Ethics Newsline®

BALTIMORE
After losing a two-year legal battle, the University of Maryland last week disclosed details about how it pays its two most prominent coaches, highlighting debates over college sports and salary equity.

The university contracts show that men’s basketball coach Gary Williams and football coach Ralph Friedgen both are guaranteed more than $1.1 million in annual compensation.

University of Maryland athletic director Deborah Yow says such lucrative deals are simply the cost of staying competitive in the high-stakes world of college sports, reported the Washington Post.

“There’s a philosophical question,” Yow said. “Is any coach worth being paid seven figures? That’s a separate conversation than the reality of: Are we or are we not going to be competitive?”

“I’m not mired in that philosophical question,” she added.

But math professor and faculty senate chair Joel Cohen said that question ought to be addressed. “What does it say about the whole commercialization of the school?” he asked.

Adding fuel to the debate, the contracts highlight incentive clauses offered to both coaches: in Friedgen’s case, a bonus of $75,000 for graduating 75 percent of his players, and $225,000 for making it to the championships.

“You look at the proportional size of each bonus, and it’s not very hard to see where, over the long term, the priority and focus are going to be,” Smith College economics professor Andrew Zimbalist contended to the Washington Times.

Friedgen also can receive a $50,000 bonus each year if he keeps all of his football players from getting in trouble with university rules, law enforcement, and the NCAA, noted the Times.

Details of the contracts were released following a two-year legal battle with the Baltimore Sun, which won the right to see the contracts under a state Court of Appeals ruling last month.