On the same afternoon that the Arizona Board of Regents voted to push Dave Heeke’s annual compensation to nearly $1 million, they also had him spend more than a half hour publicly discussing the ever-changing difficulties of his job.
Heeke’s latest headache: Finding roughly $3 million a year to pay for the academic bonuses of up to $5,980 that schools are now allowed to pay each athlete on top of scholarships and cost-of-attendance allowances.
Since Arizona has nearly 500 student-athletes, Heeke said he is expecting to work a total of $3 million annually for the academic bonuses into future budgets, which at Arizona are typically around $100 million a year. He said UA is taking its time to make a plan but will begin the payments this fall.
“We’ll phase it in but we feel it’s the right thing to do,” Heeke said.
Heeke said the “competitive and recruiting standpoint” is also prompting the change, and an ESPN story earlier this week indicated Arizona may not have a choice if it wants to stay in line with its power-conference peers.
ESPN said it contacted 130 FBS schools and 21 of the 101 who responded said they already planned to make the payments — including Pac-12 rival Washington.
So not paying the bonuses, as with full the cost-of-attendance stipends, could put UA coaches at a disadvantage in recruiting. For similar reasons, the bonuses aren’t likely to be tied to a particular grade-point average but instead paid fully toward those who are remaining eligible and working toward a degree — so that a recruit can’t be offered a more generous potential bonus somewhere else.
“I think it will be centered more around progressing,” Heeke said. Things such as “you’re meeting all the benchmarks for the NCAA, you’re getting your APR points, you’re making progress toward a degree, remaining eligible and according to NCAA standards, you’re in good standing, you’re not in violation of NCAA rules, team rules, all of those kinds of things. It gets kind of hard to say `Hey, you’ve got to be a 3.0 or 4.0 student to get this.’ ”
A federal ruling prompted the NCAA to change its rules in August 2020 to allow the $5,980 payments, according to ESPN, using a figure that equaled the amount of value an athlete could receive from awards related to their athletic performance.
The academic bonus issue comes on top of changes involving the transfer portal and name, image and likeness rules over the past year that have already remade much of the college sports landscape.
After the Regents voted Thursday to approve a two-year contract extension and $95,000 raise for Heeke, he addressed the issues in a public forum with them during their meeting at the UA student union.
“We’re heading in a real new direction when it comes to college athletics,” Heeke said.
Heeke, 58, had been under contract through March 2023. The Regents unanimously approved a new deal extending his contract through March 2025 while boosting his base salary to $875,000 annually from April 2022 to March 2023. Heeke’s base pay will rise to $885,000 in 2023-24 and $895,000 in 2024-25, ending on March 31, 2025.
Heeke also will continue to receive a $100,000 annual retention bonus for staying at UA but can now can leave in the final year of his deal without owing the UA any buyout money, a change from past deals. Heeke would owe $200,000 if he left before April 1, 2024, though Robbins can waive the buyout should he choose.
Heeke will continue to earn bonuses based on athletic and academic achievement. Last year, the Wildcats’ AD received $147,126.43 in total bonuses. He was paid $118,007.66 in various bonuses after Arizona’s women’s basketball team made the Final Four, the baseball and softball teams made the College World Series, and the women’s golf team finished in the top eight nationally.
He also received $29,118.77 because Arizona’s women student-athletes had a higher cumulative GPA (3.48) than that of the general women’s student body (3.23).
