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“Football is very expensive. It would be better if they took football money and gave it to academics.”

Susan Moeller, a finance professor at Eastern Michigan University, spoke at a recent trustees’ meeting and told them that the school’s a mess academically and gives most of its money to a losing football team.

“We’re down to 57 percent regular faculty, and the other 43 percent are lecturers and part time. Searches are being held back, and I’m unhappy that they spend so much money on athletics and not academics. It’s important that we have full time faculty.”

… “Over the last few years, the budget for academics was cut by four million dollars,” she said. “They need new programming. They redid the football stadium before they redid the academic buildings. … The football coach makes more than the president.”

EMU’s president responds: “We had no increases in athletics budget this year aside from necessary pay raises.”

Necessary pay raises. Wonder what they are. I mean, universities all over the country are doing furloughs, salary reductions… What are the necessary raises at EMU?

UD’s guessing those are the raises that raise the football coach’s salary yet HIGHER than the president’s — or else…

You know…

Or else the coach will do what all peeved university football coaches do when the university peeves them: Sue, sue, sue, sue, sue.

Margaret Soltan, October 8, 2009 4:12PM
Posted in: sport

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2 Responses to ““Football is very expensive. It would be better if they took football money and gave it to academics.””

  1. Brad Says:

    Ron English (football coach) salary= $350,000
    Susan Martin (president) salary= $285,000
    English may have outside deals (TV or radio shows, for example) that sweeten the deal.

    English may get fired for having losing seasons. I doubt Martin would be fired for having losing athletic teams or poor academic performance of the school, for that matter. Presidents might be let go for personal indiscretions. I recall the Spring Arbor College president was let go when he was found to be a cross-dresser. Cross-dressing doesn’t go down well at a Christian college, although I don’t know that cross-dressing is specifically forbidden in the Bible.

    Back to the subject, there is an economic theory that people in jobs for which there is a performance standard carry the risk of being fired, and have a salary higher than those who are not held to a performance standard, other things being equal.

  2. Stephen Karlson Says:

    Brad: "Back to the subject, there is an economic theory that people in jobs for which there is a performance standard carry the risk of being fired, and have a salary higher than those who are not held to a performance standard, other things being equal."

    Yes, there is.

    http://coldspringshops.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html#307567538177543704

    "I submit that on average, athletic coaches cannot do better than economics professors. Harvard, in all likelihood, has fine economics professors and better-than-average athletic coaches. Oklahoma has better-than-average economics professors and fine football coaches. Wisconsin-Oshkosh has average economics professors and football coaches about whom I know nothing.

    "Therefore, the differences in pay are not necessarily statements about misplaced priorities in our society.

    "The differences in compensation reflect in part the tenure system for professors, which reduces risk, and the zero-sum nature of sport, which is not present in academic research. In economics, the modal number of faculty publications is zero, aggregating among all institutions of higher learning …"

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