NCAA culture is one of pride, sportsmanship and unity. Whether you’re watching women’s volleyball or men’s swimming, it’s something that makes students proud to wear the school colors in support of their team. However, the NCAA system does have its flaws. There is currently a debate in the world of college sports to decide if student athletes should be getting financial compensation for playing. While I think this is definitely a topic that needs to be explored further, I’m more interested to find out why NCAA coaches are being paid millions of dollars a year and college professors aren’t making anywhere close to that.
Just to give you a picture of how astronomical these salaries are, let’s take a look at some of the incomes of college coaches.
According to USA Today, Duke University’s head men’s basketball coach, Mike Krzyzewski, made nearly $10 million in the last year alone. The closest salaries behind him are Rick Pitino at a little more than $4.5 million and John Calipari at $5.2 million. [quote]The college football salaries aren’t that different, with Nick Saban, Alabama, Mack Brown, Texas, and Bret Bielema, Arkansas, making $5.4, $5.3 and $5.1 million, respectively.[/quote] Our own beloved head men’s basketball coach, Steve Fisher, trails behind significantly at $907,000, which is good if you think too much money is poured into college sports, or bad if you think he’s being unfairly underpaid even at this bloated salary level.
That being said, professor salaries range depending on a number of factors, but the highest tend to hover around $94,000. I doubt I will ever fully know how much work goes into a coach’s job, but I constantly see all the ways certain professors help students. Consider the fact that most professors at our school tend to teach hundreds of students each day. Granted, some teachers are more involved in students’ successes than others, but their reach of students is still much larger than that of the coaches. The coaches’ attention isn’t ever focused on hundreds of students at once. A very small percentage of students at each school are actually NCAA athletes, but every single one of them, plus the rest of the student body, are there to get an education. You tell me where the priorities should be.
[quote]I’m not saying that professors should be paid millions of dollars each year. That’s neither realistic, nor appropriate. [/quote]But for the amount of work they do, the varied subjects they teach and the amount of students they accommodate, they should be paid accordingly. The same goes for NCAA coaches.
While so many college professors can’t find a position, or are regularly laid off, coaches are earning a more than comfortable living and have relative job security. Why? Because those sports programs are financial jackpots for colleges. Unfortunately, this is sending the message that sports are more important than getting an education. The NCAA is great for building character and learning about teamwork, but each university is first and foremost an academic institution. Along with our many sports accolades, San Diego State has the privilege of being recognized as a top research university and continues to thrive in many other areas as well. Paying NCAA coaches an obscene amount of money is similar to saying that is where the money is best spent. That’s definitely not true and I hope that’s not the message these universities are intending to convey. I can think of a ton of campus programs and organizations that would be glad to receive such amounts in donations. Sure, the thrill of making it to the “Sweet Sixteen” is great at that time, but it doesn’t do anything for the education of thousands of students, but a couple extra bucks definitely could.
Photo by Jenna Mackey, senior staff photographer
