Dean Legge of DawgPost.com is reporting that there is an athletic board meeting at 5:00 pm this afternoon. There is no clear indication from Dean that it's Dennis Felton related. He says they could very well be meeting to discuss Coach Richt's anticipated pay raise / extension.
I thought most of the big salary increases / contract adjustments were done at the May / June meeting, but I could be wrong.
Regardless, if I were Damon Evans and I were about to go shopping for a new basketball coach, I would make sure that Coach Richt's contract was squared away first. Especially, if I were going to pay a competitive wage to land an "in demand" coach.
Being proactive on that front might make Richt, Adams, large boosters and "football only" fans more comfortable with paying "market rate" for a premium coach.
(Note: Premium means a guy other people are aggressively pursing. Not Coach K or Roy Williams.)
Coach Felton makes $760,000 per year. At best that makes him the 9th highest paid coach in the SEC. More than likely he's 10th as I think only Lebo (Auburn) and Kennedy (Ole Miss) each make less. As a point of comparison, the top mid-major teams like Creighton and Xavier pay their coaches $800k-900k / year.
Felton was paid a competitive wage commensurate with his experience when he was hired in 2003. Unfortunately for him, his marketability hasn't risen since his date of hire so his salary looks like it has fallen behind the broader market.
Then again...you get what you pay for.
If UGA replaces Felton at the end of the season, I think a new coach will cost Georgia at least $1.2-1.5 million per year. I know Jeremy Foley, athletic director at UF, caught a great deal of heat when he renegotiated Billy Donovan's contract after last season before upping Urban Meyer's deal.
If Damon is moving to bump Richt up before going hoops shopping, I think it's a smart move.
If we make a move (and I expect that we will), it will be very interesting to see what we pay. For a variety of reasons, we haven't had a coach that was "in demand" since May 11, 1997. That's the day before we lost Tubby to Kentucky. Prior to that, you have to go back to '91 or so (at best) to find the last time another school looked at our basketball coach and said "We should see if that guy will come here."
It will be interesting to see how Damon Evans responds financially to that market dynamic. In less than 10 days, we may have to go fishing in a very crowded pond as LSU, South Carolina, Indiana and possibly Alabama and/or Georgia Tech seem prepped to throw their hooks into the water as well.
PWD
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11 comments:
There's an article on espn by Mark Schlabach talking about Felton that is an interesting read. Check it out under the College basketball page.
Rumor going around indicates that Richt is getting a raise, be interesting to see if that's true and how much.
And UGAsports is saying confirmed by school officials, so there you go.
The Florida game in Athens finally pushed me off the fence and into the "Fire Felton" camp.
However, all the people banging the "Fire Felton" war drum need to consider:
1.) Are we going to be able to get a quality coach in a market where almost every AD is also looking to for a coach?
2.) How much money are we willing to pony up for this coach.
If we are going to half-ass this... we are better off staying with Felton. I would much rather keep with continuity than be in a similar situation with a new coach that we will get rid of in 3/4 years.
Remember, if we still had Brown and Mercer, this would be a team March tourney team. Felton was moving in the right direction.
With that being said, let's go out and find a new coach who will pump some excitement back into Stegeman and keep some quality HS players in state.
I don't think anyone can say that having Brown and Mercer would make us a tourney team. Felton can coach down anyone. His lack of an offensive system is ridiculous. For anyone to say otherwise means that you clearly haven't been to any basketball games in the last 3-4 years. Watching Felton's team play is almost as fun as watching paint dry. He has never put a good product on the floor, with Harrick's guys or his own guys.
In addition to the usual suspects (Miller, Grant, Kruger) I was thinking about one more relatively high-profile name who's currently available- former Stanford Coach Mike Montgomery. I wonder if he'd be willing to give us a look. He's a very good, if not quite great, coach, and he's certainly squeaky clean. Took Stanford to at least one Final Four before bolting for Golden State in one of the more head-scratching moves in my memory.
Anyway, just hadn't heard his name thrown about yet.
Did you see Roy Williams in that beautiful Carolina blue jacket last week (or anytime this season)? I wish our coach liked Georgia enough to wear our school colors.
UGA needs Anthony Grant. He helped build Florida's program (was there between 96 and 06) and was Donovan's right hand man between 02 and 06. He went to be the head coach at VCU in the 06 and 07 season and they went to the NCAAs and beat Duke. This year they stand a good chance to make it back to the NCAAs. I would think he would be interested in coaching in the SEC again.
according to David Ching at the Georgia Bulldog Blog, Richt got a raise that will pay him 2.8 mill annually. Here's the link:
http://ching-athens.blogspot.com/2008/03/more-details-on-richts-raise.html
only $800,000 leaves plenty to be handed out for a quality basketball coach. it's a good and well-deserved raise, but under different conditions, i think he might get over the $3 million hump.
Curious as to where this puts CMR on the SEC pay scale now.
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