Hunter
05/14/21
A report on Friday’s Cedar Rapids Gazette online site says that none of the University of Iowa’s contracted football coaches — including head coach Kirk Ferentz — participated in the voluntary salary reductions that UI Athletics announced last summer in light of massive pandemic losses that officials cited weeks later in justifying their decision to cut four Hawkeye sports.
A public records request showed that most contracted athletics staffers took the pay cut, including men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery, women’s basketball coach Lisa Bluder, and head and associate head wrestling coaches Tom and Terry Brands. Administrators waived pay cut offers from the men’s swimming and diving, men’s tennis and men’s gymnastics coaches after it was announced that those sports would be dropped after this season.
Senior Associate Athletics Director Matt Henderson told the paper that the coaches and contracted staff were asked to consider either participating in a voluntary pay cut or making a donation back to the department during the fiscal year.
Ten football coaches agreed to forgo bonuses they earned for qualifying for a bowl game, which saved the department over $430,000. Ferentz, the Gazette reports, will still take his bowl game bonus. Henderson did report that the Ferentzes have provided nearly $1 million in private support to the Athletic Department, and have made yearly pledge payments of $100,000 towards a $400,000 commitment.
All employees still have the chance to participate in budget reductions between now and the end of the fiscal year June 30th. The Athletic Department have not released details on the dollar amount of losses expected then, but indicate that they won’t be as bad as originally thought after sports started back up.