密歇根新闻广播 美大学教练工资不断飞涨

Over the past three decades, the average football coach’s salary increased tenfold to $2.5 million. That’s about 25 times more than the average college professor earns, whose salary has merely kept pace with inflation. Today the highest paid public employee in 39 states is either a basketball coach or a football coach.

That’s nutty enough, but I can make a rational argument that many coaches bring in far more money than they take, and add value to their universities. I can also fall back on the marketplace argument. If a school wants to pay its coach several million dollars a year, I can’t begrudge¹ the coach for taking it. That’s how the marketplace works.

But what I cannot rationalize is why these schools continue to pay millions of dollars to coaches many years after they were fired. Schools created this upside-down market, which handsomely rewards abject² failure, when they started including buy-out clauses in their coaches’ contracts. These force schools to pay exorbitant³ sums just to get rid of losing coaches.

Those bizarre buy-outs are supposed to come with a catch: if a winning coach leaves for another school before his contract runs out, he has to pay the school he’s leaving a big buy-out. But it turns out the coach usually doesn’t pay anything, because the school he’s going to invariably pays his buyout for him.

This results in an even sillier scenario⁴, where schools end up not only paying millions to their former coach, and millions to their new coach, they have to pay millions more to their new coach’s previous school, so he can leave to come to their school.

As one athletic⁵ director said, "I'm paying the old coach, I'm paying the school that's not my school, and I'm paying the new coach. Wow, that's an expensive change."

Charlie Weis is the reigning⁶ king of coaching compensation craziness. When he became the head coach at Notre Dame⁷ in 2005, he often bragged⁸ his coaching genius would give Notre Dame a “decided⁹ schematic advantage” over their opponents in every game he coached.

But after five years, it turned out Weis didn’t even bring a “decided schematic advantage” against second-tier teams like Navy, which beat Notre Dame for the first time in 44 tries, then did it again two years later.

After five years, Notre Dame sent Weis on his way with two million dollars a year in buy-out money, making him one of the highest paid Notre Dame employees this year – and he hasn’t been an employee in almost a decade.

Incredibly, in 2012 the University of Kansas decided it was every bit as stupid as Notre Dame, and gave Weis another gigantic contract. Well, surprise surprise, Weis was even worse at Kansas. So bad, they fired him mid-way through his third season, and gave him millions to stop coaching.

The two schools combined paid Weis more than $40 million for more losses than wins. But what’s even crazier is this: Notre Dame and Kansas will pay Weis more than $24 million in buy-out money, because he stunk¹⁰!

Paying a great coach big money to win games is one thing. Paying a horrible coach even more money to go away is quite another.

If an NFL team wants to pay three head coaches at once, like the Detroit Lions often do, go right ahead. But when Universities are wasting millions just to get incompetent¹¹ coaches to leave, while their students are mortgaging their futures¹² to pay tuition, that’s a criminal lack of responsibility.

This insanity¹³ has got to stop. And the schools can stop it whenever they like.

1 begrudge   

vt.吝啬，羡慕

参考例句：

• I begrudge spending so much money on train fares.我舍不得把这么多钱花在火车票上。
• We should not begrudge our neighbour's richness.我们不应该嫉妒邻人的富有。

2 abject   

adj.极可怜的，卑屈的

参考例句：

• This policy has turned out to be an abject failure.这一政策最后以惨败而告终。
• He had been obliged to offer an abject apology to Mr.Alleyne for his impertinence.他不得不低声下气，为他的无礼举动向艾莱恩先生请罪。

3 exorbitant   

adj.过分的；过度的

参考例句：

• More competition should help to drive down exorbitant phone charges.更多的竞争有助于降低目前畸高的电话收费。
• The price of food here is exorbitant. 这儿的食物价格太高。

4 scenario   

n.剧本，脚本；概要

参考例句：

• But the birth scenario is not completely accurate.然而分娩脚本并非完全准确的。
• This is a totally different scenario.这是完全不同的剧本。

5 athletic   

adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的

参考例句：

• This area has been marked off for athletic practice.这块地方被划出来供体育训练之用。
• He is an athletic star.他是一个运动明星。

6 reigning   

adj.统治的，起支配作用的

参考例句：

• The sky was dark, stars were twinkling high above, night was reigning, and everything was sunk in silken silence. 天很黑，星很繁，夜阑人静。
• Led by Huang Chao, they brought down the reigning house after 300 years' rule. 在黄巢的带领下，他们推翻了统治了三百年的王朝。

7 dame   

n.女士

参考例句：

• The dame tell of her experience as a wife and mother.这位年长妇女讲了她作妻子和母亲的经验。
• If you stick around,you'll have to marry that dame.如果再逗留多一会，你就要跟那个夫人结婚。

8 bragged   

v.自夸，吹嘘( brag的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He bragged to his friends about the crime. 他向朋友炫耀他的罪行。
• Mary bragged that she could run faster than Jack. 玛丽夸口说她比杰克跑得快。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

10 stunk   

v.散发出恶臭( stink的过去分词 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透

参考例句：

• Those rotten eggs have stunk the place. 那些臭蛋把这个地方弄得恶臭。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• A stunk made a bad smell in our yard last night. 昨天臭鼬在我们院子里弄得好臭。 来自互联网

11 incompetent   

adj.无能力的，不能胜任的

参考例句：

• He is utterly incompetent at his job.他完全不能胜任他的工作。
• He is incompetent at working with his hands.他动手能力不行。

12 futures   

n.期货，期货交易

参考例句：

• He continued his operations in cotton futures.他继续进行棉花期货交易。
• Cotton futures are selling at high prices.棉花期货交易的卖价是很高的。

13 insanity   

n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐

参考例句：

• In his defense he alleged temporary insanity.他伪称一时精神错乱，为自己辩解。
• He remained in his cell,and this visit only increased the belief in his insanity.他依旧还是住在他的地牢里，这次视察只是更加使人相信他是个疯子了。