Holiday spirit alive in SEC

ShareThis

The holiday season is in full force in Southeastern Conference football. But that's nothing new.In a season of giving, SEC schools are giving as much as anyone. Never mind that there has been a decline in charitable donations nationwide. SEC athletic directors are proving more generous than ever.Granted, it helps that they're giving away someone else's money. In the spirit of the season, I won't belabor that minor point. But it's worth noting that their generosity benefits the greedy more than the needy.The most recent beneficiary of the SEC's generosity is Bobby Petrino, who, you might argue, doesn't qualify as greedy. After all, he took more than a $1 million-a-year pay cut to leave his head-coaching job with the Atlanta Falcons and replace Houston Nutt as Arkansas' new coach.Although Petrino will have to subsist on $2.4 million a year in Arkansas, the cost of living in Fayetteville is slightly less than Atlanta. So is the traffic. Moreover, what's it worth not to coach one of the NFL's worst teams?Answer: Priceless.Petrino isn't an exception in the SEC. He's merely the latest coach to capitalize on the conference's commitment to giving.Falcons owner Arthur Blank might sign a $2.4 million check without blinking. But it's a record contract for an Arkansas football coach.In the SEC, record salaries are made to be broken -- fast. In fact, if you start with the 2006 holiday season, the last 13 months qualify as the golden era of SEC football.South Carolina got the money ball rolling last December by upping Steve Spurrier's salary by $500,000 a year. That's what winning eight games will do for you in today's market.Next, Miami Dolphins coach Nick Saban held out his tin cup, and Alabama filled it with $4 million a year. The Tide shouldn't regret a penny of it. If you discount November, Alabama has won three-fourths of its games under Saban.After winning the national championship, Florida renegotiated its contract with coach Urban Meyer, who now makes $3.25 million a year.Auburn and LSU have gotten into the spirit of the season in the last couple of weeks. Auburn gave Tommy Tuberville a $200,000-a-year raise through the 2013 season, which means his contract will average out to about $3.3 million per year.The more the competition gets, the better for LSU coach Les Miles, whose contract stipulates he must at least be the third highest-paid coach in the SEC. So he didn't even need the leverage of a Michigan job offer. His new contracts runs through 2012 and will pay him between $3.2 and $3.5 million a year -- or about what Nutt will get in termination pay from Arkansas.Nutt's deal proves the SEC is so generous, even unwanted coaches make millions. The $3.5 million Nutt will get to leave Arkansas will help supplement his rather modest $7.4 million, four-year contract with Ole Miss. If it's any consolation, he will take over a better team than the one he left behind.Kentucky coach Rich Brooks got a pay boost to $1 million a year after last season. Better yet, his contract, which had dwindled to one year, was extended to five years.Mississippi State coach Sylvester Croom, the SEC's 2007 coach of the year, surely is headed for a big payday after the Bulldogs' bowl game. He's making slightly under a million a year in his current contract.You also should expect Vanderbilt's Bobby Johnson to negotiate a better deal after interviewing for the Duke job."I cannot be happier that the university is willing to step up and provide him (Johnson) the tools so that he feels he can get it done here," John Ingram, chairman of Vanderbilt's athletic committee, told the Tennessean newspaper.Translation: More money for the coach.No wonder Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton felt compelled to announce coach Phillip Fulmer would receive a contract extension and raise for just making the SEC championship game. Given the conference's financial climate, imagine how much peer pressure Hamilton felt.You might have noticed that the current gold rush has bypassed Georgia coach Mark Richt, who signed an eight-year deal worth $1.8 million a year way back in the summer of 2006.His team just won 10 games. It's playing in a BCS bowl.Surely, the Bulldogs won't let a second Christmas go by without doing the right thing by their coach.(Contact John Adams at adamsj@knews.com.)(John Adams writes for The Knoxville News Sentinel in Tennessee at www.knoxnews.com.)