Lobo basketball coach pay goes up to $950,000???
When I got this story this morning from Frank Haley, I just shook my head in disgust. Many fans and UNM athletic director Paul Krebs say The $200,000 raise for UNM men’s basketball coach Craig Neal is well deserved. The school on Monday morning announced that it had boosted the second-year coach’s annual base salary and compensation to $950,000 per season, making him the highest paid men’s basketball coach in the Mountain West Conference.
The contract runs through the 2019-20 season, which will be a total of $5.7 million paid out before incentives.
But NOT everyone praised the raise, especially in light of the fact that pay raises for UNM faculty and staff has been scarce to non-existent for years.
I just ask WHY? This is more than the President of UNM makes, the average income in New Mexico is about $32,000 a year. This sends the wrong message to the state of New Mexico. Sorry, I have to ask is Lobo basketball more important than the education of our youth? Why don’t the faculty and staff who serve our youth get raises? Paying the UNM basketball coach almost 1 million a year is a disgrace. I say the priorities of the University are out of whack.
I didn’t know that basketball was this vital to the state.
This comes at a bad time for the state, we are losing jobs, we have many children going hungry, we are rated near or at the bottom in failing to provide properly for our children, we have many, many families struggling, what does this raise in pay to the basketball coach mean to them? What does it do for them? How can they identify with a basketball coach making 1 million a year? I know I can’t!
I would rather see that $200,000 raise for the coach go toward scholarships for students that need it. Isn’t the lottery Scholarship going broke?
Do I have to remind anybody the last time the University game their basketball coach a big contract, he jumped ship? I said at the time Alford would leave in a heart beat if he got the right offer and he did, going to UCLA, will Neal do the same?
Just one final note, by paying the coach this much, what do the “big thinkers” at UNM hope to achieve?
