Marquette Sports Law Review Volume 12 Article 7 Issue 1 Fall College Coaching Contracts Revisited: A Practical Perspective Martin J. Greenberg Marquette University Law School Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/sportslaw Part of the Entertainment and Sports Law Commons Repository Citation Martin J. Greenberg, College Coaching Contracts Revisited: A Practical Perspective , 12 Marq. Sports L. Rev. 127 (2001) Available at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/sportslaw/vol12/iss1/7 This Symposium is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. COLLEGE COACHING CONTRACTS REVISITED: A PRACTICAL PERSPECTIVE MARTIN J. GREENBERG* INTRODUCTION College coaches are some of the highest of profile employees at any college or university. In many instances the pay that they receive outdis- tances the pay of the university's chancellor or most esteemed professor. Their athletic accomplishments receive more notoriety and media atten- tion than the most celebrated lab discovery of the university's science department. For many coaches the job can be characterized as "24-7" due to the exponential growth in their responsibilities beyond con- ducting practices, teaching and coaching. And what a job - every coaching moment is surrounded by stress, and every decision, whether on or off the court, is subject to second-guessing and scrutiny and is the subject of an often vicious public debate. Moreover, a coach's job secur- ity is often conditioned on winning because wins are the equivalent of the bottom line, putting fans in the stands, bolstering alumni contribu- tions, warranting lucrative TV and cable contracts, and persuading re- cruits to accept scholarship offers. Today's coach engages in a very interesting workplace environment that lends itself to job insecurity. Long-term contracts mean nothing as buyouts for termination without cause provisions run rampant. As a re- sult, the coach's contract may be the most important armor that the coach has in protecting his entry and exit in the job. College coaching contracts are sophisticated endeavors - no standard forms, no two that look the same, no union protecting their interests, and no data bank that correctly reports the intricacies of their packages. Many contracts, with * Managing Director, ScheerGame Sports Development, LLC, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Chair, National Sports Law Institute Board of Advisors; and Adjunct Professor Marquette University Law School. Special thanks to Paul Anderson, Associate Director of the National Sports Law Institute and Supervisor of the MARQUETTE SPORTS LAW REvmw; Jeff Tanner, Research Assistant, National Sports Law Institute and Member of the MARQuErrE SPORTS LAw REviEw; Jeff Blahnik, second-year law student, Marquette University Law School; and Aaron Young, 2001 graduate, Marquette University Law School. This article draws upon and builds on the author's previous works, College Coaching Contracts: A PracticalPerspective, 1 MARQ. SPORTS L.J. 207 (1991), and SPORTS LAW PRAncE,Chapter 6: College Coaching Contracts (2D ED. 1998). MARQUETTE SPORTS LAW REVIEW [Vol. 12:127 important legal implications, are handily and expeditiously crafted. Those contracts require the input of an experienced and sophisticated lawyer to protect an unprotected class. The purpose of this article is to first examine the job environment in which coaches operate, and second, to analyze the college coaching con- tract from a financial and legal perspective. I. JOB ENVIRONMENT 1. Job Movement. When is a contract not a contract? Where is job security as fleeting as the last seconds of a basketball victory? In what field is an employ- ment contract broken as easily as it is made? The answer to each is the world of college coaching.! A person who becomes a college coach is put in a tenuous position in a very fragile environment. The first day of the job often must be spent planning for the last day of the job, and often the back end of the con- tract may be more important than the front end or the package. The college coaching field is characterized by frequent job turnover, move- ment and relocation. Statistics with respect to turnover are telling. The following chart presents the number of job changes both major basket- ball and college football over the last several years. NCAA Basketball Coaching Changes' Year Number 2000 38* 1999 53 1998 59 1997 44 1996 48 NCAA Football Coaching Changes Year Number 2000 56 1999 45 1998 63 1997 52 1996 42 1. MARTIN J. GREENBERG & JAMES T. GRAY, SPORTS LAW PRACTICE 522 (2d ed. 1998). 2. Men's Basketball Coaching Changes, USA TODAY, Apr. 18, 2000, at 9C. 2001] COLLEGE COACHING CONTRACTS REVISITED * 2000-01 football season not complete. Source: NCAA statistics Head football coaches remain on their jobs for an average of only 2.8 years.' Eighty-seven of one hundred fifteen Division I-A football coaches have changed jobs in the last three years, according to Thom Park, a college coaches financial and contract consultant and Florida State University professor of sports administration.4 Park has said that this high turnover forces athletic departments to write back-loaded contracts. The Joe Paternos (thirty-five seasons) and Bobby Bowdens (twenty- six seasons) of the coaching world are the exception to the longevity rule. Only nine major college football coaches in history have spent more time at one school than Bowden's quarter century at Florida State University.5 Only four have eclipsed Lavell Edwards' 29-year tenure at Brigham Young University.6 Only one, Amos Alonzo Stagg, who spent 41 of his 57 years of coaching at the University of Chicago, surpassed Paterno's 35 years at Penn State.7 If you take away these three icons (Paterno, Bowden and Edwards), the average tenure for football coaches in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Divi- sion 1A entering the 2000-2001 season was barely four years (4.07 years to be exact).' Considerably more than half of those coaches, 67 of 115, have spent less than three previous seasons at their schools. Only Paterno, Bowden, Edwards and six others have stayed or survived as long as a dozen years.9 The general rule is to quickly fire a coach who is not winning. From the coach's perspective, that is the biggest obstacle to growing old on the job - ever increasing pressure not only to win, but also to keep winning in a high stakes sport that frequently foots the bill for a school's non- revenue producing sports.10 What follows is a chart breaking down the tenure (length of service) of the 114 football coaches in the NCAA Divi- sion 1-A at their current schools for the 2000-2001 season. 3. Dale Hofman, U Professor Throws Flag On Athletics, MILWAUKEE SENTINEL, Sept. 7, 1990, at 21. 4. Patrick F'mley, Contract Tricks Help Lure Coaches to MU, June 7, 2001, available at http:lwww.digmo.comlnews/sllpremiuml0607sportslocal22109.html. 5. Steve Wieberg, Never Too Old to Have Fun: Coaches Find Fountainof Youth in College Football Achievements, USA TODAY, Aug. 25, 2000, at 1C-2C. 6. Id. 7. Id. 8. Id. 9. Id. 10. Id. MARQUETTE SPORTS LAW REVIEW [Vol. 12:127 1 COACHING LONGEVITY ' 20 18 16 14. 12- 10- 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th 13th 14th 17th 19th 21st 25th 29th 35th *Number of Coaches (y-axis) / Year of Service (x-axis) 2. The Expanded Meaning Of Coach. Why are job movement, contract jumping, retirement and firing so characteristic of college coaching? The Job-Related Almanac indicates that a NCAA basketball coach has the fifteenth most stressful job out of the 260 jobs listed.12 A coach is normally defined as "one who trains intensively by instruction, demonstration, and practice."1 3 This defini- tion certainly does not recognize the current job environment and em- ployment conditions of the modern-day coach.14 The coach of the new century is required not only to be an instructor, but also to act as a fund-raiser, recruiter, academic coordinator, public figure, budget director, television, radio and internet personality, and alumni glad hander. A coach must also handle any other role that the university's athletic director or president may direct him to do in the best interest of the university's athletic program. 15 In some cases coaches have experienced, as a result of their job, seri- ous health problems related to stress and pressure: 11. Id. 12. GREENBERG & GRAY, supra note 1, at 523. 13. Id. 14. Id. 15. Id. 2001] COLLEGE COACHING CONTRACTS REVISITED a. Former Florida State coach Pat Kennedy has had repeated ulcers and mysterious illnesses during the season.'6 b. Duke Coach Mike Kryzewski was forced to sit out an entire basketball season due to health problems. 7 c. Maryland Coach Gary Williams missed the ACC tournament with a stress-related illness.18 d. In February 1994, Northwestern basketball coach Ricky Byrdsong's frustration over his team's 0-6 start in the Big Ten came to a head when he asked for an indefinite leave of ab- sence and turned over his coaching duties to Assistant Coach Paul Swanson. 9 e. Phil Ford, the Wooden Award winner in 1978, took a medical leave of absence in 1999 while an assistant coach at the Uni- versity of North Carolina following his second DUI in two years.20 Mike Sertich, hockey coach at Minnesota-Duluth for eighteen years, and current hockey coach at Michigan Tech, has said, "[w]hen you look at all the guys that suffer from coaching burnout, run from the ghosts of the past and all the things which they can't control, it's little wonder why guys don't stay in the game long anymore and why the turnover is so great.",2' 3.