In a recent post game news conference, political activist and so-called journalist, Ken Krayeske asked the University of Connecticut coach, Jim Calhoun if he, the highest paid state employee should give back any of his enormous salary as the economy gets worse. Despite what the zombie sports media tells you, this was an appropriate question that needed to be asked. What was not appropriate was Calhoun's tyrannical response. Calhoun's irateness sheds light on serious problems regarding the state of coaching and the sports media in college athletics.
Coaches are overpaid
Whether the economy is bad or not we should not be tolerating coaches becoming multimillionaires many times over. In many cases these coaches are making much more than than the governors and the presidents of their respective universities. Most, if not all states have college coaches that make more than their governors.
As these coaches get overpaid more and more, it eliminates opportunities for people who simply want to coach for the right reasons. People that want to coach for the love of sport or the joy of helping young people are getting snubbed, in favor of coaches that are coaching for their own selfish reasons, be it riches, prestige or power.
These coaches are so overpaid and so greedy that they have convinced themselves that they are the fish in the pond. In Calhoun's case he is convinced that he is worth every penny of the $1.6 plus million he makes. "Calhoun would like the layman to believe that the university could not bring in a coach, pay him $50,000-$80,000 in salary and get results. Calhoun would be wrong. Coaches do x's and o's and a little bit of recruiting with the help of their staffs. It is as simple as that. Any high salary compensation is simply a blessing.
But even if we were to argue that Calhoun is marginally better than just about every other potential coach (and he is not) then at what point did it become justifiable to pay coaches that type of money? Calhoun cites the $12 million that his program brings to the institution. That is fine. The institution still has scholarships, athletic costs (including other non profitable sports), educational programs, campus security, campus maintenance and many other various costs that these sports institutions were designed to help support.
Not to mention, as a consumer we are tired of overpaying these coaches. College sports should be communal events. The tickets should be much more affordable for the general public. It should be very affordable to attend any college event. When institutions start paying these ridiculous salaries to coaches, ticket prices have to dramatically increase. If we are to consider the university system to be a part of our community and not merely big institutions then this financial disconnect should not be tolerated.
It can be argued that Krzyzewski is a lovable, well respected figure on campus (a point the media is fond of promoting), but we are still going to see coaches like Calhoun that arrogantly snipe at reporters, "not a dime back, I would like to retire someday." And that greed only scratches the surface. This is a man that has to have his butt kissed by campus personnel and the students he is an alleged advocate for.
If UCONN was a leader instead of a cog in the system, they would fire Calhoun and give him no severance. This should be done on the grounds that his behavior is reprehensible and that he has made more than enough to retire. But UCONN is just another cog in a system gone out of whack. They themselves are a microcosm of why the economy is in such turmoil.
Coaches are being esteemed above everyone else
As a representative of a supposedly esteemed institution like UCONN, how does Jim Calhoun get away with screaming at a reporter and calling him stupid for merely asking a question. There are many professors that would be fired for such conduct. Calhoun will not even be reprimanded. Instead we await his next cursing tirade (he has had many other tirades in response to simple inquiries from reporters).
We have seen similar inappropriate outrages by coaches. Oklahoma State's coach, Mike Gundy was allowed to slander, berate and personally belittle a female reporter in a yell filled tirade and then face no repercussions. We saw Indiana's Bob Knight get away with repeated inappropriate behavior for decades.
Even the millions, accolades and job security and chance to compete for a Wooden like legacy at Duke is not enough for Mike Krzyzewksi. We always hear about how humble he is, but that did not stop him accepting his arena from being named after him. How are students and faculty supposed to ever truly see eye to eye with someone in that position?
Sports media is not a watchdog
The so-called journalist that asked Calhoun whether he should take a pay cut, Ken Krayeske is reportedly a socialist and has an agenda independent of the bad economy. But anyone that points that out is just creating a smokescreen. Journalism 101 states that these are the tough questions that need to be asked.
Calhoun himself said that he would be willing to talk to Krayeske outside. That is reasonable, but he only said that after calling the reporter "stupid" and to "shut up." It is within reason for Calhoun to dictate some of the parameters of the debate as he may have found it better to talk about the game in a post game press conference. But more realistically, Calhoun is a state employee and he should have to justify his salary in the light, period.
Reporters should not be scared to ask valid questions at any time. When Krayeske said, "if these guys were doing their job then I wouldn't have to (ask the question)," he was right on the money. Sadly, those reporters are so intimidated by Calhoun that they indignantly grumbled (in Calhoun's and their defense) when Krayeske said that. Nobody likes to hear they are doing a bad job, but the fact is that those reporters did not want to be bothered with a reality check that they are not doing their jobs.
These types of weasels are found all across the sports media. If reporters had developed backbones long ago then coaches like Bob Knight would not have been allowed to constantly belittle them. Many of times, reporters just sat there and let Knight scold them for minutes for mere indiscretions or valid questions.
These are the same weasels that clapped when Mike Gundy inappropriately yelled and glared at a reporter because he did not like her column. He called it three-fourths untrue but was unwilling to specify what was wrong with it. We are talking about a man that had the audacity to yell at a woman saying she "obviously never had a child" after she simply criticized a grown man's performance on the playing field.
The weasels need to stop getting lost in the show that is sports. Stop allowing the Calhouns of the world to have a stranglehold on sports programs. Stop clapping for the Stoops of the world belittle your own associates. If these weasels start doing their job, then accountability can be restored in sports.
After Gundy made his tirade, the weasels were like a crowd at The Colosseum, cheering for the death of a gladiator. But for those of us that have some pride, we only felt a queasiness in our stomachs. It is a queasiness that a man like Mike Gundy is allowed to not only be allowed by universities to coach to the tune of millions, but that he is propagated by the media that is supposed to scrutinize that type of behavior.
To parallel Mike Gundy's opening statement of that infamous press conference, that tirade should make university officials and media members feel embarrassed to be involved with college athletics; whether they have children or not!
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