Is Your States Highest Paid Public Employee a Coach?

[newtoasu]

I thought this was an interesting infographic.

From the link:

You may have heard that the highest-paid employee in each state is usually the football coach at the largest state school. This is actually a gross mischaracterization: Sometimes it is the basketball coach.

Based on data drawn from media reports and state salary databases, the ranks of the highest-paid active public employees include 27 football coaches, 13 basketball coaches, one hockey coach, and 10 dorks who aren't even in charge of a team.

I realize that there are lots of variables that go into this, and the website it is from probably leans well to the left, but I posted it because I just thought it was interesting.

By the way, I was able to guess 7 of the 10 states without coaches as their highest paid public employee. I missed on three of them.

Can you guess which 10 do not have coaches as their highest paid public employees?

Here is the link:

http://deadspin.com/infographic-is-your ... -489635228

[HeffnerIV]

I think I read where Coach K earned 7.1M last year. He's employed privately, but his size of his salary contributes to the argument.

[fjblair]

There is something very, very wrong with this picture.

[HeffnerIV]

There is something very, very wrong with this picture.

But is it? Are these folks not being paid based on the value of their contributions/ROI? One could argue this either way

[newtoasu]

There is something very, very wrong with this picture.

But is it? Are these folks not being paid based on the value of their contributions/ROI? One could argue this either way

I thought that too, but the author of the post has a good point about this in the article in the form of hypothetical questions and answer (question is in bold, the author's response in italics):

So what's the problem then? These guys make tons of money for their schools; shouldn't they be paid accordingly?

There are at least three problems.

1. Coaches don't generate revenue on their own; you could make the exact same case for the student-athletes who actually play the game and score the points and fracture their legs.

2. It can be tough to attribute this revenue directly to the performance of the head coach. In 2011-2012, Mack Brown was paid $5 million to lead a mediocre 8-5 Texas team to the Holiday Bowl. The team still generated $103.8 million in revenue, the most in college football. You don't have to pay someone $5 million to make college football profitable in Texas.

3. This revenue rarely makes its way back to the general funds of these universities. Looking at data from 2011-2012, athletic departments at 99 major schools lost an average of $5 million once you take out revenue generated from "student fees" and "university subsidies." If you take out "contributions and donations"—some of which might have gone to the universities had they not been lavished on the athletic departments—this drops to an average loss of $17 million, with just one school (Army) in the black. All this football/basketball revenue is sucked up by coach and AD salaries, by administrative and facility costs, and by the athletic department's non-revenue generating sports; it's not like it's going to microscopes and Bunsen burners.

[App91]

Huge error in the last sentence of #2, IMO. reverse that and go 5-8 at TX and see how much comes in. Guarantee you donors will withold until a change would be made.

[newtoasu]

Huge error in the last sentence of #2, IMO. reverse that and go 5-8 at TX and see how much comes in. Guarantee you donors will withold until a change would be made.

UT did go 5-7 (2010) the year before the 8-5 listed and actually had revenue increase.