I was talking about Brad Dancer in particular. He has been the coach at Illinois since 2006, he has an .800+ winning percentage which puts him the elite of college tennis coaches. His teams have won the BIG, and are in the top 20 in college tennis every year, many times competing in the final rounds of the NCAA tournament. There maybe 5 or 6 coaches that have equaled this performance or are close to it. I would also say he does this getting mostly American kids, and has improved a tennis program that was already good, so made it even better. This to me is an exceptional performance in a conference with 4 legitimate top tennis programs year in and year out (NW, OSU, MICH, MINN). Not all his players turn into these amazing pro's, (Anderson, Delic and Ram predate him) which tells me he is making players play at a higher level for the team. So in my view, he should be incurring a salary consummate with that. At least in the raises every year I would think he would be higher..... The Volleyball coach at Illinois is in his first year, and hasn't yet had that sort of track record but any coach that is successful over a period of many years and has provided consistency to the schools sports program, should be kept and paid well amongst coaches in their league.
But for coaches, you must feel strongly then that football coaches are over paid right? Love Smith gets $3 million a year, and has a $16 million dollar buy out. His team went 2-10, can't even make a bowl game. That is overpaid for a football program that has been mediocre for years and now is worse. And to add insult to injury actually may be in the red so isn't the "revenue" sport everyone says it is. And Smith has a dozen assistant coaches, trainers, sports marketers, probably two secretaries...I can bet that Dancer gets none of that support on an assistant level. Surprised Illinois hasn't cut tennis, they may have to if the football continues down this path.
Hell for giggles, Maryland pays their football coach $2.4 million a year, and that team stinks. They can't even budget $400,000 for a mens tennis team, they are trying to make their football team profitable. Cut their mens program a few years ago, used to be a great tennis team. Lets over pay a football coach and cut other programs
I get what your saying, but I would think we would want the best coaches in college athletics. For tennis, college tennis coaching is underpaid, and college tennis is under appreciated compared to other tennis coaching avenues. Good coaches are poached from college, willingly, moreso compared to other sports. TO have a few coaches who are dedicated and can serve as role models for the game at that level, making $150,000 is ok with me. To add to what I have already mentioned: they recruit, they're spokesman for the game, they develop young people, grind out schedules, hold camps, many have to run their facilities as clubs, do all sorts of other functions for the athletic departments; I could go on and on...And most, like Dancer, do it because they value their job as coach and love the university, not because its the only job they can get. If we value them, maybe schools will try to do more to invest in them instead of fly by night football coaches like Butch jones who made 4.1 million at Tennessee. His way to motivate players? Drive a porsche to work to show them what success looks like (
https://fanbuzz.com/college-footbal...n-insanely-expensive-car-to-impress-recruits/). I'll take Dancer any day...
Cool if we still disagree, I think there is some worth to what your saying, some coaches just aren't coaches. We'll agree at least on that, but I think any worthwhile program should reward coaches who are tenured and consistently do a great job, no matter the sport.
thanks for liking my posts, appreciate the banter
