Twenty years ago, Kansas University associate professor Jim LaPoint instigated a new sports management curriculum on campus. Later, a graduate degree in sports studies was added.
When classes begin Thursday on Mount Oread, LaPoint expects in excess of 350 undergrad enrollees and 75 or so grad students, all of whom aspire to become sports administrators.
“Most of them want to get that master’s degree, then get Carl Peterson’s job,” LaPoint said, referring to the Chiefs’ president and general manager. “But you have to work your way up by putting in long hours for low pay.”
If becoming a Big 12 Conference athletic director is a barometer, then those long hours with low pay eventually could become long hours with high pay. Very high pay.
Several media outlets in the Big 12 area, including the Journal-World, have used open records acts to obtain the salaries, perks, etc. of the dozen conference ADs. From these surveys, it is abundantly clear compensation packages have skyrocketed.
For example, two decades ago, when KU students first had an opportunity to enroll in sports management, Jayhawk athletic director Monte Johnson was earning about $60,000 a year.
Current Kansas AD Lew Perkins’ annual salary is $420,000 — seven times more than Johnson earned in 1984, or four times more based on the rate of inflation. Johnson’s salary in today’s dollars would be about $110,000. Perkins has five staffers who earn more than that.
Perkins is the only conference AD who has a higher salary than President Bush ($400,000), yet all but two league ADs are making more than Vice President Dick Cheney ($181,400).
Texas A&M’s Bill Byrne and Nebraska’s Steve Pederson aren’t far behind Perkins at $350,000 a year. Next comes DeLoss Dodds of Texas. The former Kansas State track coach earns $318,000 and Dodds is in charge of just the men’s sports at Texas. UT women’s AD Chris Plonsky commands $225,000 — the same figure Mike Alden makes to oversee all the sports at Missouri.
Oklahoma’s Joe Castiglione ($295,000) and K-State’s Tim Weiser ($257,000) rank ahead of Alden and probably Baylor’s Ian McCaw as well. Baylor is a private school and doesn’t have to disclose its salaries, but the Waco Tribune-Herald reported that then-Baylor AD Tom Stanton was earning $225,000 when he resigned in 2003.
Note: Baylor is a private school and does not have to disclose its salaries. |
The lower third of the Big 12 Conference AD pay scale is composed of Iowa State’s Bruce Van De Velde ($200,000), Texas Tech’s Gerald Myers ($195,000), Colorado’s Dick Tharp ($175,000) and Oklahoma State’s Harry Birdwell ($163,200).
Here’s another perspective: Birdwell, the lowest paid conference AD, is making more than Bob Frederick did when he was the Jayhawks’ AD in 2000. Frederick’s salary that year was $161,460.
Frederick, by the way, now teaches courses in sports law and sports administration in KU’s graduate sports studies program. In 2001, his last year as KU’s top sports administrator, Frederick was earning $166,000. His replacement, Al Bohl, was paid $255,000. Then after Bohl was sacked in 2003, KU hired Perkins at $400,000 a year. Last month, Perkins was given a $20,000 raise.
Perkins also makes at least another $100,000 from a media deal, and he surely has other possible income included in his contract, although KU refuses to disclose that supplemental pay despite ongoing efforts by the Journal-World and other media outlets to force disclosure under the Kansas Open Records Act.
Many, if not all, of the Big 12 Conference athletic directors also have deferred compensation clauses — usually in the form of annuities — in their contracts. Texas A&M, for example, lists a $100,000 payment to Byrne in that category. Perkins surely has an annuity, too, but KU is sitting on that info.
Then there are bonuses based on success ratios. Missouri’s Alden, for instance, pockets $10,000 each time either the Tigers’ men’s and women’s basketball teams make the NCAA Tournament. A trip to the Final Four means an additional $20,000 for Alden while a national championship is worth $50,000.
Does Perkins have similar bonus incentives? I’d be surprised if he didn’t, but we don’t know.
Anyway, if I were a mama, I wouldn’t let my babies grow up to be cowboys. I’d steer them to sports administration. Who knows what the salaries will be 20 years from now?
