Wisconsin chancellor says Michigan, Ohio State overpaying coaches

Erik Brady | USA TODAY Sports

We know what bulletin-board material means in locker rooms. What about presidential boardrooms?

Jim Harbaugh is making $7 million at Michigan this season, including a $2 million one-time signing bonus, and Urban Meyer is making $5.86 million for defending national champion Ohio State. USA TODAY Sports asked Wisconsin chancellor Rebecca Blank what she makes of Big Ten peers who are paying their coaches so much.

“Those are the choices they make,” she said in an interview for a story about coaching salaries. “That really begins to threaten the whole sense that we are not professional athletic teams. I’m not terribly happy about the fact that they made those choices. That’s my opinion.”

Wisconsin athletics director Barry Alvarez doesn’t share it.

“I look at it as their business,” he says. “I do. I don’t concern myself. I don’t feel like we’re in competition with salaries at Ohio State or Michigan. … When you’re Ohio State and football is as important as it is in that state, and you have an opportunity to hire someone who has a couple of national championships in his hip pocket and is from that state, it makes sense to pay him. He’s that valuable. … And Harbaugh, I think it’s a coup for Michigan and our league. I think he is worthy of that salary. That’s what they can command. The market drives that.”

Blank understands market forces. She was acting secretary of commerce in the Obama administration and holds a doctorate in economics from MIT.

“Well, clearly the market for football and basketball coaches is a whole lot tighter than the market for chancellors and presidents,” she says, chuckling. Her salary is $499,950. First-year Wisconsin coach Paul Chryst is making $2.3 million.

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