Buyouts Costing U Of Illinois More Than $7 Million

DailyIllini.com, Chad Thornburg

http://www.dailyillini.com/index.php/article/2012/03/coaching_buyouts_to_cost_athletics_department_more_than_7_million

Buyout costs are adding up for the Illinois athletic department.

Over the past 10 months, the names behind four of the highest paid and most prominent positions in Illinois athletics have changed or are in the process of changing.

In June, Ron Guenther retired after a 19-year run as Illinois’ athletics director and Mike Thomas was hired as his replacement. Thomas quickly set a precedent for change with the firing of football head coach Ron Zook, women’s basketball head coach Jolette Law and, just last week, men’s basketball head coach Bruce Weber.

The firings marked the first time all three sports have changed head coaches in the same year, with the men’s basketball and football positions changing simultaneously just once in the past 40 years.

All three teams finished among the bottom third of the Big Ten this season. Thomas hired former Toledo coach Tim Beckman in December to replace Zook, and searches for the next basketball coaches are ongoing.

Illinois’ Division of Intercollegiate Athletics will pay more than $7 million in buyouts to the three departed coaches, all of whom had multiple years left on their contracts. Zook had $2.6 million remaining over two years, Weber had $3.9 million over three years and Law had $620,000 over two years. All three coaches received contract extensions from Guenther within the last three years. Without the extensions, all three coaches’ contracts would have been expired by the end of the current year.

The buyouts will be paid entirely with DIA money that is separate from University or state funds.

“Obviously our budget is something you’re concerned about every day,” DIA Sports Information Director Kent Brown said. “But I think at the end of the day when that decision is made, it’s based on long-term viability and long-term investments that you have in your programs.”

Football and men’s basketball are Illinois’ only profitable sports. According to Illinois’ 2011 financial report to the NCAA, the most recent available, football and men’s basketball accounted for 83.4 percent of the approximately $52.6 million in revenue generated in 2011 specifically by the University’s 19 sports. The DIA’s total revenues that year were about $77.9 million.

Brown cited ticket sales and postseason success as areas where Illinois could improve financially in the long term as a result of the coaching changes.

The average football attendance at Memorial Stadium has dropped each year from Illinois’ Rose Bowl season, from 61,707 in 2008 to 59,544 in 2009, 54,188 in 2010 and 49,548 last season. It isn’t likely to see a dramatic turnaround next season, with a home schedule featuring few marquee opponents (Western Michigan, Louisiana Tech, Penn State, Indiana, Minnesota and Purdue).

Last season’s women’s basketball attendance was the lowest in the Big Ten, with an average of 1,070 fans attending each game.

“There is no question (the coaching buyouts are) a big chunk of money over three years, but in the time that we live in, sometimes that’s the cost of doing business,” Brown said.

Aside from the head coaches, the rest of the football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball coaching staffs’ contracts won’t have much impact on Illinois’ payroll if they are not retained going forward. Zook’s assistants have all gotten other coaching jobs and all of the basketball assistants — with the exception of interim men’s coach Jerrance Howard — were signed to one-year contracts that will expire in April. Howard is the only assistant coach who will remain on Illinois’ payroll if not retained, with two years remaining on his deal.

Thomas’ swift changes have him juggling two coaching searches at once, between the men’s and women’s basketball programs. He did not set a timetable for the completion of either search.

“Those will run on parallel tracks,” Thomas said at a press conference to announce Weber’s firing Friday. “To say that one will wrap up quicker than the other, I can’t speak to that. Some of these things can be very fluid, and once in a while you get thrown curve balls, so we’ll do our best to manage the situation. I’m very confident that we will hire two coaches that we’ll all be excited about will do great things for those respective programs.”

The timeline for both searches is dependent on the availability of those still coaching teams in postseason tournaments.

“It can only move as fast as availability occurs,” Brown said.

Thomas said he will likely employ a search firm to aid with the men’s coaching search but currently has no plans to do so for the women’s coaching search.

“I know a lot of schools have had success using firms,” Thomas said during the press conference. “I’ve done it both ways. … Knowing I’m working with two searches on a parallel track, that kind of support would be a real benefit.”

Brown said Thomas is likely to make a decision on the search firm by the end of this week and that the costs of the search firm are often based on a percentage of the contract signed by the coach.

Once the candidates are selected, the University Board of Trustees must approve their contracts.