On Women's Basketball

At the median -- but below average

Posted by: Tony Bleill

Thursday, October 22, 2009 11:56 AM

Buried in an Associated Press story on Tuesday about the NCAA's report on revenues and expenses for its member schools was a listing of the median salary for women's basketball head coaches among Football Bowl Subdivision (nee Division I-A) programs.

According to the NCAA figures, the median head coach makes $277,000. (The average figure isn't listed.) If you're wondering, Illinois coach Jolette Law receives 300k a year, and being just beyond the median probably makes athletic director Ron Guenther smile. The UI's athletic general likes to claim that, with regard to coaching salaries, his department keeps spending reasonable while staying competitive, and perhaps there's some truth in that. I've been critical in the past of the athletic administration's treatment of its women's basketball program, my main point being that an athletic director who values his women's program wouldn't let it slide as Illinois' did earlier this decade. Furthermore, when a coaching opening arrived in 2007, the going rate for a top-notch coach was more than 300k. Though his football program was just 4 1/2 months removed from a Rose Bowl appearance, Guenther didn't budge, instead choosing to hire a first-year head coach, saving himself probably 200k a year. On the opposite end of the spectrum -- or, as the Zooker so eloquently says, "On the same token" -- there's Kansas, where AD Lew Perkins was so serious about his women's program that he hired Bonnie Henrickson away from Virginia Tech a few years ago and paid her nearly three quarters of a million dollars -- per season. And, at the time, Kansas' football program wasn't much, so the dollars weren't exactly flying around like late-October ladybugs in Lawrence.

There is no doubt that women's basketball programs are loss leaders at FBS schools. According to the NCAA report, only one made money in the 2007-08 academic year, upon which the study was based. Because of the expenses involved and, in most cases, accompanying paltry revenue streams, women's basketball will hemorrage money at many schools. That isn't, however, a reason to abandon expectations of a return. Monetarily? Perhaps there won't be much of one. But in terms of exposure, the benefits of a strong women's hoops program go a long, long way. And that's to say nothing of the rewards reaped from the bigger picture, the one that involves the growth of young female athletes at all levels of education. Lew Perkins, and many other ADs, have sent strong messages by the manner in which they treat their women's programs, particularly the most high-profile one. Let's see if Illinois follows their lead.

 

 

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