Richmond is all a flutter over the news that Virginia Commonwealth University men’s basketball coach Shaka Smart has agreed to a long-term contract with the school. While the exact terms aren’t known, reports say that Smart, who took the team to the Final Four, will earn up to $1.2 million per year for eight years. That’s good money. Great money. And he’s not alone in making a very lucrative career at a taxpayer-funded institution.
That’s not to begrudge Smart the deal. If anything, VCU is getting him at a bargain price (North Carolina State offered him $2 million per year for six years).
Smart will now make twice as much as VCU president Michael Rao. He will also earn more in a year than the presidents of the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, George Mason and Old Dominion – public schools, all.
Smart will also out-earn his fellow Virginia college basketball coaches, though Smart is still a piker compared to Virginia Tech head football coach Frank Beamer, who pulls down $2.3 million per year.
Why does a college football coach like Beamer make more than the President of the United States? Because he wins. But even more, his victories help the school market itself far more effectively than any ad agency could hope to do (what’s sometimes known as the “Flutie Phenomenon,” where the Orange Bowl heroics of former Boston College quarter back Doug Flutie resulted in more applicants seeking admission to the school).
Those effects wax and wane with the school’s athletic fortunes. When Davidson College saw its basketball team romp into the Sweet Sixteen in 2008, its admissions office saw transfer application requests rise 1200 percent. With its hefty investment in Smart, VCU could be hoping to increase its admissions pool, too – and even more, to ride the wave of Shaka mania, and hope it leads to more, and broader media coverage (and perhaps a second, media-soaked trip to the Final Four).
So the potential pay-off for VCU is quite real, at least in the short term. But what about the professors and administrators? Academia can be quite lucrative for the guy at the front of the classroom, too. A Washington Business Journal report found that more than 250 Virginia college administrators and professors earn in excess of $200,000 per year. Conversely, Gov. Bob McDonnell will earn a measly $175,000 for his trouble. Then again, he does get a nice house to live in. For four years.
So here’s to Coach Smart on becoming Richmond’s newest millionaire. And here’s to the administrators and professors who earn six-figure salaries at public universities, too. Their work may not get much national attention, but they are doing important work, every one, on behalf of the children.
Or at least that’s what you should tell yourself the next time the public college your little one attends decides to raise tuition. Again.
