Monday, December 5, 2011

McMackin Out As Hawaii Football Coach


Ain't McMackin's fault that UH ended up with a 6 - 7 losing season with all the injuries on the team including one of the top quarterbacks in national ranks and possibly the best ever in the history of UH at that position. What draws the fire is McMackin status as the highest paid state employee at $1.1 million per year. The governor makes around $117,000 per year. However, even the $1.1 million amount wasn't something McMackin negotiated as an ultimatum. It's was handed to him more as sour grapes in response to coach June Jones ignominous early departure to Southern Methodist University. In June Jones' case he refused to hand over $400,000 due the University for breach of contract even though the SMU payroll overlapped the same $400,000 pay period so essentially a zero net loss though Jones promoted it as homage. In stark contrast, McMackin is forgoing $500,000 of his next year's $1.1 mil salary which he is legally entitled in full as severance. At any rate, for the most part, college head football coaches' salary are way out of line with their actual worth. Unless they're coaching top 10 perennial powerhouse teams where they're a step way from a head coach position in the NFL, college coaching is essentially a minor league level either the provenance of coaches who can't quite make the grade on the NFL roster, or a haven for fumbling coaches who were booted out of their NFL positions. About the only notable exception is Jim Walsh of the San Francisco 49'er's who decided to leave the Super Bowl champions and coach Stanford University at the most inopportune time since the 49'ers went on the win a few more Super Bowls. Customarily the generous salaries of the college head football coaches is justified on the basis that the huge revenue that a football team rakes in is money enough to spare a million or two to attract the best coach money can buy to pursue a winning season a token amount to the overall investment if ya know your math. However, the bulk of the football's revenue comes from the tv rights to broadcast the games live which the local fans don't get to watch live unless they subscribe to the pay-per-view broadcast. There's no professional sports team in the islands if that's a factor. Understandably, I haven't had the opportunity to watch a UH football live game on tv for a while and I'm not sure whether the delayed broadcast applies to away-from-home games as well. If tv revenue underwrites the generosity of the coach's salary, than the other side of the ledger should include the cost to upkeep the on-campus training facility and practice field in the same stroke of the pen without the point shaving. The talk now is finding McMackin's replacement and paying him $500,000 per year, period.

6 comments:

Cloudia said...

wow, you really are knowledgeable about the Warriors!

Aloha from Waikiki

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Kay said...

Sorry, Ron. I'm afraid I don't know much about sports. I didn't get the sports gene. Neither did my brother. However, Art and both our kids are big sports fans. Weird.

Kay said...

I mean... I'M the weird one.

RONW said...

Cloudia- about as "knowledgeable" as the grand total of 200 students that showed up at Aloha Stadium even with free tickets and free bus ride. If June Jones hadn't made the all-american volleyball wahine hapai, the UH volleyball team might have won a national championship or two.

Kay- UH being an educational institute, the last I checke, these million dollar sports paychecks are an insult to the rest of the faculty who bring in $150 million in research money and aren't compensated equivalently. The $500,000 that McMackin wavered, amounts to 20 full academic scholarships.

blournalist said...

Attend any memorials today, Ron?

RONW said...

blournalist- how can I not. They're closing off the main street for the survivors parade in Waikiki at 5pm in about an hour.