As is often the case, Maryland opted to respond to questions about what turned out as this dead-tree edition story in writing. Any quotations attributed to an athletic department official (in this instance, it’s chief financial officer Randy Eaton) came via an e-mail statement.
In some way or another, all but one of these bullet points is referenced in the story. The one that is not is the first one, which relates to compensation increasing dramatically at some schools, in part because of new hires.
SEE RELATED:
Why was it omitted? In part because it’s sort of intuitive, and in part because the only public schools to have changed coaches in the last five years are N.C. State and Virginia. The new hires factor —- especially at Virginia —- made a difference.
In any case, it seems unlikely that this is the last word coming from Maryland on this issue. But in full fairness, it is worthwhile to post the reply in its entirety and as it was originally provided in this entry:
· Compensation has skyrocketed at some schools, in part due to new hires.
· Because of salary freezes within the University of Maryland, mandated by the State, and now salary reduction through furloughs affecting all University employees - including the President - the guaranteed compensation cannot be changed at this time. This was confirmed a few months ago, when we contacted the Office of Personnel to request increases.
· Whenever assistant coaches are hired in any of the 27 sports, each respective head coach makes a recommendation for compensation based on the experience level of the individual.
· Coach Williams has requested compensation increases on 2 occasions recently, but in each instance the salary freeze was in place for all State employees.
· In lieu of increases to guaranteed compensation, Maryland Athletics will be proposing enhancements to the bonus structures for each assistant coach, including ACC regular season finish, ACC Tournament finish and NCAA Tournament inclusion and advancement.
· Maryland already offers the second richest bonus structure among ACC public institutions, and the additional bonuses for performance tied to the NCAA Tournament will place our assistant coaches at the top moving forward.
· We are extremely proud of our coaching staff. Chuck, Keith and Robert are tireless recruiters and great teachers of our basketball team and we hope they are part of our program for years to come.
· The assistant coaches for the women were each hired into their current positions in 2009. The state mandated salary freeze has no impact on new hires. Now, each of those salaries is frozen, similar to existing contracts.
And that’s it. Which is actually quite a bit. And like I said, a lot of this is referenced throughout the story.
OK, more to come as the morning winds along.
—- Patrick Stevens
