John D. Colombo, a University of Illinois law professor who has written about tax exemption and college athletics, says he doesn’t think the IRS action will fundamentally alter college athletics business. But he adds, “Audits are never comfortable. Just the IRS being there asking questions makes people nervous.”

Fine, yes, uncomfortable. Yes, nervous. But your coach is all right. The luxury boxes are all right. Get a grip on yourself.

The IRS has begun audits of more than 30 colleges that could include examinations of how schools determine the compensation of highly paid employees, including coaches and athletic administrators, according to an agency report.

The audits could include scrutiny of business activities that potentially can be seen as unrelated to schools’ primary purpose. Among the activities is the sale of corporate sponsorship packages that include athletics or are arranged by athletic departments.

… Colleges and Universities Compliance Project, which the agency said was part of a larger effort to review the largest, most complex organizations in the tax-exempt sector. Last year, the agency published a study concerning tax-exempt hospitals. [See post directly below this one.]

… The IRS interim report noted the large number of schools with an athletics coach among the five highest-paid employees who aren’t officers.

USA TODAY surveys of football coaching compensation have shown the average pay for a head coach in the NCAA’s 120-school Football Bowl Subdivision has risen 46% over the last three years, to $1.4 million in 2009. For the 65 schools in the 2009 NCAA men’s basketball tournament, average pay for a head coach for the 2009-10 season was nearly $1.3 million, USA TODAY found…

All sorts of Nosey Parkers have been nosing around universities lately. There’s that group that looked at how several universities not only ran their endowments into the ground, but contributed quite significantly to the nation’s recent economic meltdown. There’s the IRS investigation of non-profit hospitals I wrote about earlier today.

And now university coaches. Is nothing sacred?