What College Basketball Coaches Make

The Next Renovation of Stegeman
As we said on Tuesday, there's a rumor out there that UGA is "preparing" to offer Jeff Capel of Oklahoma "in excess of $2 million" to coach Georgia. I said at the time that this looks like the sort of rumor put forth by Capel's agent to drive up the price for Capel at OU.

The latest rumor plastered on several Big 12 message boards says we'd pay Capel as much as $2.8 million per year. The initial reaction from many Dawg fans is "That's what Richt makes. No way we'd go that high." I've said previously that Richt's salary has nothing to do with this search, but I do realize that statement has its limits.

Instead of discussing the merits of football vs. basketball, I thought it might be interesting to get some perspective on what different coaches in basketball actually make. A random sampling of coaches (per year):

• Billy Donovan (UF) - $3.4 million
• Bill Self (Kansas) - $3 million
• John Calipari (Memphis) - $2.5 million
• Billy Gillespie (UK) - $2.3 million
• Rick Pitino (Louisville) - $2.25 million + $7.2 mil in longevity bonuses
• Roy Williams (UNC) - $2 million
• Ben Howland (UCLA) - $1.97 million
• Tubby Smith (Minnesota) - $1.85 million + enormous incentive upside
• Jim Calhoun (UConn) - $1.6 million
• Bruce Pearl (UT) - $1.6 million
• Jamie Dixon (Pitt) - $1.3 million
  
• Jay Wright (Villanova) - $1.3 million (per a poorly sourced article)
• Lon Kruger (UNLV) - $1 million
• Jeff Capel (Oklahoma) - $1 million
• Mike Anderson (Missouri) - $850,000
• Dennis Felton (ex-UGA) $760,000
  
• Mark Few (Gonzaga) - $750,000 (per a poorly sourced article)
• Anthony Grant (VCU) - $700,000

With Georgia, Alabama, Arizona and others about to go on the prowl for coaches, lots of coaches are going to huge get pay raises. Particularly, Mike Anderson, Jeff Capel and Jamie Dixon.

Georgia is going to get aggressive in compensation. I buy into that. But $2.8 million? Puhleaze. We're not going to pay our next coach 40 percent more than what Roy Williams makes at UNC. We're getting serious ... not stupid.

I personally think we'll end up paying $1.5-1.8 million, and that would land us plenty of prime time candidates.

PWD


BTW -- If you're wondering why Tom Izzo isn't on the list? He gets a balloon payment of $4 million in 2010 on top of the $1.7 million he makes currently and the $7 million he made in 2006. He's not going anywhere. Also, I didn't list Mike Brey or Sean Miller because the salaries of private university coaches can be tough to find.