Scottsdale, Ariz. – If Alabama wants to sell its soul to win football games, let it. I have seen enough of that school’s operation and the whole Southeastern Conference to know the sleaze factor down there is unmatched. Every time I leave SEC country I want to take a long, hot shower.
And there I was Thursday in the media headquarters here watching that unabashed liar Alabama hired at his introductory news conference on TV, and I nearly jumped, clothes and all, right into the resort’s swimming pool.
Alabama is paying Nick Saban $4 million a year plus incentives to leave the Miami Dolphins. That’s understandable. Winning football games is the most important thing in existence in that state, and Alabama is on its fifth coach in eight years trying to find the right one.
What the Crimson Tide bought was a bald-faced liar, a man who lied to his players, fans, the media, all forgiven by the panting Crimson Tide faithful because of that championship ring he wears from his days at Louisiana State.
Alabama made Saban the highest-paid coach in the country, topping the $3.45 million of Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops. The bar has been raised. Place your bets on how fast it goes up again.
My concern, and a concern that’s sweeping across the country from campuses to Congress, is the repercussions for future contracts and for the forgotten people: the nonrevenue sports athletes and the longtime middle-class boosters. When will coaches’ astronomical salaries reach a point where schools thirsty for quick glory start cutting programs to pay for them?
And imagine how high season-ticket prices go up in order to pay these guys. All across the country, new basketball arenas are being built for greater revenue, and the insurance agent who has followed ol’ State U. since it was Division II in the 1960s is getting pushed out in favor of the well-heeled booster jumping on the bandwagon.
Don’t think that won’t happen when universities start selling their new big names in football.
Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith is one of the many ADs appalled at what Alabama did. Smith said: “You’re talking about a number that would require a lot of schools to drop programs.” He is just hoping other schools don’t take Alabama’s lead.
“I think it will have an impact long-term,” Smith said Thursday. “No doubt. In the immediate time frame, most athletic departments, most institutions, if they have a coach who wants to go to the NFL, go. We’re not going to pay you that kind of money. We’re not interested in chasing an NFL coach who’s making the kind of money Nick Saban made at Miami.
“But that’s just us.”
Smith paid attention to Saban’s obscene dance with Alabama. Smith’s top-ranked Buckeyes meet second-ranked Florida for the BCS national championship in nearby Glendale, Ariz., on Monday night, and if Ohio State wins the national title, coach Jim Tressel can renegotiate his contract.
Saban won the 2003 national title at LSU. This would be Tressel’s second in five years at OSU. He is making $2.6 million a year. What would Tressel be worth? True, he never coached in the NFL, but some say Saban didn’t, either. He went 15-17 at Miami.
“Alabama felt it had to be in that neighborhood,” Smith said. “I’m not going that way. I know Jim’s not thinking that way. I’m confident in our relationship. That doesn’t mean five to 10 years from now it might be different.”
The big difference between Alabama and Ohio State is the three most popular sports at Alabama are football, spring football and football recruiting. Ohio State offers a broad range of athletics. No other state university offers close to the 36 sports financed at Ohio State. Alabama has 21. Ohio State has 900 intercollegiate athletes and spends $12 million in scholarship money.
Alabama can certainly afford Saban. In the 2005-06 school year, the football program generated $44 million of the athletic department’s $68.6 million in revenues. The athletic department spent $61.5 million. But coaches’ salaries have become the new arms race in college athletics. Schools who try to join the war might get burned.
This could get ugly. NCAA president Myles Brand says coaches’ salaries will be the most important issue he faces in 2007, and the House Ways and Means Committee has asked Brand to explain the coaches’ salaries and why athletic departments deserve tax-exempt status.
Keep in mind Saban has an unusual résumé. Only he and South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier won national titles, coached in the NFL and returned. But when Pete Carroll’s agent renegotiates with USC, how fast will he bring up Saban’s 15-17 record against Carroll’s 2003-04 national titles and two playoff appearances with the New England Patriots? Then again, Saban could win his second national title at Alabama.
He’d better.
John Henderson can be reached at 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
