By ROBERT CESSNATexas A&M had to reward men's basketball coach Mark Turgeon with a sweeter deal. It doesn't mean it'll work out for the best in the long run; it's just the right thing to do.
Even though Turgeon had five years left on his original eight-year contract, athletics director Bill Byrne knew he couldn't risk losing his coach, even though that likelihood seems remote. The new deal they agreed upon, which is yet to be announced, is expected to be approved next month by the A&M Board of Regents.
The Aggies have made great strides in basketball in the last six seasons, and the last thing anyone connected with the program wants is to take a step back. The images of a couple thousand people in Reed Arena socializing while Melvin Watkins coached A&M to a winless Big 12 season remains a vivid reminder of how far removed this place was from March Madness.
There's also the more recent memory of how Kentucky swooped in and took former head coach Billy Gillispie, who left behind an eight-year, $14 million contract the A&M Board of Regents had approved for him just eight days earlier. That, more than anything, helped educate Aggies on the economics of college basketball. If you have an up-and-coming coach, he's going to get offers.
March Madness annually has been replaced by April Assets. ADs under fire from disgruntled alums are forced to fire underachieving coaches and to replace them with the next coaching sensation like Butler's Brad Stevens.
Just the mention of Oregon -- backed by Nike co-owner Phil Knight -- looking for a coach has helped at least four coaches get new deals, a few of them eye-opening. Minnesota is reworking Tubby Smith's contract. New Mexico added two years to the contract of Steve Alford, who now is signed through 2020. That's right: 2020. That makes the Lobos' senior class that will determine what kind of season Alford has in 2020 about 12 years of age. That's blind trust or stupidity; time will tell. Pitt also announced a new deal for Jamie Dixon last week. That came a couple of days after the head of Oregon's search committee just happened to be in Pittsburgh. Dixon wouldn't say if he had been contacted by Oregon, and since Pitt was working on a new deal, officials said Oregon's vacancy had nothing to do with it.
Right.
It doesn't matter if those coaches were contacted by anyone from another school. The end result was sweeter deals for everyone including Turgeon, a former Oregon assistant.
There's no way Oregon is a better job than A&M -- not right now. You'd think Turgeon would want to stay and finish what he's started, helping make A&M an even better job even if nothing had been done. So what if Oregon can offer more money? You can live well in Bryan-College Station for $1.2 million a year.
Still, most of us will be speculating about Turgeon's future as long as he continues to win.
What happens when the next school comes calling, and then the next? And each time they offer more money? When does Mrs. Turgeon say, "Hey, let's take the cash. You deserve it?"
You want a happy coach, so you have to pay. There's six Big 12 coaches who are making more than $1.2 million a year. There weren't six Big 12 teams better than the Aggies, that's for sure.
Also consider that A&M had lost to the NBA draft a front-line player, Chinemelu Elonu, who was expected to be a starter. Then near the end of nonconference also lost its second-leading scorer and best defender, Derrick Roland, to a broken leg.
It's easy to rationalize why Turgeon deserved a better deal, but any decision to spend more at A&M will come under intense scrutiny. This is an athletics department paying back a $16 million loan, a department that laid off people in July to complete a $4.5 million budget cut.
Men's basketball does make money. The program showed a profit of $2,765,376 for 2008-09. The profit could be higher for this past season. A&M averaged 9,889 fans at Reed Arena, which was an increase of 451 per game.
Turgeon also has done a good job selling his program to the students via his Twitter page, helping create a great atmosphere at Reed Arena. Now he might be wise to steal a page from women's basketball coach Gary Blair and start making himself more accessible to the silver-haired folks paying the big bucks to attend games.
Because with the new contract will come higher expectations. Sure, no one sets higher goals than Turgeon, but A&M fans envision the Aggies being the next Butler.
It's nice that A&M has won a first-round NCAA tournament game for five straight seasons, but that's starting to be a given. As much as the A&M men's basketball team overachieved this season, it underachieved when it mattered it most. A&M had a bracket that should have landed the Aggies in Houston in the Sweet 16. A&M beat Utah State, a team that probably shouldn't have been in the tournament and as expected lost its fifth straight first-round game. All A&M had to do to come back home a big winner was beat a Purdue team that was missing its best player. Instead, it was Purdue earning the upset, denying A&M a chance to play before about 20,000 Aggies in Reliant Stadium. Those folks would have been a lot happier about Turgeon's new deal if he'd reached the Sweet 16. Purdue, of course, gave fifth-year head coach Matt Painter a new contract, and there was no mention of Oregon, but his name was mentioned elsewhere.
Hopefully, many more schools will be chasing Turgeon. It might continue to drive up the price, but it's better than the alternative.
Oklahoma locked up Jeff Capel last year to a contract that would pay him $13.28 million for staying with the Sooners through June 2016. It was a big increase from his original contract of $750,000 per year. His assistants also got $12,000 raises as the Sooners came within a game of the Final Four.
But the Sooners nose-dived to 13-18 this season, including a 4-12 league record. No one is mentioning Capel's name now, except that the Sooners are expected to rebound for the kind of cash they're paying Capel.
A&M knows all about overpaying.
A&M is still paying for the $300,000 raise and two-year contract extension it gave former head football coach Dennis Franchione after his 7-5 season in 2004. The Aggies didn't want to risk losing Franchione, who hasn't been able to land a job since leaving after the 2007 season. A&M gave him a buyout of $4.4 million, the last $1 million to be paid this year.
That wasn't a wise investment, but you only have to look at Oklahoma and Texas to see how much money they are making because of football's success. That's why UT's Mack Brown and OU's Bob Stoops are two of the highest paid football coaches in the country. Brown reportedly makes $5.1 million a year and Stoops is at $3.8 million. They make much more than the school's basketball coaches, who are well compensated. UT's Rick Barnes is second among Big 12 coaches at $2 million, a few spots ahead of Capel.
A side note of giving Turgeon a new deal is he'll creep closer to A&M football coach Mike Sherman, who is making $1.8 million a year. Turgeon can't be penalized for the football program's shortcomings, but it's also imperative that Sherman be given enough financial resources to be successful for the good of the whole department. Football pays all the bills, other than men's basketball.
Sherman just revamped his staff. The key addition was defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter, who signed a three-year contract -- $400,000 the first year, then $425,000 and $450,000.
It would appear that DeRuyter was Sherman's man. But would things have been different if Sherman had more money to spend? Former Boise State defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox was mentioned as a possibility. Wilcox went to Tennessee for $600,000 a year. The Vols are one of many teams unafraid to spend big bucks. Georgia, which beat A&M in the Independence Bowl, hired defensive coordinator Todd Grantham for $750,000 a year. Grantham had been the defensive line coach for the Dallas Cowboys.
Sherman, obviously, didn't have that kind of money to spend. Why would he? He doesn't have a lot of bargaining chips after going 10-15 in two seasons.
Turgeon, who is a big football fan, does. That's why he's getting a sweet deal. Hopefully, it won't be long until A&M has to sweeten Sherman's deal.
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