… to Mike Locksley’s tenure as University of New Mexico football coach:
Let’s begin with this question: Does Mike Locksley, University of New Mexico football coach, make too much?
Well, before we reveal his salary, let’s consider what he’s contributed to UNM so far this year.
1.) The team’s record: 0 – 6. He’s in his first year, and has lost every game he has coached.
2.) He has an EEOC complaint against him for firing an administrative assistant because, he told her, he wanted a younger woman to “entice recruits.”
3.) He has a history of violent behavior, and has most recently beaten up one of his assistant coaches.
So… what seems a reasonable salary for this man?
Did you say $750,000 a year?
Bingo.
That was October 2009. Here’s a more recent version:
Locksley’s stint at New Mexico could not have gone much more poorly. He was 2-26, fired in September 2011 after an 0-4 start to his third season. The Lobos finished 113th and 116th nationally in scoring in his two full seasons, both of which ended at 1-11. Off the field, it was just as bad. Locksley was accused of sexual discrimination by a former administrative assistant in a lawsuit resolved out of court. And he missed one game in 2009 to serve a suspension for his involvement in an altercation with assistant coach J.B. Gerard. His final game at UNM, a 48-45 loss to FCS-level Sam Houston State, was played before an announced crowd of 16,313, the Lobos’ smallest since 1992, and came in the wake of a DWI arrest of a 19-year family friend who was driving a car registered to the coach’s wife and son.
Okay, so UD is proud and excited to announce that Locksley will now be Mr UD’s coach! Yes, Locksley’s the new coach at the University of Maryland, and Mr UD will be part of his faculty cheering squad!!
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More commentary on the exciting changes at the University of Maryland here.
October 11th, 2015 at 6:39PM
“Some American universities (hello U. Chicago!) do extremely well without having a team at all.”
Biased, I know, but my home state of CA had, at one time, the finest public uni system in the nation. Of the twenty three California State Universities, six have a football team. Only three of the ten UC’s play football. Last I checked, none of those institutions claimed they lost admits due to a lack of football. But, according to pigskin apologists, students are not having a full college experience without something to do a few Saturdays out of the year. Wonder what the few hundred thousand CA football bereft public uni students think of that?
October 11th, 2015 at 8:26PM
College football coaching seems to be one of those special magical realms where failing upward is par for the course. I’d like (only in a perverse sense of “like”) to hear what gets said at the meetings where such hiring decisions are made. I mean, what’s the argument to pay millions to someone with that kind of track record?
October 11th, 2015 at 8:32PM
“Had”?
“At one time”?
I’m a Californian too, and I say, hey: if we start with the recent ranking of the world’s 50 best universities by the Times (UK) Higher Education, and pull out only public universities in the U.S., we get the following list, of which nearly half are from the University of California system:
1. UC Berkeley
2. UCLA
3. Michigan
4. UMass
5. Illinois
6. Wisconsin
7. Washington
8. UC San Diego
9. UT Austin
10. UC San Francisco
11. UC Davis
Yes, rankings are always problematic, and yes, there are plenty of problems still facing the state, but IMHO California *still* has the best public uni system in the country.
October 11th, 2015 at 9:34PM
@Doctorstein, the UC’s have pretty much become a satrap and cash cow for Wall Street money palaces. For nearly a decade, tuition hasn’t been used to increase academic quality, but instead, as collateral for the massive capital projects taking place on many of the campuses you referenced.
keepcaliforniaspromise.org/383/they-pledged-your-tuition
My dad graduated from UCLA, paid for it by working summers prior to the war, and with his GI bill after he got back from the Pacific Theater. If I had attended the UCs back in the 80’s, I could have paid tuition working at UPS. That’s pretty much gone. That’s why I refer to UC preeminence in the past tense…