In September the great sports writer Ivan Maisel addressed the new paradigm in college sports.
“Pull up a chair, sports fans. The past century’s paradigm – in which student-athletes compete in exchange for an education – is being upended. And where the ball will land is anyone’s guess.”
You could read Maisel’s essay as a prediction that great coaches like Stanford’s David Shaw couldn’t make it in the new era in which athletes can transfer schools without penalty, are paid directly, and can earn money on their team’s promotion of their name, image and likeness.
And he was correct; a few weeks later Shaw, widely regarded as one of the nation’s best leaders of college athletes, stepped down.
Shaw was an awesome coach – until the rules changed. He is the only four-time Pac-12 Coach of the Year. Stanford was eighth nationally in wins against top-25 opponents, including five wins against top five schools. The Cardinal had a nation-leading 15 Academic All-Americans since 2010, five more than any other program in the country.
At the same time, the University of Colorado, also a Pac-12 program, fired its football coach after five games into the second year of a five-year contract. The buyout will cost the University about $9 million.
Colorado is 1-11 this year; Stanford is 3-9.
On Dec. 4, Colorado announced it hired Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders to a multiyear contract worth at least $30 million.
It’s a good time to ask – is it really all about the expensive coach? And why are we bothering?
The new era has zero player loyalty.
The average Pac 12 team had 26 incoming transfers on its roster this year; Stanford, which requires all athletes to meet academic admission standards, had one.
The Colorado bet appears to be that Coach Prime’s reputation and profile will attract a competitive roster of recruits and transfers. This week, CU reversed its policy to make it easier for athletic transfers. Given the ease with which athletes can bolt programs that don’t pay and pamper them sufficiently, the bet is that he’ll do this year after year after year, that he’ll coach the athletes to on-field success – and that he’ll stick around, if he’s that successful, even though his average tenure as a coach has been two years.
But supporting the Prime Time bet will take much more money than the coach’s $6 million salary (which is, by the way, seven times the salary of the CU system’s president, and 50 times Gov. Jared Polis’ pay).
And top programs need massive capital for competitive training and athletic facilities and athlete-specific housing; for transportation; for the newly legal direct payments to athletes; and more. The California Board of Regents estimates moving UCLA football to the Big 10 will require “$10 million per year for more academic advisors to travel with the team and more mental health therapists.”
Why bother?
It’s not clear that either Stanford or CU should continue to play this game.
Spending is about trade-offs, and strategic choices. Higher education needs to shift dramatically, quickly; college enrollment is facing a demographic cliff, remote learning is now a permanent delivery mechanism, and students are moving from a four-year residential to a lifelong, dip-in-and-dip-out, learning career.
A $30 million roll of the dice could fund 300 new faculty members’ salaries. Or kick-start a new sustainable, inclusive growth institute. Or pay the full four-year cost of tuition, room and board for hundreds of under-estimated Coloradans.
Colorado needs a long-term strategic plan before we roll the dice the next time.
J.B. Holston lives in Denver and contributes to The Colorado Sun, a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues.
