Turner Gill received a base salary of $658,492 and a total compensation package of $750,116 for the Liberty fiscal year ending June 30, 2015, according to tax documents retrieved online. Liberty’s 5th year head coach had the highest compensation package of any other FCS coach we researched. The full list of 24 other head coaches’ salaries we reviewed is listed below:.
Richmond’s Danny Rocco received a total package worth $437,672. *
Northern Iowa’s Mark Farley had a base salary of $350,000. %
Villanova’s Andy Talley received a base salary of $304,642 with a total package of $341,096. *
James Madison’s Mike Houston had a starting salary of $300,000 in his first year this season. #
Illinois State’s Brock Spack had a base salary of $300,000. %
North Carolina A&T’s Rod Broadway had a base salary of $285,000. #
In Samford’s Pat Sullivan’s final season before Chris Hatcher took over, he had a base salary of $274,665 and a total package worth $438,196. *
North Dakota State’s Chris Klieman had a base salary of $261,177 with a total package worth 300,000. #%
Sam Houston State’s KC Keeler had a base salary of $250,000. %
Youngstown State’s Bo Pelini had a base salary of 213,894 in his first year this season. #
Cal Poly’s Tim Walsh had a base salary of $205,200. #
New Hampshire’s Sean McDonnell had a base salary of $200,000. #
Grambling State’s Broderick Fobbs had a base salary of $195,000. #
South Dakota State’s John Stiegelmeier had a base salary of $190,000. %
Jacksonville State’s John Grass received a base salary of $181,000 with a total package of $251,000. ^
Eastern Washington’s Beau Baldwin received a package worth $212,717. !
Central Arkansas’ Steve Campbell had a base salary of $185,000. #
Coastal Carolina’s Joe Moglia had a base salary of $175,000. #
Montana’s Bob Stitt had a base salary of $175,000 in 2015. %#
The Citadel’s Brent Thompson received a base salary of $175,000 in 2016. $
Samford’s Chris Hatcher had a base salary of $152,650 in his final season at Murray State in 2014. *#
Chattanooga’s Russ Huesman had a base salary of $150,000. #
North Dakota’s Kyle Schweigert had a base salary of $150,000. #
Charleston Southern’s Jamey Chadwell received a base salary of $120,542 and total package worth $139,670. *
Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list of all 125 FCS programs, but we concentrated our research on teams’ currently ranked in the FCS Top 25 polls and a few other top programs. All salaries are listed for the 2014-15 academic year, unless otherwise noted.
The average compensation package for the above listed FCS head coaches is $260,888.44. If you remove Gill’s numbers, the average drops to $240,503.96. Gill’s compensation would put him 87th amongst all Division I coaches, including the FBS, according to a recent USA Today study.
Sources:
# Coach Contract Rankings
* Various Tax Documents
% Area Voices
^ The Anniston Star
! The Spokesman Review
$ The Post and Courier
And the point of the article is what? It’s never stated.
Is it to spark a campaign to replace Turner Gill as Head Coach? To criticize Jerry Falwell, Jr. and Jeff Barber? To gripe that FCS coaches are paid too much or too little?
Do all 25 coaches mentioned here have the same resumes? Does a coach’s background and experience and a school’s future goals for the Football program make a difference in his contract when he is hired? If the writer knows the correct metric by which FCS coaches should be paid I’m sure a lot of university presidents and Athletic Directors would be interested in hiring him as a consultant.
Since the ‘A Sea Of Red’ blog isn’t easily confused with Consumer Reports, I think the writer needs to be more transparent about his purpose for writing and what conclusions he hopes his readers will draw.
Somehow I doubt this same article would be posted if Liberty Football were undefeated.
So correct me if I’m wrong but is Turner Gill the highest paid fcs coach? If that’s really true, he’s gotta get gone. We can’t keep paying this kind of money and coming away with 6-5 seasons