$512K? Paterno is quite a bargain
Posted: Friday, November 30, 2007 6:13 AM
If you believe everything you read, you’d think that Penn State coach Joe Paterno works cheap. After a long battle in the Pennsylvania courts, the university was forced to part with the salary its paying Paterno, and it turns out to be a relatively paltry $512,220.
If that were his actual salary, it would be a relative pittance. But it’s not. It’s just what the university pays him directly. And, lest you shed any tears for JoePa, he makes more money from other sources – a total of $2 million a year, according to dopke.com.
The $2 million puts Paterno in the upper echelon of college coaches. According to a story in USA Today last year, the average salary of top-level NCAA football coaches last year was just short of a million dollars. At least 42 coaches were making more than a million dollars a year compared to five making that much in 1999. Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz led the pack at $4.6 million.
The dopke.com report puts Ferentz’ salary at $2.84 million, good for fifth place behind Pete Carroll, Charlie Weis, Bob Stoops and Nick Saban, whose salary was put at $4 million. That report had 44 coaches making more than one million and 14 making $2 million, with Paterno in the 14th spot. Only Ohio State’s Jim Tressel was ahead of him in the Big Ten.
In addition to salaries, many coaches make more in incentives and perks, including country club memberships, cars, benefits, subsidized housing and other hand outs. In addition, the big-time guys get money for their own TV or radio shows and commercial endorsements.
Everyone who tries to pin down college coaches’ salaries notes that it’s hard to gather the information because the schools try to keep it confidential. That was Penn State’s position before a newspaper filed suit to get the information.
I’d like to feel sorry for those whose salaries are public record. Few of us want everyone to know what we’re making. And Paterno was ticked that he had to tell what he makes – or at least part of what he makes.
“It bothers me that people have to know what I make,” he reportedly told reporters. “What difference does it make what I make, all right? I don’t know what you guys make.”
It makes a big difference because he works for a state institution that is partially funded by taxpayers. That means his employers are the citizens of Pennsylvania, and, just as every American has the right to know what the President makes (It’s $400,000 a year; half what your average college football coach hauls down.), they have the right to know what the university president, the head of the English department and the football coach makes. That way, they can decide whether they want to keep voting for the people who agree to pay those salaries.
Paterno’s got another year to go on his current contract, and he hints at going even longer. I’ve been critical of him in the past, when his teams were not performing well, but he’s done nothing this year to suggest he can’t do the job anymore. And considering his stature and the money he brings into the university, $2 million total and half a million directly from the university is not an exorbitant amount to pay.
Certainly, Penn State got more out of the $2 million Paterno got than Texas A&M got for the $2 million-plus it paid to the departed Dennis Franchione, or the $1.7 million Nebraska paid to Bill Callahan.
And compared to the $3 million Charlie Weis is said to be getting, it’s the bargain of the century.
