Two days before 1987 came to an end, Kansas University hired Glen Mason as its new head football coach. KU paid Mason, who had two years of head coaching experience at Kent State, the munificent sum of $78,000 a year to resurrect a moribund program.
Today six Kansas University assistant coaches including interim head coach Tom Hayes earn more money than that. And Kansas has one of the lowest-paid football cadres, if not the lowest, in the Big 12 Conference.
Nearly six years after he was hired, Mason became the first KU head football coach to earn a six-figure salary. In 1994, Kansas paid Mason $101,920 a year.
Today two KU football aides are in the six-figure category. Hayes, who was hired as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator, makes $120,000 and offensive coordinator Rip Scherer’s annual salary is an even 100 grand.
And, as I’m sure you suspect, Hayes and Scherer are nowhere close to being the highest-paid offensive and defensive coordinators in the Big 12. Would you believe the league’s highest-paid assistant coaches reportedly Texas coordinators Greg Davis and Carl Reese command annual salaries of $191,000 a year?
And you thought the salaries of major league baseball players were skyrocketing out of control.
Probably the most surprising aspect of KU’s football salary structure is that Hayes, as assistant head coach, was making about $6,000 less than head coach Terry Allen. I wonder how many other universities have such a small gap between the head man and the top aide.
Then again, the salaries of Kansas University’s head football coach, head men’s basketball coach and head women’s basketball coach have been on the same low plane since former KU athletics director Bob Frederick established the equity policy in the mid-’90s.
Currently the figure is $125,618.
That salary puts KU men’s coach Roy Williams at the bottom of the Big 12 heap, a fact many boosters believe is embarrassing to the university. However, since Williams also has one of the largest compensation packages in the league about $1.2 million his salary is really meaningless.
Basic salaries for all football and men’s basketball coaches are moot because there is so much extra money to be made from radio-TV deals, shoe and apparel contracts, summer camps and the like. Williams’ summer camp, for example, is like owning a piece of the Denver Mint.
Still, whether Frederick’s salary equity policy will continue under the regime of Al Bohl, his successor, remains to be seen because while Frederick ran the athletics department as an athletics department, Bohl has already shown us he’ll run it as a $24 million corporation.
Any doubts Bohl is in charge were dispelled this week when the new AD dumped Allen over the objections of Williams, then expressed displeasure when Williams second-guessed the decision.
Do we have a power-play brewing here? Perhaps, but I doubt it. Eventually, Williams will realize Bohl made the correct decision and accept that while it isn’t necessary to salute the man it is imperative to salute his rank.
The way I see it, Bohl has to come up with about a half a million dollars to make Kansas competitive in Big 12 Conference football. About $300,000 of that new money would go for additional compensation for the head coach and the other $200,000 to enhance the salaries of his aides.
Frankly, I don’t know how Bohl will come up with that kind of loot. But I sure wouldn’t be surprised if he does.
Two days before 1987 came to an end, Kansas University hired Glen Mason as its new head football coach. KU paid Mason, who had two years of head coaching experience at Kent State, the munificent sum of $78,000 a year to resurrect a moribund program.
Today six Kansas University assistant coaches including interim head coach Tom Hayes earn more money than that. And Kansas has one of the lowest-paid football cadres, if not the lowest, in the Big 12 Conference.
Nearly six years after he was hired, Mason became the first KU head football coach to earn a six-figure salary. In 1994, Kansas paid Mason $101,920 a year.
Today two KU football aides are in the six-figure category. Hayes, who was hired as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator, makes $120,000 and offensive coordinator Rip Scherer’s annual salary is an even 100 grand.
And, as I’m sure you suspect, Hayes and Scherer are nowhere close to being the highest-paid offensive and defensive coordinators in the Big 12. Would you believe the league’s highest-paid assistant coaches reportedly Texas coordinators Greg Davis and Carl Reese command annual salaries of $191,000 a year?
And you thought the salaries of major league baseball players were skyrocketing out of control.
Probably the most surprising aspect of KU’s football salary structure is that Hayes, as assistant head coach, was making about $6,000 less than head coach Terry Allen. I wonder how many other universities have such a small gap between the head man and the top aide.
Then again, the salaries of Kansas University’s head football coach, head men’s basketball coach and head women’s basketball coach have been on the same low plane since former KU athletics director Bob Frederick established the equity policy in the mid-’90s.
Currently the figure is $125,618.
That salary puts KU men’s coach Roy Williams at the bottom of the Big 12 heap, a fact many boosters believe is embarrassing to the university. However, since Williams also has one of the largest compensation packages in the league about $1.2 million his salary is really meaningless.
Basic salaries for all football and men’s basketball coaches are moot because there is so much extra money to be made from radio-TV deals, shoe and apparel contracts, summer camps and the like. Williams’ summer camp, for example, is like owning a piece of the Denver Mint.
Still, whether Frederick’s salary equity policy will continue under the regime of Al Bohl, his successor, remains to be seen because while Frederick ran the athletics department as an athletics department, Bohl has already shown us he’ll run it as a $24 million corporation.
Any doubts Bohl is in charge were dispelled this week when the new AD dumped Allen over the objections of Williams, then expressed displeasure when Williams second-guessed the decision.
Do we have a power-play brewing here? Perhaps, but I doubt it. Eventually, Williams will realize Bohl made the correct decision and accept that while it isn’t necessary to salute the man it is imperative to salute his rank.
The way I see it, Bohl has to come up with about a half a million dollars to make Kansas competitive in Big 12 Conference football. About $300,000 of that new money would go for additional compensation for the head coach and the other $200,000 to enhance the salaries of his aides.
Frankly, I don’t know how Bohl will come up with that kind of loot. But I sure wouldn’t be surprised if he does.
Two days before 1987 came to an end, Kansas University hired Glen Mason as its new head football coach. KU paid Mason, who had two years of head coaching experience at Kent State, the munificent sum of $78,000 a year to resurrect a moribund program.
Today six Kansas University assistant coaches including interim head coach Tom Hayes earn more money than that. And Kansas has one of the lowest-paid football cadres, if not the lowest, in the Big 12 Conference.
Nearly six years after he was hired, Mason became the first KU head football coach to earn a six-figure salary. In 1994, Kansas paid Mason $101,920 a year.
Today two KU football aides are in the six-figure category. Hayes, who was hired as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator, makes $120,000 and offensive coordinator Rip Scherer’s annual salary is an even 100 grand.
And, as I’m sure you suspect, Hayes and Scherer are nowhere close to being the highest-paid offensive and defensive coordinators in the Big 12. Would you believe the league’s highest-paid assistant coaches reportedly Texas coordinators Greg Davis and Carl Reese command annual salaries of $191,000 a year?
And you thought the salaries of major league baseball players were skyrocketing out of control.
Probably the most surprising aspect of KU’s football salary structure is that Hayes, as assistant head coach, was making about $6,000 less than head coach Terry Allen. I wonder how many other universities have such a small gap between the head man and the top aide.
Then again, the salaries of Kansas University’s head football coach, head men’s basketball coach and head women’s basketball coach have been on the same low plane since former KU athletics director Bob Frederick established the equity policy in the mid-’90s.
Currently the figure is $125,618.
That salary puts KU men’s coach Roy Williams at the bottom of the Big 12 heap, a fact many boosters believe is embarrassing to the university. However, since Williams also has one of the largest compensation packages in the league about $1.2 million his salary is really meaningless.
Basic salaries for all football and men’s basketball coaches are moot because there is so much extra money to be made from radio-TV deals, shoe and apparel contracts, summer camps and the like. Williams’ summer camp, for example, is like owning a piece of the Denver Mint.
Still, whether Frederick’s salary equity policy will continue under the regime of Al Bohl, his successor, remains to be seen because while Frederick ran the athletics department as an athletics department, Bohl has already shown us he’ll run it as a $24 million corporation.
Any doubts Bohl is in charge were dispelled this week when the new AD dumped Allen over the objections of Williams, then expressed displeasure when Williams second-guessed the decision.
Do we have a power-play brewing here? Perhaps, but I doubt it. Eventually, Williams will realize Bohl made the correct decision and accept that while it isn’t necessary to salute the man it is imperative to salute his rank.
The way I see it, Bohl has to come up with about a half a million dollars to make Kansas competitive in Big 12 Conference football. About $300,000 of that new money would go for additional compensation for the head coach and the other $200,000 to enhance the salaries of his aides.
Frankly, I don’t know how Bohl will come up with that kind of loot. But I sure wouldn’t be surprised if he does.
Two days before 1987 came to an end, Kansas University hired Glen Mason as its new head football coach. KU paid Mason, who had two years of head coaching experience at Kent State, the munificent sum of $78,000 a year to resurrect a moribund program.
Today six Kansas University assistant coaches including interim head coach Tom Hayes earn more money than that. And Kansas has one of the lowest-paid football cadres, if not the lowest, in the Big 12 Conference.
Nearly six years after he was hired, Mason became the first KU head football coach to earn a six-figure salary. In 1994, Kansas paid Mason $101,920 a year.
Today two KU football aides are in the six-figure category. Hayes, who was hired as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator, makes $120,000 and offensive coordinator Rip Scherer’s annual salary is an even 100 grand.
And, as I’m sure you suspect, Hayes and Scherer are nowhere close to being the highest-paid offensive and defensive coordinators in the Big 12. Would you believe the league’s highest-paid assistant coaches reportedly Texas coordinators Greg Davis and Carl Reese command annual salaries of $191,000 a year?
And you thought the salaries of major league baseball players were skyrocketing out of control.
Probably the most surprising aspect of KU’s football salary structure is that Hayes, as assistant head coach, was making about $6,000 less than head coach Terry Allen. I wonder how many other universities have such a small gap between the head man and the top aide.
Then again, the salaries of Kansas University’s head football coach, head men’s basketball coach and head women’s basketball coach have been on the same low plane since former KU athletics director Bob Frederick established the equity policy in the mid-’90s.
Currently the figure is $125,618.
That salary puts KU men’s coach Roy Williams at the bottom of the Big 12 heap, a fact many boosters believe is embarrassing to the university. However, since Williams also has one of the largest compensation packages in the league about $1.2 million his salary is really meaningless.
Basic salaries for all football and men’s basketball coaches are moot because there is so much extra money to be made from radio-TV deals, shoe and apparel contracts, summer camps and the like. Williams’ summer camp, for example, is like owning a piece of the Denver Mint.
Still, whether Frederick’s salary equity policy will continue under the regime of Al Bohl, his successor, remains to be seen because while Frederick ran the athletics department as an athletics department, Bohl has already shown us he’ll run it as a $24 million corporation.
Any doubts Bohl is in charge were dispelled this week when the new AD dumped Allen over the objections of Williams, then expressed displeasure when Williams second-guessed the decision.
Do we have a power-play brewing here? Perhaps, but I doubt it. Eventually, Williams will realize Bohl made the correct decision and accept that while it isn’t necessary to salute the man it is imperative to salute his rank.
The way I see it, Bohl has to come up with about a half a million dollars to make Kansas competitive in Big 12 Conference football. About $300,000 of that new money would go for additional compensation for the head coach and the other $200,000 to enhance the salaries of his aides.
Frankly, I don’t know how Bohl will come up with that kind of loot. But I sure wouldn’t be surprised if he does.
