Among the last acts for Mark Emmert as University of Washington president was to sign off on a new five-year contract for UW athletic director Scott Woodward.
Through a public-records request, The Times received a copy of Woodward’s contract, signed by Woodward and Emmert on Sept. 30, the last day that Emmert worked at Washington before leaving for his new job at the NCAA.
Emmert said in a phone interview Tuesday the deal had been long in the making and that “I simply had not gotten around to getting it all written up.”
Emmert said he wanted to ensure that the position was solidified before he left UW. Woodward had previously had a three-year contract that included a yearly rollover.
The new contract runs through June 30, 2015 and pays Woodward a base salary of $425,000 per year with total guaranteed compensation each year of $550,000. That is the same salary he received in his former deal that he agreed to when he took the job in September 2008.
However, the new deal calls for Woodward to receive a $500,000 retention bonus if he remains at UW through the end of the contract. Emmert said he wanted to ensure stability in the position.
Emmert and Woodward have been closely tied since Emmert hired Woodward to a position as director of external affairs at Louisiana State in 2000. When Emmert became president at UW in 2004, he brought Woodward along, first as special assistant to the president for external affairs and then vice president for external affairs.
When Todd Turner was fired as athletic director in December 2007, Woodward took over on an interim basis. He was named to the position permanently in September 2008.
“I love the job that I’m doing here and love what our teams are doing and what our student-athletes are doing, and I was happy when they requested that I do another (contract),” Woodward said Tuesday.
Along with the base salary, Woodward’s contract also calls for $75,000 a year as “compensation for postseason related work” — duties related to bowl games and NCAA tournaments — and $50,000 a year for “representing the university’s interests” at alumni, private, public and community events.
The contract also calls for his wife and family to accompany him on departmental expense on six trips a year to “regional or national meetings.” And it also allows for his wife and family to travel to all away football and men’s basketball games to which “travel is undertaken by team charter aircraft.”
Woodward’s total compensation is roughly in line with that of other athletic directors at schools in the Football Bowl Championship Series. A May story in the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer reported that the average annual salary for an athletic director in the 2009-10 academic year in the Big 12 was $543,049 and in the Big Ten was $500,743.
Woodward last week became embroiled in a controversy over comments he made about public spending on academics at the University of Oregon. He later apologized.
