Assistants become high-ticket items
The buck doesn’t stop with head coaches.
College football’s trickle-down economics, affected both by college and professional football, have made coordinators and positions coaches the next big earners.
If the NFL sets the value of a top-shelf coordinator, colleges must react to keep assistants from shipping out to the pros.
If a school wants to hire the best coordinators and assistants, it must compete with other schools that are willing to pay increasingly higher salaries, too.
“The assistant coaching salaries in the NFL have increased,” UT athletic director Mike Hamilton said, citing Dallas Cowboys offensive coordinator Jason Garrett and his $3 million salary. “So the filter-down effect goes, head coaches at the college level are paid higher thus the coordinators are paid higher, thus the assistant coaches are paid higher.”
It’s a simple progression, really, as Hamilton lays it out.
When a head coach’s cost climbs to more than $2 million, it stands to reason that his right-hand assistants are worth more, too. Likewise, a school’s seven position coaches become more valuable as well.
govolsxtra.com
6/28/08
