Dec 112015
 

… on coaches anyway. Our campus figures prominently into today’s WaPo article College sports’ fastest-rising expense: Paying coaches not to work. Quoting the linked article:

On June 30, Maryland Athletic Director Kevin Anderson announced he had signed Edsall to a three-year contract extension worth $7.5 million. … Maryland fired football coach Randy Edsall just 103 days later.

And we’re on the hook for a mountain of cash in severance accordingly.

How about funding for STEM needs? Computer Science Education programs? Not so much. The provost’s overpriced STEM Ed (and also FIRE Gen Ed project) required an urgent request to the state for supplemental funds; the CS Ed track is dead in the water since the CS chair won’t touch it unless there is money in it for CS. Good thing for athletics we’re all pinching pennies so we can keep coaches living the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed:

The University of Maryland paid [golden parachute coach] Ralph Friedgen $2 million while he tried out retirement, played a lot of golf and cruised the South Carolina coastline in his 24-foot whaler, “Fishing with the Fridge.”

 Posted by at 3:12 pm on December 11, 2015