty of $ from the merchandise sold this season.

This contract still pales in comparison to what OSU and UF coaches make. Ohio state's Jim Tressel and UT'S Phil Fulmer have their own private jets to come talk to recruits in FL.

I hope CJL doesn't mention anything about the dining hall unless he's willing to pony up some $. I'm curious to see if increased donations have factored into this?

[G.A.]

The dining hall will be part of the Sun Dome renovations -- it'll be on one side of the arena. It's in the works.

[Tad]

In response to reality's posting, besides the last seven games of the season, could you not say that this was the most important season in USF football history?? With the exposure, increase fan base, and quaility oppenents that was brought this season, CJL and staff has done a remarkable job and should be rewarded, regardless of how certain games were played. This may not have been a perfect team, but it has been the most important year.

[KB]

Greg, With the dining hall, what do you mean by "in the works"? About to break ground? Drawing up the plans? Knowing CJL wants one?

Do you have a time table?

[Ken]

I'm pleased we'll be keeping Leavitt a whole lot longer (no surprise to me there), and no doubt, upgrading the assistants, which helps to keep them longer, too.

I don't believe, though, all things considered, that Athletics pays for itself. My guess is that it isn't even close (the state-financed salaries of so many people over there, the state-financed buildings, etc.).

The other very real issue, nationally anyway and I don't know how it has played out at USF, is that as donations to athletics have gone up considerably in recent years, donations to academics have not, in part because athletics can give tickets, access, and lots of great stuff to its donors and donations to the academic side of the university can't be reciprocated in the same way.

P.S. Greg, would you take that unintelligible stupidity, eroneously attributed to MJ, down?

[Dale]

I was not aware that Michael Jackson was a UCF grad.

[Ari Hinkelberger]

Dave

Athletics is payed through the student fee on tuition and donations.

It is not paid for using the general fund.

That is why donors play such huge roles in Athletics

[Dave W]

I understand the funding differences here at USF. However, the timing is incredibly insensitive given the problems faced elsewhere on campus. Plus, Leavitt wasn't going anywhere this year and there isn't a job on the horizon that he would leave for, especially given the succession plan at FSU, rebirth at UT and Mizzou, and Les staying.

He has been incredibly successful and he was rewarded 2 years ago for it. He never publicly complained about the current contract and he doesn't seem like he cares about the highest paid coach in the BEAST.

As I said in my earlier post, I have no problem rewarding him at some point in the future. However, as a student who has been here for 4 years, I have accrued great knowledge of how things work and what some departments need. Adjuncts are forced to bring their own supplies and during the first week of classes several students were sitting on the floor. Combine that with no campus security presence and the typical student has been deeply impacted. When s/he sees that the football coach is suddenly $800,000 more per year, s/he could be justifiably upset.
__________

I'm not getting started on the dining hall. Especially when we're already building another one.

[Ari Hinkelberger]

You are talking apples and oranges.

They are not inter related.

You have to protect the guy that his bringing home the bacon.

And at this point that is CJL.

The entire future success of USF athletics runs through Leavitt whether anyone wants to admit that or not.

The one million dollar endorsement deal from Under Armor and the recent Tv deal are prime examples of that.

It was a very smart business move

[Chuck P.]

Dave. The average student would not be "justifiably upset", but ignorantly upset. The coaches salaries are not funded from the general University budget, but entirely from the athletic department. Even if they didn't give the coaches a raise the money would have been deployed elsewhere within the athletic department. The athletic department is a self sufficent department and also happens to be the best customer the University has because all of those athletic scholarships are paid at full tuition to the University by the athletic department from their own revenue.

[Reality]

Really, so if the Athletic department was not a profit center, where would the money come from to pay for the department????

Some of you guys need to take a class at USF in Accounting for Non-profits and Government.....

Is Dr. Whittaker still around?

[Chuck P.]

Reality!?! The "athletic department" referred to was in reference to the athletic association not the physical education department. You know, or maybe you don't, the "athletic department" that raised $10 million from private donations before even starting a football program. The same one that pays the "intercollegiate athletics" salaries and the FULL tuition to the University.

[Stephen Blackehart]

If the students are so upset, they should see what it's like at other schools. Honestly, they don't know how good they have it, even with the other budgetary problems. Unless things have changed drastically since I went there, it still costs less to take an entire semester of classes at USF (and its a quality education) than for a single class at my other alma mater in New York. And, sure you might pay a penny or two in extra sales tax in Florida, but nothing like it is in most other big population states (Like Mass, NY, Tex, Cali), and you have no state income tax!

Bottom line, the students (and parents) at USF get way more than they're paying for as it is, which is great I think. Having a big time sports program only increases awareness of the university, which makes a difference in the students lives after graduation. How? Nowadays, when you put USF on your resume, potential employers outside of Tampa have actually heard of the place. When I went there (pre-football), people outside of Florida would get the impression that it was some podunk little community college in Miami.

So, while some may cry over the apparent inequity of it all, I think this is a very good thing.

[Blake]

I see no problem at all with extending CJL. He has brought more money into this school than anyone else, and I echo the earlier posts about how the funds for athletics are completely separate from the funds for general education. While I agree with Dave that there is plenty of room for improvement to other aspects of USF, that is really more of a problem with tuition than anything. The budget cuts are occurring because the governor wouldn't raise tuition. I think Leavitt is getting what he deserves. The contract is really exactly in the price range he deserves, and with further improvement and increase in season ticket sales he can get a boost again in about 2012.

[Tom]

The timing of the contract is certainly questionable. Perhaps it may have been a better idea to wait until after we beat a ranked Kansas team in front of a sold out crowd. I'm not sure why they had to do it now. Students at USF get more angry over the president getting a raise than the football coach.

[Manuel]

If you're really that upset about the faculty cuts then please donate more money to the USF academics. Don't blame USF athletics for something that isn't it's fault. This is a FL taxpayers/budget crisis problem not a problem that USF athletics created. Talk to the politicians.

[Josh]

come on greg, who is the new big man stan heath has just offered??

[Bobby]

For all of you who are whining about how Leavitt's deal isn't necessary, knock it off. He single handedly has brought millions and millions of dollars to the school that can be spent anywhere...cutbacks in the classroom have nothing to do with football. Call up Judy about the classroom stuff and leave "Mr. USF Football" alone.

[zippythepinhead]

Doug Woolard deserves praise for not waiting until CJL is approached by someone else and for making sure that CJL's pay is comensurate with other successful coaches. I especially like the $200K assistants increase which I'm sure will help CJL retain some of his top talent. Kudos to all in recognizing that proactiveness is much more prudent than reactiveness (are those words?). Oh, I almost forgot, Stinkelberger is a JA.