The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

The UAB Athletic department got bloated over time under Mackin. Too many people employed, making too much money, some doing very good work and some who don't. Compare our budget and number of employees to others in our conference. We need to control our budget, we are not a P5 school with money running out our orifices.

Haase deserved a raise and some attention to his contract, but he was also the beneficiary of Watts using him for propaganda and reputation polishing purposes. My guess is that Ehsan is every bit as happy at $450k as most of the rest of us would be. Let him earn a couple of raises. We'd all be very happy if he puts a team on the floor that gets him more money, and we would not begrudge paying it.

Coaches, especially those in revenue sports, are essentially and primarily in the entertainment business, not education (new rules do require class attendance and progress toward a degree). Their pay is commensurate with that value in our culture, and they are held to a different standard of success than academic faculty. Do you recruit top players? Do you WIN? Do you draw a crowd? Do you bring in big charitable contributions to your program (not to the school, but to the athletic department of the school - The ADs at AU and UA total an income of about $260 million annually). Do you at least sell corporate tickets that may or may not be used?

Even in high schools, the revenue sport's coaches make 2 or 3 academic teacher's pay and often meet no classes. The number of their graduating players who are ready to play as freshmen on a college team may be one or two at most. They know the "name of the game".

(04-21-2016 04:27 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  I believe Ehsan will be gone after the first good season he has, which should be next year, if he gets good offers. But I guess everyone is ok with that, since we got a bargain. Why would he accept a raise to maybe 600k when he will get better offers.

But as long as the fans are willing to accept being equivalent to CUSA teams, that is all we will be. All this talk about moving up and improving conferences is a joke.

Just to be argumentative...

You've made it clear that you don't think he should have gotten a mil, but we should have paid him more. So, I'll assume you think he should've gotten, say, $750K.

You also say that he will be gone after one good year, possibly next year. Let's play it out.

We go balls out next year, NCAA tourney, run to the Sweet Sixteen. All eyes are on Ehsan from big time programs who are hiring. Some big school comes calling, offering him $1.5M, he's gone regardless. What we are paying him this year doesn't matter. $450K, $750K, doesn't matter. We can't match those schools in money, or in the profile we have, so in the end the result is the same.

You're argument just doesn't make economic sense. The value of a good or service is what a willing buyer and a willing seller are willing to negotiate in a free, open market. That is what we are paying Ehsan.

Bates UAB is correct that what a major P5 program can offer any G5 coach dwarfs what most G5 schools can pay. What the pay scale does provide is that the number of P5 schools the coach is likely to listen to is in proportion to what he is making at UAB. It took a call from a Stanford to get Haase's attention. The less a coach makes, the longer the list of potential "suitor" schools he might look at, and perhaps the less they will have to offer to move him.

If you are worth your salt, UAB offers a springboard to a high major head coaching position. If support increases, we'll be able to hang onto coaches a little bit longer. At least we lost our higher-performing coaches to Stanford & Mizzou and not Auburn or South Carolina.