Posted on 06/01/2006 7:51:25 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
Last week, the University of Tennessee announced that it was raising another coach's salary to over $1 million per year.
That wouldn't be news, except this wasn't the head coach of the football team (Phillip Fulmer makes twice that much) or the men's basketball team (Bruce Pearl recently got a raise to $1.1 million).
No, this was the coach of the women's basketball team.
Granted, Pat Summit is hardly your ordinary women's basketball coach. In 32 years as head coach of the Lady Vols, Summit has won 913 games, six national championships, and has had the court at UT's Thompson-Boling Arena named for her ("The Summitt").
When Summitt started out coaching back in 1974, she was making $250 a month. There was no courtesy car, no shoe deal, no radio or TV deal.
In fact, women's basketball wasn't even part of the NCAA. Back then, women's sports were part of the old AIWA (Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women). It's hard to believe that in the early 1970s, women who wanted to compete in college sports had to form their own association, since the NCAA didn't accept women's teams until 1981.
There is probably not a more recognizable force in women's athletics than Summitt, 53. You'd be hard pressed to tell whether Summitt's success was part of the increasing popularity of women's sports, or if the growth of women's sports in this country was pulled along in the wake of Summitt's success.
Tennessee's women's Athletics Director Joan Cronan called Summitt's new contract, worth $1.125 million per year, a "landmark statement for women's athletics." Summitt said, "In women's basketball, just the fact that we're starting to generate more interest and revenue and television, you get the exposure for the university. All of those things are a plus in terms of potential compensation."
Before this most recent raise, salaries for women's basketball at Tennessee were slightly over $1.5 million, double that of the next closest SEC school (Auburn) and, at the time, second only to the University of Connecticut (by roughly $50,000) nationally.
Accounting being what it is, it is almost impossible to tell who is making money and who isn't in college athletics. However, according to recent financial reports for 2004-05, women's basketball at Tennessee brought in $1,299,431 in revenue. However, expenses exceeded revenue for the Lady Vols' basketball program by just over $1.7 million, making it appear that that women's basketball is a financial drain even with a program as successful as Tennessee.
Summitt's value, then, can't be measured in just basketball revenue. The publicity, credibility, and prestige she brings as an ambassador for the University of Tennessee - indeed, for all women's athletics - can't be measured.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, only 29,992 women participated in college sports in 1970-71. Thirty years later (2000-01), that number had increased to 150,916. By 2003-04, 41 percent of all college athletes were female. Take out the schools with football programs, and the percentage was closer to 50-50.
That's progress. It's not all due to Summitt, of course, but her role in that growth can't be underestimated.
One million dollars for a women's coach? It's just another summit for women's athletics to which Pat Summitt has led the way.
Ray Melick's column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Write him at rmelick@bhamnews.com.
Pat's fans say that when people think of women's basketball they think of Sumitt. The problem is that very few people think of female BB at all.
More people know Summitt than Pearl. She's a great coach and deserves the money. Sometimes things look PC when they are only things.
I'm not sure about that. I think that sometimes people in Tennessee overrate Pat's fame. Women's BB is a fringe sport.
As far as what Pat deserves, only God is His wisdom knows. Other than that, we have to let the market decide. There are a lot of other programs who would pay for Pearl. Nobody else would pay any money for a fringe sport coach like Pat.
What I really worry about is UT's ability to keep Pearl longterm if they have to pay Summitt also to keep her from having a pout. It would be a shame to sacrifice men's basketball, a sport that many more people like and that makes money, to placate the NOW.
Well, obviously Bruce Pearl is worth more, you know with all the championships he has won.
He must be, because unlike Pat, people actually PAY to watch his teams play.
You would think that the highest paid state employee would be the Governor.
In most states, the highest paid employee is a (football) coach.
Okay. But why would she want the pay cut?
What I don't understand is why she hasn't been given a chance to coach the mens team, if she is such a great coach.
Speaking as a Tennessean, Bruce Pearl has created more excitement in one year than Summitt has in her entire career.
Summitt gets credit for being a pioneer in her sport, but the rest of the women's BB world has caught up with her. Like Vol football coach Phil Fulmer, Pat hasn't won a title in eight years. Unlike Fulmer, Pat receives very little criticism. It seems people don't really care too much whether the Lady Vols win or lose. I guess that shows the level of real interest in women's BB compared to football. And I doubt many men's basketball coaches would get such a free pass either.
Great minds think alike. As a native Ohioan, I root for the Buckeyes, but living in this state has produced in me a perpetual nausea from overexposure to Husky madness!!!! My next door neighbors and most of my in-laws are fanatics.
Well he did beat the reigning NCAA Champs twice, I'll give him that.
Other than Pearl's hiring itself, the Gator title was the best thing that happened to UT athletics this past year. Pearl can use his team's beating the best team in basketball twice as a selling point in recruiting. And in the bigger picture, the Gator title shows that "football school" doesn't mean "football-only" school in the SEC.
Yep, the days of UK's dominance in the SEC East are at an end.
Are you saying Women's basketball generates more money for UT than Men's basketball? That's wonderful!
My first language is English, and if that is what I was saying, you would have been able to quote it exactly that way. Understand?
He's coached just as many men's BB championships as she has. For the most part, women don't even care about women's BB. It's great; it's nice; it's a significant accomplishment; but it's not comparable. It's not even allowed to be comparable.
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