University offers full packages to recruit, reward top coaches

Princeton men's squash head coach Bob Callahan graduated from University in 1977 with an offer from IBM for a lucrative position in a company on the rise.

Four years after the job, Callahan was called to be on a search committee for a new squash coach. During the process, he realized that this job would be perfect for him and filled the vacancy himself. Twenty years later, he is still here.

"There are lots of better paying jobs out there, country clubs and things of that sort," Callahan said, "but I'm here for the love of the kids and the love of Princeton."

Although coaches this week shared romantic visions of why they chose to come to Princeton, the media has recently paid much attention to the trend toward well-paid, celebrity coaches on college campuses.

There are now 10 college football coaches in the nation making more than $1 million per year. The National Collegiate Athletics Association reports that salaries for football coaches rose 47 percent from 1997 to 1999. The average salary for coaches of all college sports rose 35 percent in the same period, as reported by USA Today.

But coaching is not "just a job" for coaches; it is a position that can be reached only after many years of playing and studying the sport that they are passionate about.

Moreover, a winning coach can symbolize success and achievement that universities and students expect of their athletic programs.

It is unrealistic to expect that coaches do not think about salary when considering job offers from various schools. More often than not, universities must compete with each other to attract the best coaches.

Making precise comparisons between coaching salaries at the University and other schools is difficult because much of the information is kept under wraps.

Public colleges and universities are required by public records laws to release such information because they receive state funding. Private institutions like Princeton and Yale University are not bound to the same laws.

When asked about Yale's average coaching salaries, the school's senior associate athletics director Forrest Temple replied that "Yale University policy prohibits us from providing information of that nature."

However, the IRS requires nonprofits, like Princeton, to file on their annual tax reports their five highest paid employees.

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Those spots are mostly filled by presidents, top administrators and endowed professors, and only rarely are coaches listed.

During the 1999-2000 academic year, the most recent year for which data is listed, Princeton's then head football coach Steve Tosches, made a base salary of $299,530 including $24,803 in benefits.

But this number may be inflated because Tosches resigned before the end of his contract, and his salary was negotiated. He is not listed with a top five salary for previous years, an athletics official said.