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Monday, March 18, 2024
March 18, 2024

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Jayne: High pay for college coaches is all about our priorities

By , Columbian Opinion Page Editor
Published:

It is, indeed, a question of priorities. A matter of values. A glimpse into which traits and skills we believe to be important.

But while the annual story about the highest-paid state employees in Washington brings about predictable consternation, the questions it generates typically are a bit off the mark.

You see, the fact that Mike Leach and Chris Petersen — the football coaches at Washington State University and the University of Washington — are paid millions of dollars each year is not an indictment of state government or the people who write the checks, it is an indictment of us. Yes, us. You and me and your neighbor and, I don’t know, maybe your dentist or the pharmacist down at the corner. It is an indictment of how millions of people across the country spend their discretionary dollars.

Last year, Leach was paid $2.75 million and Petersen earned $2.686 million, which made them the best-paid public employees in the state. They were followed on the list by the men’s basketball coaches at UW and WSU. And they were followed by the athletic director at Washington.

While it’s good to be king, apparently it’s almost as enriching to be a bigwig in college sports.

In this regard, Washington is hardly unique. According to some digging by Politifact, 40 states can claim a college football or basketball coach as the highest-paid state employee. In other states, the lists are topped by a handful of college presidents, a couple of medical school deans, and even a medical school plastic surgeon. Somehow, I’m thinking, all this has about 50 governors lamenting their life choices.

Many naysayers believe it is absurd for a football coach to earn more than, say, a top-notch professor or a state pension-fund manager who plays a role in the financial security of hundreds of thousands of people. And those naysayers would be correct.

That is where you and me and your dentist come in, because most of the salary for football coaches and basketball coaches and athletic department personnel is not paid directly by taxpayers. Instead, the money comes from revenue the department generates in ticket sales, TV contracts, Nike deals, and donations.

Which brings us to the crux of the issue — our actions demonstrate that we, as a society, place more value upon athletics and entertainment and trivial pursuits than we do upon important things. You know, things like bridges and roads and education and social services. Few people complain about a football coach making more than $2 million a year — well, until we notice they are the highest-paid public employees — but plenty of people complain about an incremental tax increase.

Questions about priorities

All of which relates to questions about priorities. I can understand a desire for low taxes, and I can understand people having the right to spend their money however they see fit. But I struggle to understand how somebody can derive more pleasure from donating $1 million to the college football program instead of giving to their local public school or supporting raises for teachers. Of course, many people who have the means contribute to both. Nike co-founder Phil Knight is regarded as the Godfather of University of Oregon athletics because of his largesse over the years, but he also has the main library at Oregon named for him and he has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to Stanford University.

Yet it seems that something is screwy when enough people spend enough money on sports that a football coach at a state university can earn more than $2 million a year. Is this hypocritical? Certainly. I spent 25 years writing about the fun and games, and my family has enough Nike gear to clothe the population of a small island nation.

But at some point, Americans need to question our priorities and our values. Because the problem isn’t that a state employee is making millions of dollars. No, the problem is where that money comes from and where it could be more useful.

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