Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Salaries for Arizona Wildcat coaches skyrocket
Star sports columnist Greg Hansen offers his opinion on recent sports news.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
UA football coach Mike Stoops was fired five years ago this month, triggering an unprecedented increase in salaries within the school’s athletic department.
According to a campus-wide financial database made available last week by the Arizona Daily Wildcat, the UA football assistant coaching staff is paid almost 200 percent more than those on Stoops’ 2011 staff.
Stoops’ nine full-time assistants were paid a total of $1.48 million in 2011. This year’s nine full-time assistants are paid $5.41 million, an increase of 266 percent.
It is typical not only of the spending at Arizona, but in all 65 Power 5 schools.
The Arizona athletic department has 44 people earning six-figure salaries, and 219 staff members.
In 2010-11, the school’s athletic department had 26 people making six-figure salaries and 148 full-time employees.
Of the 65 Power 5 schools, Arizona is close to the middle financially. Yahoo reported last week that Michigan has 343 athletic department employees, of which 81 are paid six figures.
Here are the 10 highest salaries (not necessarily total compensation) in the UA athletic department for 2016-17:
1. Rich Rodriguez, football coach, $2,375,000.
2. Sean Miller, basketball coach, $2,100,000.
3. Greg Byrne, athletic director, $735,000.
4. Calvin Magee, co-offensive coordinator, $520,000.
5. Marcel Yates, defensive coordinator, $500,000.
6. Rod Smith, co-offensive coordinator, $340,000.
7. Jay Johnson, baseball coach, $335,000.
8. Jim Michalczik, offensive line coach, $310,000.
9. Joe Pasternack, assistant basketball coach, $302,000.
10. Tony Dews, wide receivers coach, $290,000.
The UA athletic department has been able to increase its budget to close to $80 million annually, up from about $55 million when Byrne was hired in the spring of 2010. The leading source of new money comes from the Pac-12 media rights package, which has tripled, from about $8 million per school to about $25 million.
Other notable increases:
For the first time at Arizona, seven nonrevenue head coaches are paid six figures: women’s basketball’s Adia Barnes at $235,000; softball’s Mike Candrea at $230,000; swimming’s Rick DeMont at $143,000; volleyball’s Dave Rubio at $140,000; track’s Fred Harvey at $140,000; soccer’s Tony Amato at $106,000; gymnastics’ Tabitha Yim at $105,000.
That’s a total of almost $1.1 million. Five years ago the head coaches in those sports were paid a total of $810,000.
There appears to be no governor to slow the escalation of spending in college athletics. At the same rate, in another five years, Arizona would have a yearly budget of about $100 million.
A man coaching guards and tackles would earn close to $400,000 a year.
Follow the TV money; that’s why Pac-12 football and basketball games are broadcast at inconvenient times, and why nonrevenue teams like UA volleyball and soccer are forced to go on road trips that begin Wednesday afternoon and end Sunday night to accommodate the Pac-12 Network.
It’s not about the student-athlete experience as much as it is paying the adults at the top.
Pat Nugent‘s Cienega High School Bobcats, 10-0, are one of four undefeated teams among 126 “big school” teams in Arizona prep football, meaning classifications 6A, 5A and 4A. This isn’t new ground for Cienega; in 2011, former coach Nemer Hassey coached the Bobcats to a 13-0 start before losing to powerful Scottsdale Chaparral in the state championship game. That Chaparral team, coached by current UA special teams coach Charlie Ragle had four players who signed with or played for Arizona: halfback DaVonte’ Neal, quarterback Connor Brewer, linebacker Dylan Cozens and linebacker Cody Ippolito. The only other undefeated 5A team this year is Williams Field, which is the No. 2 seed in the 5A playoffs to Cienega’s No. 1. The Nov. 10 quarterfinals are likely to have a Cienega-Mountain View rematch, this time at Cienega.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
I wrote last week of 28 Tucson-affiliated ballplayers who had played for the Cleveland Indians. There’s more: long-time Tucsonan Tom Waddell, who operated The Yard baseball academy here, pitched for Cleveland from 1984-87, and former Sahuaro High pitcher/outfielder Tom Wiedenbauer is Cleveland’s director of minor league operations and former first base coach. Former Amphitheater baseball standout Mike Bradford has two sons, C.T. Bradford and Michael Bradford, who are Indians scouts. Both were given tickets to the first two games of the World Series.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
If you watch the Green Bay-Atlanta NFL game Sunday, keep your eyes out for No. 50. Former Sabino High School and UA defensive end Brooks Reed wears No. 50 for Atlanta; at 29, he has made 195 career tackles. CDO and Stanford grad Blake Martinez wears No. 50 for the Packers. He has started five of Green Bay’s six games this years, as a rookie, and has 34 tackles.
The Pac-12 brought Arizona’s four-time Pac-10 women’s cross country champion Amy Skieresz Wilson to Tucson on Friday to be part of the medal ceremony following the league’s men’s and women’s cross country championships at Randolph Golf Complex. Too bad Amy is out of eligibility. Arizona’s men’s team finished ninth, and the UA women’s team was eighth.
Pima College is ranked No.1 nationally entering the women’s basketball season and coach Todd Holthaus won’t start out by playing an Arizona-inspired Cupcake Campaign. The Aztecs will play at No. 3 New Mexico Junior College in Hobbs, New Mexico, on Friday. NMJC is a Division I team, meaning it has dormitories to house athletes; Pima is Division II. The New Mexico team has a roster with players from Brazil, Russia and Poland. Holthaus’ roster has 13 players from Southern Arizona.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Arizona sophomore wing Allonzo Trier practiced with the Wildcats last week, even though the school has chosen not to reply on his eligibility status. It’s unclear if he’ll play in Tuesday’s exhibition game against College of Idaho, which is coached by Scott Garson, who was part of the Rick Majerus staff that eliminated Arizona at the 1998 Elite Eight; Garson later coached under Ben Howland at UCLA for 10 seasons.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
On Valentine’s Day, 2014, ASU shocked Arizona in two overtimes, 69-66, in Tempe, and Sun Devil point guard Jahii Carson was at the center of attention. How times change. Today, Carson has signed with the Island Storm in the low-brow Canadian pro basketball league, after quick stops with teams in Australia, Turkey and Serbia. Arizona point guard T.J. McConnell, who matched Carson’s 17 point total in that Valentine’s Day game, has now played in 82 NBA games covering 1,622 minutes. You never know.
Garrett Lever, son of Pueblo High School legend Fat Lever, a two-time state championship point guard and two-time NBA All-Star, was in Tucson last week on a recruiting trip for Weber State, where Garrett is an assistant coach. Lever was evaluating Sunnyside center Santino Duarte and wing player Nikc Jackson.
Former UA assistant coach Phil Johnson, part of Arizona’s 1997 national championship team, was at Pima College last week to recruit/evaluate Empire High School grad Deion James, a 6-6 wing player. Johnson is an assistant coach at UTEP. Also at Pima last week: UA assistant coach Joe Pasternack watched the nation’s No. 1 prospect from the Class of 2017, 7-foot center DeAndre Ayton, who played for Hillcrest Prep in a practice game against PCC. Ayton was as advertised: fluid, athletic, a dominant inside presence with a shooting touch to 12 feet. Ayton won’t be without good competition this year: Hillcrest plays games in the Bahamas, in Mississippi, Kentucky and Florida before New Year’s.
The Tucson Roadrunners announced a sellout crowd of 6,521 in Friday’s inaugural home game, a thrilling comeback victory over Stockton. There were probably about 5,500 at the Tucson Arena but now comes the hard part: generating excitement for 12 games that won’t be played on Friday/Saturday night. The Roadrunners have more home games (eight) in November than any other month, and only two in February, which is the high season for Tucson sports.
Tucson High grad Antonio Rosales started his eighth career game for San Diego State in Friday’s victory at Utah State. Rosales, a right guard who is 6-5, 295, is a key part of the Aztecs 7-1 success and the bid for Aztecs tailback Donnel Pumphrey to contend for the Heisman Trophy. Pumphrey already has 1,469 rushing yards this year, tops in FBS.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
When Amphitheater broke a six-year football playoff drought, beating Pueblo Friday night, former Panther state championship coach Vern Friedli was back at Friedli Field, a guest of coach Jorge Mendivil. Friedli has rarely returned to his old stadium since retiring. While there, he saw a familiar face: referee Jerry Gastellum. It was the last game of Gastellum’s distinguished 40-year career as a football official, which began in 1977. He later became a Pac-10 football official, a long-time athletic administrator for TUSD, and now works as a television replay official for the Pac-12. Better yet, Gastellum worked the Amphi-Pueblo game with his son, Christopher, part of the new generation of football officials in Tucson; Christopher began working for the AIA in 2010.
In Arizona’s eight-game fall softball exhibition season, the Wildcats outscored opponents 80-0. Yes, it was against junior-college opponents, but it was impressive because Arizona pitchers only walked four hitters in 49 innings. Redshirt freshman outfielder Alyssa Palomino and freshman catcher Dejah Mulipola batted Nos. 2-3 in the lineup and hit .571 and .567, respectively.
Arizona’s Sean Miller last week offered a scholarship to Class of 2020 – that’s the freshman class – prospect Jalen Green of Fresno, California.
A year ago, the UA softball program got a commitment from an eighth grader, Giulia Koutsoyanopulos of Orange County, California, and a few months later got a commitment from Ironwood Ridge third baseman Isabel Pacho, before her sophomore season.
A week ago, UA baseball coach Jay Johnson offered a scholarship to Cienega High School outfielder Elliott Jordan, who had just 22 at-bats as a freshman last spring.
That’s the new way of college recruiting. But trying to successfully evaluate 13- and 14-year-olds is inexact, to put it mildly.
When I was a sophomore in high school, my classmate David Abel, a lefty, started at shortstop and batted No. 3 in the lineup, was the starting point guard in basketball, and the top running back on the football team. When he didn’t have baseball practice, he ran sprints for the track team and was the fastest runner in the region.
I couldn’t imagine a better athlete anywhere. Starting for four varsity sports as a sophomore was virtually unprecedented. He was easily the best prep athlete in the state of Utah.
People asked him for his autograph when he was 14.
By his senior year, Abel was a reserve basketball guard who sat out most of the football season with a knee injury, and, in baseball, Abel slumped and was dropped to the bottom half of the lineup. His once-explosive speed was gone.
It was so sad to watch; Abel was one of the nicest and most popular young men I knew. He did not play sports after high school, graduating from Utah State with a business degree and working in the healthcare industry. He died of colon cancer in 2008.
When I hear that college recruiters are pursing 13 and 14-year-olds, I think of my friend David Abel. It doesn’t always work out.
UA football coach Mike Stoops was fired five years ago this month, triggering an unprecedented increase in salaries within the school’s athletic department.
According to a campus-wide financial database made available last week by the Arizona Daily Wildcat, the UA football assistant coaching staff is paid almost 200 percent more than those on Stoops’ 2011 staff.
Stoops’ nine full-time assistants were paid a total of $1.48 million in 2011. This year’s nine full-time assistants are paid $5.41 million, an increase of 266 percent.
It is typical not only of the spending at Arizona, but in all 65 Power 5 schools.
The Arizona athletic department has 44 people earning six-figure salaries, and 219 staff members.
In 2010-11, the school’s athletic department had 26 people making six-figure salaries and 148 full-time employees.
Of the 65 Power 5 schools, Arizona is close to the middle financially. Yahoo reported last week that Michigan has 343 athletic department employees, of which 81 are paid six figures.
Here are the 10 highest salaries (not necessarily total compensation) in the UA athletic department for 2016-17:
1. Rich Rodriguez, football coach, $2,375,000.
2. Sean Miller, basketball coach, $2,100,000.
3. Greg Byrne, athletic director, $735,000.
4. Calvin Magee, co-offensive coordinator, $520,000.
5. Marcel Yates, defensive coordinator, $500,000.
6. Rod Smith, co-offensive coordinator, $340,000.
7. Jay Johnson, baseball coach, $335,000.
8. Jim Michalczik, offensive line coach, $310,000.
9. Joe Pasternack, assistant basketball coach, $302,000.
10. Tony Dews, wide receivers coach, $290,000.
The UA athletic department has been able to increase its budget to close to $80 million annually, up from about $55 million when Byrne was hired in the spring of 2010. The leading source of new money comes from the Pac-12 media rights package, which has tripled, from about $8 million per school to about $25 million.
Other notable increases:
For the first time at Arizona, seven nonrevenue head coaches are paid six figures: women’s basketball’s Adia Barnes at $235,000; softball’s Mike Candrea at $230,000; swimming’s Rick DeMont at $143,000; volleyball’s Dave Rubio at $140,000; track’s Fred Harvey at $140,000; soccer’s Tony Amato at $106,000; gymnastics’ Tabitha Yim at $105,000.
That’s a total of almost $1.1 million. Five years ago the head coaches in those sports were paid a total of $810,000.
There appears to be no governor to slow the escalation of spending in college athletics. At the same rate, in another five years, Arizona would have a yearly budget of about $100 million.
A man coaching guards and tackles would earn close to $400,000 a year.
Follow the TV money; that’s why Pac-12 football and basketball games are broadcast at inconvenient times, and why nonrevenue teams like UA volleyball and soccer are forced to go on road trips that begin Wednesday afternoon and end Sunday night to accommodate the Pac-12 Network.
It’s not about the student-athlete experience as much as it is paying the adults at the top.
Pat Nugent‘s Cienega High School Bobcats, 10-0, are one of four undefeated teams among 126 “big school” teams in Arizona prep football, meaning classifications 6A, 5A and 4A. This isn’t new ground for Cienega; in 2011, former coach Nemer Hassey coached the Bobcats to a 13-0 start before losing to powerful Scottsdale Chaparral in the state championship game. That Chaparral team, coached by current UA special teams coach Charlie Ragle had four players who signed with or played for Arizona: halfback DaVonte’ Neal, quarterback Connor Brewer, linebacker Dylan Cozens and linebacker Cody Ippolito. The only other undefeated 5A team this year is Williams Field, which is the No. 2 seed in the 5A playoffs to Cienega’s No. 1. The Nov. 10 quarterfinals are likely to have a Cienega-Mountain View rematch, this time at Cienega.
I wrote last week of 28 Tucson-affiliated ballplayers who had played for the Cleveland Indians. There’s more: long-time Tucsonan Tom Waddell, who operated The Yard baseball academy here, pitched for Cleveland from 1984-87, and former Sahuaro High pitcher/outfielder Tom Wiedenbauer is Cleveland’s director of minor league operations and former first base coach. Former Amphitheater baseball standout Mike Bradford has two sons, C.T. Bradford and Michael Bradford, who are Indians scouts. Both were given tickets to the first two games of the World Series.
If you watch the Green Bay-Atlanta NFL game Sunday, keep your eyes out for No. 50. Former Sabino High School and UA defensive end Brooks Reed wears No. 50 for Atlanta; at 29, he has made 195 career tackles. CDO and Stanford grad Blake Martinez wears No. 50 for the Packers. He has started five of Green Bay’s six games this years, as a rookie, and has 34 tackles.
The Pac-12 brought Arizona’s four-time Pac-10 women’s cross country champion Amy Skieresz Wilson to Tucson on Friday to be part of the medal ceremony following the league’s men’s and women’s cross country championships at Randolph Golf Complex. Too bad Amy is out of eligibility. Arizona’s men’s team finished ninth, and the UA women’s team was eighth.
Pima College is ranked No.1 nationally entering the women’s basketball season and coach Todd Holthaus won’t start out by playing an Arizona-inspired Cupcake Campaign. The Aztecs will play at No. 3 New Mexico Junior College in Hobbs, New Mexico, on Friday. NMJC is a Division I team, meaning it has dormitories to house athletes; Pima is Division II. The New Mexico team has a roster with players from Brazil, Russia and Poland. Holthaus’ roster has 13 players from Southern Arizona.
Arizona sophomore wing Allonzo Trier practiced with the Wildcats last week, even though the school has chosen not to reply on his eligibility status. It’s unclear if he’ll play in Tuesday’s exhibition game against College of Idaho, which is coached by Scott Garson, who was part of the Rick Majerus staff that eliminated Arizona at the 1998 Elite Eight; Garson later coached under Ben Howland at UCLA for 10 seasons.
On Valentine’s Day, 2014, ASU shocked Arizona in two overtimes, 69-66, in Tempe, and Sun Devil point guard Jahii Carson was at the center of attention. How times change. Today, Carson has signed with the Island Storm in the low-brow Canadian pro basketball league, after quick stops with teams in Australia, Turkey and Serbia. Arizona point guard T.J. McConnell, who matched Carson’s 17 point total in that Valentine’s Day game, has now played in 82 NBA games covering 1,622 minutes. You never know.
Garrett Lever, son of Pueblo High School legend Fat Lever, a two-time state championship point guard and two-time NBA All-Star, was in Tucson last week on a recruiting trip for Weber State, where Garrett is an assistant coach. Lever was evaluating Sunnyside center Santino Duarte and wing player Nikc Jackson.
Former UA assistant coach Phil Johnson, part of Arizona’s 1997 national championship team, was at Pima College last week to recruit/evaluate Empire High School grad Deion James, a 6-6 wing player. Johnson is an assistant coach at UTEP. Also at Pima last week: UA assistant coach Joe Pasternack watched the nation’s No. 1 prospect from the Class of 2017, 7-foot center DeAndre Ayton, who played for Hillcrest Prep in a practice game against PCC. Ayton was as advertised: fluid, athletic, a dominant inside presence with a shooting touch to 12 feet. Ayton won’t be without good competition this year: Hillcrest plays games in the Bahamas, in Mississippi, Kentucky and Florida before New Year’s.
The Tucson Roadrunners announced a sellout crowd of 6,521 in Friday’s inaugural home game, a thrilling comeback victory over Stockton. There were probably about 5,500 at the Tucson Arena but now comes the hard part: generating excitement for 12 games that won’t be played on Friday/Saturday night. The Roadrunners have more home games (eight) in November than any other month, and only two in February, which is the high season for Tucson sports.
Tucson High grad Antonio Rosales started his eighth career game for San Diego State in Friday’s victory at Utah State. Rosales, a right guard who is 6-5, 295, is a key part of the Aztecs 7-1 success and the bid for Aztecs tailback Donnel Pumphrey to contend for the Heisman Trophy. Pumphrey already has 1,469 rushing yards this year, tops in FBS.
When Amphitheater broke a six-year football playoff drought, beating Pueblo Friday night, former Panther state championship coach Vern Friedli was back at Friedli Field, a guest of coach Jorge Mendivil. Friedli has rarely returned to his old stadium since retiring. While there, he saw a familiar face: referee Jerry Gastellum. It was the last game of Gastellum’s distinguished 40-year career as a football official, which began in 1977. He later became a Pac-10 football official, a long-time athletic administrator for TUSD, and now works as a television replay official for the Pac-12. Better yet, Gastellum worked the Amphi-Pueblo game with his son, Christopher, part of the new generation of football officials in Tucson; Christopher began working for the AIA in 2010.
In Arizona’s eight-game fall softball exhibition season, the Wildcats outscored opponents 80-0. Yes, it was against junior-college opponents, but it was impressive because Arizona pitchers only walked four hitters in 49 innings. Redshirt freshman outfielder Alyssa Palomino and freshman catcher Dejah Mulipola batted Nos. 2-3 in the lineup and hit .571 and .567, respectively.
Arizona’s Sean Miller last week offered a scholarship to Class of 2020 – that’s the freshman class – prospect Jalen Green of Fresno, California.
A year ago, the UA softball program got a commitment from an eighth grader, Giulia Koutsoyanopulos of Orange County, California, and a few months later got a commitment from Ironwood Ridge third baseman Isabel Pacho, before her sophomore season.
A week ago, UA baseball coach Jay Johnson offered a scholarship to Cienega High School outfielder Elliott Jordan, who had just 22 at-bats as a freshman last spring.
That’s the new way of college recruiting. But trying to successfully evaluate 13- and 14-year-olds is inexact, to put it mildly.
When I was a sophomore in high school, my classmate David Abel, a lefty, started at shortstop and batted No. 3 in the lineup, was the starting point guard in basketball, and the top running back on the football team. When he didn’t have baseball practice, he ran sprints for the track team and was the fastest runner in the region.
I couldn’t imagine a better athlete anywhere. Starting for four varsity sports as a sophomore was virtually unprecedented. He was easily the best prep athlete in the state of Utah.
People asked him for his autograph when he was 14.
By his senior year, Abel was a reserve basketball guard who sat out most of the football season with a knee injury, and, in baseball, Abel slumped and was dropped to the bottom half of the lineup. His once-explosive speed was gone.
It was so sad to watch; Abel was one of the nicest and most popular young men I knew. He did not play sports after high school, graduating from Utah State with a business degree and working in the healthcare industry. He died of colon cancer in 2008.
When I hear that college recruiters are pursing 13 and 14-year-olds, I think of my friend David Abel. It doesn’t always work out.
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