Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 5, 1992 TAG: 9201050065
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill Brill
DATELINE: ANAHEIM, CALIF. LENGTH: Medium
COACHING CUTBACKS ALL BUT IN
In a presidential election year when "economy" has become the buzzword, prepare to add another category of people to the unemployment lines:Football and basketball coaches.
The NCAA Convention begins here Tuesday, and straw polls indicate that the presidential landslide of 1991 will be duplicated. That means cutbacks in staff sizes for Division I-A football and basketball programs will go into effect for the '92-93 school year.
If the Presidents Commission and NCAA Council fight off intricate proposals they perceive as circumventing staff cutbacks adopted last year, there will be more than 100 football coaches and at least twice as many basketball coaches looking for work.
In '91, the NCAA overwhelmingly backed plans to reduce football and basketball staffs by one full-time assistant per sport.
Football would be allowed eight assistants and four restricted-earnings coaches, and basketball would get two assistants and one restricted-earnings coach.
Restricted earnings mean just that. The coach can receive only $12,000 during the school year and another $4,000 in the summer. Clearly, that would eliminate the people who fill that role.
Football proposals would allow schools to combine two, three or four restricted-earnings jobs into full-time assistants, and basketball hopes to allow the third coach to receive unlimited income in the summer from sources other than the school.
The latter, Proposal 50, has been labeled the "Pete Gaudet Rule." Gaudet is the No. 1 assistant for Mike Krzyzewski's defending NCAA basketball champion at Duke. Officially, he is the part-time coach, which means only that he cannot recruit.
That's left to Coach K and his other aides, Mike Brey and Tommy Amaker.
Gaudet does the scouting and is heavily involved in the game plans and practice. Clearly, he is no part-timer.
However, arguments that such coaches should be able to earn more than $4,000 from summer camps or have a second job at the school for additional compensation are likely to fall on deaf ears.
For one thing, small schools can argue they cannot afford a person like Gaudet, whose total income is surely in six figures. And permitting those schools that have lucrative on-campus camps to fund that coach's salary is considered unfair.
That is not the reason for the cutbacks, though. In 1991, the presidents led a stampede in what was called a "reform movement," seeking to mute growing criticism of athletic programs widely perceived to be out of control.
The presidents, by voting margins that usually reached 90 percent, cut scholarship limits in football and basketball.
They also adopted the theory that fewer coaches were needed to coach fewer players.
Football cuts begin next season, when the scholarship limit will be trimmed from 95 to 92, then to 88 in '93-94 and 85 by '94-95.
Basketball cuts will go from 15 to 14 to 13.
In basketball, in particular, it often has been the case where there were more coaches in coats and ties on the bench than players.
Where the presidents and coaches disagree, the CEO's are taking a hard line. They want to make cuts in personnel to continue the appearance that reform is on the way.
Like it or not, the coaching cutbacks are virtually assured of being upheld.