UCLA Football Coaching Staff Pay Increases for 2013 and Beyond

As noted in the LA Times, the assistant coaches for the football team at UCLA were dished some pretty sizable pay increases this offseason.

While a 9-5 season with a Pac-12 South Division title was undoubtedly a successful year, it was not as though UCLA exceeded reasonable expectations. This might cause a few eyebrows to raise, but it is immensely important to give a coaching staff incentive to stay.

The article in the LA Times points out that from 2003 to 2011 the UCLA football coaching staff has had 39 assistant coaches. That level of turnover works out to 4 new coaches a year. Even accounting for the transition of staffs from CKD to CRN, that is way too high for any team to be successful.

In 2011 (CRN's last season), the UCLA coaching staff only combined to make $1.645 million. That is not even remotely competitive. No head coach can consistently put together and retain a worthwhile staff with that little money. Especially not in Westwood, where the cost of living is just a little bit higher than most places.

In Coach Mora's first year, the cumulative pay for assistants jumped up to $2.08 million. And (shockingly) the quality of coaches increased. The fact that this was an issue is yet another testament to the incompetence of the AD at UCLA. How can you justify cutting pay for assistant coaches when the athletic budget is completely unrelated to the budget of the rest of the UC system?

After the first successful football season since MJD and Marcedes Lewis's last season, Coach Mora went to bat for his staff and got the pay pool bumped up to $2.442 million. Below is a breakdown of the individual coaches provided by the numbers posted in the LA Times article.

Offensive Line Coach Adrian Klemm

Received a two-year contract paying him $340,000 in 2013 and $350,000 in 2014 along with a $40,000 retention bonus to be paid in 2015.

Defensive Line Coach Angus McClure

McClure gets a $10,000 increase up to $175,000, which is the smallest bump noted on here. I assume that the two coordinator's contracts remain the same because those are usually contracts that last roughly the same length as the head coach, in my experience with college football.

Wide Reciever Coach Eric Yarber

Yarber's salary double for this season, up to $250,000 from $125,000 last year. While I think that number is about right for a good WR coach that was in the NFL for quite some time, it seems odd to double his salary while only bumping McClure $10K.

Linebackers Coach Jeff Ulbrich

From the LA TImes,

"Linebacker and special teams coach Jeff Ulbrich was to make $215,000 this season but received a new two-year contract worth $275,000 a season. The contract included a $90,000 signing bonus and retention bonuses of $25,000 (January 2014), $70,000 (January 2015) and $70,000 (July 2015)."

He definitely proved himself worth this contract by the exceptional performance of the linebackers last season and the big improvement of the special teams (despite the Steven Manfro fumbles).

Defensive Back Coach Demetrice Martin

Martin got a two-year contract paying him $227,000 and $250,000 over the length of the deal. His pay from last year is not listed, but it was probably around $200,000 or so (complete guess by me).

Strength and Condition Coach Sal Alosi

Alosi will be paid $215,000 this season and got an extension through 2015. This is an increase from his salary of only $40,000 last year!

This is the biggest bump percentage-wise and number-wise, and his salary from last year genuinely shocked me. I know that he exited the NFL ungracefully, but he was still one of the best S&C guys available. That bump in pay should ensure that the last two recruiting classes get 4 full years of a football specific S&C coach. I am interested to see how their performance on the field translates with a football specific S&C coach.

In short, this helps ensure continuity in the coaching staff over the length of Coach Mora's time at UCLA.

Sidenote:

An additional side of this story that is much more suspect when you look at performance of the Athletic Department. Associate ADs Mark Harland and John Jentz have gotten huge pay raises each of the last three years. Harlan has gone from $88,195 to $186,618 to over $200,000. Jentz has bumped up to over $200,000 from $150,452 in 2011-12 and $83,115 in 2010-2011.

islandbruin2 makes some much wiser points than I can about this situation in the comment thread of Bruin Bites today and I assume they'll be Fan Posted shortly. It is just crazy to me that, along with Chianti's pay, the Athletic Department is being rewarded for their performance in recent years.