In June of 2020, with the coronavirus pandemic threatening college revenues, University of Iowa Athletic Director Gary Barta announced that he and several high-profile coaches including head football coach Kirk Ferentz would be taking voluntary pay reductions.
11 months later, reporting from The Gazette shows that Ferentz did not take a pay cut, nor did any of his football staff.
The story is significant to swimming fans because in between those two pieces of news was a third Iowa update: in August of 2020, Iowa announced it would be cutting its women’s and men’s swimming & diving programs along with two other sports.
The June 2020 announcement came as the worsening coronavirus pandemic left the college football season in jeopardy. Iowa was already staring down an athletics budget deficit. Barta announced that he would be taking a voluntary salary reduction of more than 30%. He also announced that four highly-paid head coaches (football’s Kirk Ferentz, men’s basketball’s Fran McCaffery, women’s basketball’s Lisa Bluder, and wrestling’s Tom Brands) had agreed to one-year salary reductions of 15%, or to “contributions back to the athletic department.”
But The Gazette reports That while McCaffery, Bluder, Brands and Barta did see their base salaries decrease, Ferentz did not. In fact, Ferentz’s base salary actually increased $100,000 as spelled out in his contract, from $2.6 million to $2.7 million. Ferentz is the highest-paid public employee in the state of Iowa.
Ten football coaches agreed to forgo bonuses they earned for qualifying for a bowl game. (Altogether, that saved the Iowa athletic department a little more than $400,000, per The Gazette. The coaches of other sports who reduced their salaries saved the school a collective $1.6 million.) But all ten of those football coaches saw their base salaries rise significantly. Strength coach Raimond Brathwaite‘s salary doubled, from $205,000 to $450,000. Ferentz’s son Brian, the team’s offensive coordinator, saw his salary rise from $775,000 to $860,000.
Despite the other coaches forgoing those bowl game bonuses, Ferentz did not. He will be paid another $100,000 for qualifying for a bowl game that the Hawkeyes never actually played – the game was canceled when Iowa’s opponent, the University of Missouri, reported too many cases of COVID-19.
Per The Gazette, most members of Iowa’s athletic department did take the pay cuts. That includes the athletic director, Gary Barta. Even the coaches of the four Olympic sports the school cut – swimming & diving, men’s tennis, men’s gymnastics – volunteered to take the pay cut. The school later waived those offers after they announced the program cuts.
Iowa has since reinstated its women’s swimming & diving program after a lawsuit alleged that the school would be in violation of Title IX by cutting the team. But head coach Marc Long stepped down after 17 seasons.
The original announcement said Ferentz and the other coaches would take the pay cut or make “contributions back to the athletic department.” The Gazette asked the school if Ferentz had made contributions, and the school pointed to Ferentz’s previous donations to “support football letterwinner initiatives” in late 2019 and late 2020.
When asked if others on the football staff had made contributions, the school named only assistant coach Ken O’Keefe, who made a $20,000 donation in late 2020. (O’Keefe more than made up for it, though, with a base salary rise of $60,000, from $625,000 to $685,000.) Other Iowa media outlets have already reported on Iowa’s football staff receiving raises the month after the school cut its swimming & diving programs.
Iowa is known to do a little trolling… from time to time
This story was a hatchet job. Buried in it are facts showing all FB coaches gave up bonuses. Ferentz donated $1 million. Relax.
He made a donation…to the football program…
I’ve been a long-time supporter of Kirk & his coaches but this is wrong. I realize they were/are still working F/T despite Covid and lack of a season was not their fault but this surprises me. I truly believe Fry & Gable would have taken a cut (Hayden’s the standard for FB just as Gable is for ALL U of I sports!) Or to put it another way – what would Nile have done if in that position?? Disappointed alum
Just here to say, once again, F Gary Barta.
While this sounds awful, keep in mind that football literally pays for every single other sport in their program. Without football students and/or tax payers would be footing the entire athletic bill. The aesthetics are pathetic, but in reality they are contractually within their rights to take the raises.
This is not an Iowa problem, it’s a broader cultural issue with how much significance many people place on football. It’d be pretty amazing if alumni gave to academics in equal measure (or ideally significantly more).
Football doesn’t pay for everything though. Look at the Knight Commission and you’ll see that the Iowa Athletic department has gone $100,000,000 more in debt since 2015. Football renovating end zones every year costs that money.
http://cafidatabase.knightcommission.org/fbs/big-ten/university-of-iowa#!quicktabs-tab-institution_data-3
Actually, it is awful.
Depending on one’s perspective yes it’s awful. It’s also a business and one group is responsible for the entirety of the athletic revenue. I don’t like it either but burying your head in the sand and ignoring reality doesn’t help.
This program is an overrated joke. They’ve got the alumni and their fans brainwashed into thinking they have some “elite” program. Go back and take a good look at their joke of a non-conference schedule every year that they have to pad their record. I have to wonder if the tradition of waving before games to the Children’s Hospital that overlooks the stadium is genuine. What a bunch of disingenuous phonies!
I’m with you until your crap on the Children’s Hospital wave… another conspiracy theory?
A base salary increase from $625,000 to $685,000 is not a rise of $260,000…
Sounds like a classic Uzbekistan contract renegotiation exercise.