My two cents: UA wise not to break bank on Johnson
Arizona hopes to break ground on a $6.5 million Wildcats Academic Center by the end of the year. It will be a stand-alone structure near McKale Center for the CATS Life Skills Program, the compliance office, study rooms, a computer lab and a tutorial center.
The conceptual design study has begun.
That’s why you don’t have to hire a baseball coach for $500,000 a year. There are more important things, and Greg Byrne has maintained that perspective.
In Pac-12 baseball, Oregon pays coach George Horton $650,000. UCLA is paying John Savage close to $900,000. In total compensation, Oregon State and ASU are well over $400,000 for baseball coaches.
Byrne is paying Jay Johnson a base salary of $160,000, although a deal with Nike and the bats-and-balls people will up that to something near $300,000.
Johnson gets credit, too. In 2012, he was offered a chance to be the head coach at San Jose State. He declined, choosing to remain an assistant for the San Diego Toreros. He was betting on himself, and last week, his ship came in.
It wasn’t a luxury liner, but it has floated in college baseball’s deepest waters for 65 years.
