Coming from an old college head coach...I think there is a lot of presuming and assuming going on here. I think because the football and basketball coach gets it you assume the tennis coach gets lubed up too, but I laugh. My last base salary was $45k down here in Texas at a D3. That did not include any money I earned from camps, lessons, etc. Here's the situation that a lot of tennis coaches (and smaller sports college administrators) get caught up in...as secondary duties that fall on you. Much depends on your AD/administrative leader. If they are awesome, then it's a great situation and you can thrive and do well. I did a few years. I'll explain lower down, but first let me explain how it usually happens that the coach can not thrive. You may be teaching Kinesiology classes (whether a joke or not, time consuming)...you may be "paper whipped" by administrators above you that want everything in triplicate...you may be attending meeting after meeting that are non-sense but are "important"...you are still doing all the same coaching things to make you team better or try and make you team better while you have people at your school sucking the life out of your program and facility. They start to fight over your revenue, camps, and lessons until you say crap I'd rather not do it because after I funnel my money thru 30 hands who didn't do anything and they can't explain what their cut % was and when it's paying, then blah blah...sooner or later you just say screw it. It gets tough to maintain a family. Coaching is a job...it's a blessing because it's sports and we all love this sport and we dream of getting paid to play a game and do something all our lives "playing". I was blessed. I did what literally millions wish they could...coach college athletics. It's tough though. I spent my own money (my wife and kid's money) to help other kids have more or get better stuff (when people like some on here said "should have made a $1"...what an insult). You sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice...because you love the game...and like for me I love the competition of building the team. I loved the team dynamic...it was fun!!! Was it worth trading my family? No, I did it though. Was that worth a $1? Would you trade the long hours you work at __________ for $1? Would you want to be disrespected? These men or women put themselves out in front and are abused because they happened to be good enough to be out front. When they get nervous, all they have to say to themselves is "I am doing something no one else can do". I have gone on a bit of a rant here...first time in a long time, but have some respect people. Some of you have no idea how tough it is or how much sacrifice is made so that those student-athletes can simply put on a uniform and play, so they can get in a van and drive 250 miles and play, so they can eat that cruddy sub sandwich and play. Learn some respect...
As I said, if you have a great AD, then you are rested and the secondary duties are just that...secondary. You handle your team and they clearly say..."go make some extra money for yourself and your program". You can and do...even down here at a smaller program that hadn't been successful prior to my time...I was making an extra $15-20K a year. That helped me a lot. It helped our program become nationally ranked. As things changed, it got much tougher...I talked about our administration being "blockers or lineman" (we're in football country, go figure)...they can either get out in front and block for you to get obstacles out of your way (at your high school or college or any business), or they can fall down in front of you and become another obstacle to get around or go over...I had to deal with that kind at the end...many people do unfortunately. When the secondary duties start piling up and taking precedence and believe me, they can (keeping scorebook for basketball would be ranked over my tennis practice), an issue with pool would rank over tennis, being a "game day administrator" at pick a sport during my season every week atleast once to twice pulling you out of practice. Every sport but yours has an assistant...the list goes on and on. Sooner or later you get tired and when you start weighing out...do I do the EXTRA CAMP or the LESSON or the answer becomes no.