A bit of dodgy duckweed for today…
Jim Brown got me thinking last week with his reference to LSU Head Coach Les Miles’ 3.75 Million Dollar salary. So this week’s slime of the moment is a simple comparison of how much higher athletic official pay is over professor pay at our state universities. Here’s Head Coach pay, full professor average pay, and average instructor pay in general (professor, associate, assistant, and instructor averaged together). Only 3 universities had numbers available on both, so here goes:
LSU
Head Coach: Les Miles
Current Pay: $3,751,000
Full Professor Pay: $99,300
Average Instructor Pay: $68,300
LA Tech
Head Coach: Jay Bicknell
Current Pay: $350,000
Full Professor Pay: $73,200
Average Instructor Pay: $55,200
UL-Lafayette
Head Coach: Ricky Bustle
Current Pay: $196,000
Full Professor Pay: $88,000
Average Instructor Pay: $60,800
Without anymore charts, just FYI the average head coach pay in Louisiana is around $350,000 per year ($180,000 without LSU’s pay skewing the average). The average instructor pay is around $60,000 (in fairness Tulane and Loyola skew that number higher than it would be with them excluded). With LSU being 1072% higher than the state average on Football pay, why are they only 14% higher than the state average on instructor pay?
This is a state school, and although LSU athletics is a money-maker, these are your tax dollars at work. Enjoy the game.
CenLamar 
Dude, lay off it. Their jobs are much more intense than a professor and it takes a lot more skill. It’s a special unique person to coach that well and a t such a high level. They deserve the dough!
Being an excellent coach is not any more or any less difficult than being an excellent professor/researcher.
Coaches, however, can make their universities a heck of a lot more money.
They do make money, and during my two semesters at LSU I was informed by quite a few professors and deans that football is big business and that it seems like a priority over academics because it does make them so much money.
But still, it seems that could at least match Tulane on professor pay if they can afford that kind of dough for a coach.
I’m pretty sure the athletic Department and/or TAF pays the football coaches salary, so the University does not bear the brunt of that, nor are the professors affected by what he makes. Plus, the football program pays for every other athletic programs, since none of the other sports are profitable, with the exception possibly of basketball(womens for sure, maybe men’s), and maybe baseball breaks even. If LSU wants a successful program, they have to pay the going rate.