No one can accuse Kansas University chancellor Robert Hemenway of penury in the pursuit of an athletics director.
Hemenway has retained the services of Heidrick & Struggles International Inc., a Chicago-based executive search firm. HSII its acronym on the NASDAQ market employs 1,200 search professionals at 80 locations in 37 countries.
Not that KU will be interested in hiring the AD at the University of Melbourne or Southern Switzerland Tech, but HSII is generally regarded as the largest headhunting firm in the world based on revenue.
Reportedly, HSII charges about $50,000 per search, plus expenses. Meanwhile, Chuck Neinas, the former Big Eight commissioner who is also in the business, sends a bill for around $30,000. You may have noticed that Neinas was the consultant in Kansas State’s search to replace Max Urick.
In announcing the hiring of Tim Weiser, a native Kansan who had been at Colorado State, K-State announced its new AD would be paid $250,000. I’m assuming that figure includes perks like cars, country club memberships, etc.
Whatever the breakdown, Weiser will be paid a lot more than predecessor Urick whose annual base salary was $125,000. And, it goes without saying, Kansas University will have to shell out more than Bob Frederick’s $166,303 base salary to lure a successor.
What’s the going rate these days for an athletics director at a major NCAA Division One university? I asked Neinas that question and while he said it’s difficult to pinpoint a figure, he pegged the average salary at $200,000 without perks.
“Athletics directors have traditionally been behind the curve,” Neinas said. “They’re in charge of multi-million dollar operations, and they’re answerable to a myriad of people. The job has become far more complex.”
When Neinas was commissioner of the old Big Eight Conference from 1971-78, the bulk of league ADs were football coaches who had either gravitated upstairs or were filling both roles.
Today you seldom see a football coach elevated to AD and rarely does anyone serve as both a coach and an AD.
“Now you find increasingly they come from an administrative background,” Neinas said. “You don’t see coaches as ADs anymore. You can’t do both. That’s what surprised me about the new guy at Cal.”
Just last week, California-Berkeley hired men’s rowing coach Steve Gladstone as its new AD and Gladstone said he planned to retain his crew post while overseeing the school’s $34 million athletics department.
Kansas University’s athletics budget, by the way, is about $24 million and climbing. Already two sports have been dropped and three vacancies in the department, including one associate AD post, will not be filled.
Skyrocketing expenses are forcing cutbacks everywhere. One example is football travel. Last year, Kansas flew to two road games and bused to the other three. Total cost: About $160,000.
This fall Kansas has only four road games. The Jayhawks will fly to three and bus to one. Total cost: About $280,000.
Whoa how can four road trips cost $120,000 more than five football road trips?
Charter flights. Last year’s airplane trips to Dallas and Oklahoma City cost about $65,000 apiece. This year’s charter air journeys to Denver, Lubbock and Austin will cost about $90,000 apiece.
“Two factors are involved,” KU assistant AD Richard Konzem said. “One is fuel costs. The other is that American has purchased TWA and American hasn’t been in the charter business.”
Kansas, of course, isn’t the only athletics department affected by the American-TWA merger and, unfortunately, there aren’t many alternatives.
“Everybody in college athletics is sensitive about charters,” Konzem said. “We always felt good about boarding TWA planes because they had been in regular service and if they had a mechanical they could get another plane.”
Perhaps in the future, where possible, Kansas will have to use regularly scheduled commercial service in order to save money. To do so, however, would require splitting the travel party because KU takes upwards of 140 people on football road trips.
“We might be able to do that to Denver,” Konzem said, “but Lubbock is not an option because they don’t fly big enough planes into there.”
To paraphrase the old sports bromide: It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s whether you can avoid drowning in red ink.
