The richest coach in college football became even richer today. The NCAA released its annual Graduation Success Rate figures Wednesday, netting Alabama head coach Nick Saban a $100,000 bonus, according to USA Today.
USA Today also lists Saban as college football’s highest-paid coach with a base salary just south of $7.1 million.
From the paper: Saban’s $100,000 bonus is based on a combination of the team’s NCAA Academic Progress Rate (APR), which the NCAA publishes each spring, and its GSR. The team’s GSR must be among the top 25% for all Southeastern Conference football teams for him to get $100,000 (he can get $50,000 if the APR benchmark is met and the GSR is among the top half for SEC football teams). Alabama’s new football GSR was 86% -- the SEC’s best by one percentage point over Vanderbilt.
Alabama AD Bill Battle also took home an extra $40,000 thanks to Crimson Tide athletes’ graduation rates standing at least five points higher than that of the overall student population.
Alabama wasn’t the only school to hand out bonus checks Wednesday. Georgia Tech’s Paul Johnson and Fresno State’s Tim DeRuyter each netted $125,000, and Northern Illinois’ Rod Carey took home $10,000. Ten grand may not sound like much compared to Saban’s $100,000 bonus but, proportionally speaking, Carey’s bonus was nearly twice as large as Saban’s.
If you’re troubled to see college football coaches receive such large bonus checks off the classwork of unpaid student-athletes, you’re probably not alone. After all, this is a profession that trumpets itself as educators first and coaches second as often as it can. Shouldn’t, you know, educating be included in their hefty base salaries?
The question boils down to what you believe coaches are actually paid to do. I’ll answer that question with another question: How many coaches are fired for not graduating enough players, and how many are fired for not winning enough games?