Spurrier set to make $3.3 million after $475,000 raise
After USC’s first 11-win football season and second consecutive national baseball championship, the head coaches in both sports have been awarded accordingly big-time salary bumps.
Head football coach Steve Spurrier will make $3.3 million after being awarded a $475,000 raise from the USC board of trustees. Tanner received a $140,000 pay increase, which will bring his annual salary to $650,000, and a one-year contract extension to 2016. Tanner has also been named special adviser to USC President Harris Pastides for community outreach.
Athletics director Eric Hyman acknowledged that the prices were high, but said the intangibles attached to the two successful programs are worth the dollars.
“It’s hard to put a figure on exactly,” Hyman said. “If you talk about everything, if you talk about the exposure the university gets, the sense of pride, the increase of attendance, it’s hard to put the intangibles and tangibles, it’s hard to quantify [how much a winning team is worth] ... The amount of exposure, the people who watch us and participate, it’s increased exponentially over the years and a lot of it has to do with the success of our baseball program, our football program, our women’s basketball program.”
Hyman said he didn’t know what Tanner’s special adviser role would specifically entail, but it was announced during the board meeting that his outreach would “not interfere with his coaching.”
“It’s what he does,” Hyman said. “He is so good about reaching out into the community and this just recognizes him for the service that he’s provided for the state of South Carolina.”
The board of trustees also voted for the first time in history to give all eight of Spurrier’s assistant coaches — both new and returning — multi-year contracts. The four returning assistants will receive raises.
Former defensive backs coach Lorenzo Ward, who was promoted to defensive coordinator when Ellis Johnson left for a head coaching job at Southern Miss, will receive a $270,000 raise, bringing his salary to $550,000 for 2012.
Offensive line coach Shawn Elliot will get a $115,000 raise, wide receivers coach Steve Spurrier Jr. will get a $75,000 raise, and defensive line coach Brad Lawing will get a $50,000 raise; all three will have $300,000 salaries in 2012.
As for new coaches, Joe Robinson, special teams coordinator and tight ends coach, will make $280,000; linebackers coach Kirk Botkin and running backs coach Everette Sands will make $185,000; and safeties coach Grady Brown will make $150,000.
Hyman said Spurrier had requested the contracts, and Hyman said he was glad the board acquiesced.
“That’s what Steve asked, and we were able to accommodate him,” Hyman said. “That’s what he’d like to have for his coaches and we were able to do that.”
Head men’s soccer coach Mark Berson and head softball coach Beverly Smith will both get four-year deals and receive a $100,000 and $106,638, respectively, with incentive options depending on how well their teams do.
Spurrier’s raise makes him the eighth-highest paid coach in the nation and the fourth-highest paid coach in the SEC, behind Alabama’s Nick Saban ($4.8 million), LSU’s Les Miles ($3.9 million), Arkansas’s Bobby Petrino ($3.6 million) and Auburn’s Gene Chizik ($3.5 million). Hyman said that’s just the price of competing in the SEC.
“The good news is, it’s the best league in the country. The bad news is, it’s the best league in the country,” Hyman joked. He added later that Spurrier’s accomplishments at USC merited the money.
“At South Carolina, the football program’s been spectacular,” Hyman said. “We’ve won 20 games in the last two years. You look at what South Carolina has achieved ... look at all the firsts they’ve accomplished. Coach Spurrier’s very reasonable, very fair. As everybody’ll tell you, the program is headed in the right direction.”