Friday, February 22, 2008

Coaches, CEOs and politicians... golden parachutes above flaming debris

Kelvin Sampson, the NCAA division 1 basketball coach who left Oklahoma under a cloud because he'd made dozens and dozens of phonecalls that he was not supposed to make, has just accepted a buyout of his contract for $700,000, from Indiana - for doing the exact same thing.

This makes no sense to me. What kind of blood-sucking lawyers do university athletic departments hire these days, that they can't write an iron-clad contract saying, "You cheat in any way, shape or form, and we get to fire you without paying you one red cent."

Surely that is how head coaches' contracts should be written.

But Jim O'Brien got fired, as he deserved, and he won a wrongful dismissal lawsuit and now he's getting paid the big bucks.

And now we've got Kelvin Sampson, who threatened to sue the university if he were fired. So they cave and "buy out" his contract, giving him $700,000.

Where does this money come from, I wonder? From taxpayers, whose tax money goes into university coffers to pay for athletic programs? From alumni gifts and stuff? From income from the football program? (I do believe that football is the only money-making proposition for most schools - all other spoorts, male and female, ride on those coattails...)

It's just ridiculous.

In what other job can you deserve to be fired, and get paid millions when you go? Only head coaches, CEOs, and politicians. The average rank and file would be out on their ears...

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