Contract includes clauses about loyalty and emotions.
New Missouri basketball coach Mike Anderson’s contract won’t pay him as much as the departed Quin Snyder, but it does offer several interesting, broad guidelines to his off-the-court leadership.
Anderson, whose base salary is $250,000, will receive $850,000 in guaranteed money that also includes stipends for an apparel contract, TV and radio shows, a basketball camp and public relations appearances. The contract, which is a five-year deal, can earn Missouri’s new coach up to $1.465 million depending on his team’s success and attendance bonuses.
Both figures are less than Snyder received from the university, though. The former coach was getting $1,015,000 in guaranteed pay and could have been due up to $1.71 million if he reached available incentives, similar to those for Anderson.
Anderson’s contract lays a lengthy and perhaps somewhat subjective foundation for his behavior, much more so than Snyder’s contract, which was last amended in 2002. The document is 22 pages — significantly longer than the last basketball coaching contract. Some of the stipulations include the mandates “to be a loyal employee,” to work at integrating athletics into the spectrum of academic life, to be a sympathetic, fair disciplinarian, to be publicly complimentary toward the school and this vague directive: “Maintain a mature and rational attitude, keep emotions in control and downplay defeats.”
Furthermore, the contract, not surprisingly, states Anderson must “abide by and comply with” NCAA, Big 12 Conference and school regulations while supervising his staff subordinates to ensure they do the same. It also requires the coach systematically communicate with the university’s administration. That comes after an investigation into Snyder’s departure found that he and athletic director Mike Alden clashed and eventually ceased speaking on a regular basis and for a time speaking at all.
Even though Snyder’s contract, and football coach Gary Pinkel’s contract, for that matter, do not have those extended clauses, Alden said Wednesday that none of the added provisions were a response to Anderson’s predecessor, nor were they due to the incoming coach’s past behaviors or observed personality. Rather, Alden said, they were included to keep up with what he called a major trend to include such detailed guidelines in coaching contracts around the country.
The money sum, like the verbiage, is pretty consistent with the rest of the nation. Tubby Smith of Kentucky reportedly earns nearly $2.5 million, guaranteed, per year. But that contract is an aberration more than the norm. Big 12 coaches Rick Barnes and Bill Self earn over a million dollars, and some other highly-paid coaches elsewhere include Tom
Crean (reportedly $1.65 million), Rick Pitino ($1.64 million) and Mike Krzyzewski ($1.4million). Pat Summitt, women’s basketball coach at Tennessee, earns over $800,000 annualy.
The two recently-hired coaches in the Big 12, Bob Huggins and Greg McDermott, reflect those coachs’ experience. McDermott, who coached at Northern Iowa for five years, signed on at Iowa State for $650,000-a-year last week. Huggins has coached for 24 seasons at the Division-I level and will lead Kansas State, beginning next season, for what’s believed to be more than a million dollars a season.
So Anderson’s contract, which is a pay raise from the $600,000 he made yearly at UAB, is decidedly middle-of-the-road for a major college basketball coach with four-year’s experience. But with certain accomplishments, Anderson could accumulate quite a bit more. Sunday he said he wanted to win the big one at MU; doing so would net him $250,000 in a national championship bonus. Just getting the Tigers back into the NCAA tournament would earn a $25,000 salary boost, and that increases as the team advances. More money is available with each of a 20-, 25- or 30-win season. Incentives also exist for conference and national coach of the year awards, conference championships, average attendance of at least 10,000 (that goes up with each 1,000 fans, on average, up to 13,000).
Not to be forgotten, Anderson will receive $25,000 each year that his team achieves academic and social goals as put forward by the athletic director and Chancellor.