Deal or No Deal: Long-Term Contracts Don't Mean Much to NCAA DI Coaches

March 26th, 2024 - 9:12

Should I stay or should I go? It's a good thing universities play in mammoth arenas because the egos of their "Pompous Pilots" wouldn't fit any other place. Reverberations will be felt for years after Arkansas' romance prying John Calipari loose from Kentucky.

Much of the excess in the canonization of coaches is perpetuated by coaches-turned-television commentators who shamelessly fawn over their former colleagues. Instead, the analysts should be more concerned about encouraging mentors to spare fans the pious blather about school loyalty and the sanctity of a contract.

Granted, it's survival of the fittest amid the offer-you-can't-refuse backdrop. But in many instances, schools have been little more than convenient steppingstones for "larger-than-life" coaches along their one-way street to success. It's understandable in many instances why mercenaries are leaving the minute they're appointed because coaches are in a distasteful "hired-to-be-fired" vocation, where a pink slip is only one losing season or poor recruiting class away.

If not about the money and perks, why did obsessive Buzz Williams reportedly file FOIA requests annually for the contracts of every basketball and football coach for every NCAA Division I public institution to discern how an agreement should be created?

Whatever the case, it's a black eye on the sport when loyalty seems to have become too much of a one-way street. At times, it makes one wonder how the bench bosses can look themselves in the mirror. Five of Tulsa's six coaches in one stretch - Nolan Richardson, Tubby Smith, Steve Robinson, Bill Self and Buzz Peterson - abandoned ship for more prestigious positions despite each of them having at least three years remaining on their deals.

More than 70 different active coaches had at least three years remaining on their pacts when leaving for greener pastures. New Stanford bench boss Kyle Smith (from Columbia/San Francisco/Washington State) joined Calipari and the following alphabetical list of mentors departing three or four schools before their contracts expired:

Deal or no deal? The length of contracts doesn't seem to carry any weight as a factor in the equation as long as your brain cells or ethical standards don't put any stock into length of an existing pact. Dusty May had nine years remaining on his pact with FAU upon departing for Michigan. Following is an alphabetical list detailing coaches reportedly still having contractual obligations of more than five seasons when they left a school for greener pastures during their careers: