Rhiannon Potkey

Knoxville News Sentinel

KNOXVILLE – The checks will no longer be in the mail for Derek Dooley.

The University of Tennessee was scheduled to make its final payment to its former football coach this month as part of his buyout four years ago.

Dooley was fired by Tennessee on Nov. 18, 2012, with one game remaining in the regular season. The university had to pay $5 million to buy out the remainder of Dooley’s contract. The guaranteed payments were due in installments of $102,049 per month through December of this year.

The university owed Dooley’s entire staff nearly $9.36 million in potential buyout money, including $645,000 guaranteed to Jim Chaney, who is now the offensive coordinator at Georgia.

Dooley’s other assistants were due as much as $3.71 million pursuant on how quickly they found other jobs and how much those jobs paid.

Buyouts are the cost of doing business in college athletics, and they cut both ways.

If a school fires a coach without cause, it must pay any buyout negotiated in the initial contract. If a coach decides to leave for another school, he or she must pay if the contract included a buyout. Oftentimes, the school that hires the coach will pay the buyout to the former school.

Along with paying Dooley to leave, Tennessee paid Cincinnati $1.4 million to hire Butch Jones in 2012 as part of his buyout.

Tennessee would owe Jones $10.625 million in buyout money beginning this month if he was fired without cause. Jones must pay $3 million if he leaves before Feb. 28, 2017, and $2 million if he leaves after that.

“Probably the two most important clauses in the contract today is the jumping game and that is how do you get rid of him and how does the coach get rid of you,” said Martin Greenberg, a Milwaukee-based sports attorney who has represented several coaches in contract negotiations and studied buyouts in college sports. “Tell me what other industry outside of college athletics has a contract that is not a contract. It can be as easily broken as it is made.”

Firing a coaching with a large buyout can be a financial gamble for schools. If the program experiences more success under the new coach, the school will reap the dividends in the long run through increased ticket sales, donations and media interest.

If not, schools may repeat the cycle all over again and dig into a deeper financial hole.

“It can be cheaper to get rid of a coach than to keep a coach and take the continued revenue loss of having to live out the remaining term of the contract,” Greenberg said. “You may be better off economically getting rid of him than enduring two or three more years of economic losses from losing interest in the program.”

According to a report by USA TODAY Sports, seven coaches would have been owed at least $20 million in guaranteed money if they were fired on Dec. 1 without cause. In 2011, there were 15 coaches with buyouts of at least $8 million. This year, at least 33 are guaranteed at least that much.

Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher led the list with a buyout of a little more than $33 million this year. Les Miles was due a buyout of approximately $10 million when he was fired from LSU in September.

Recently fired Texas coach Charlie Strong is owed a buyout of $10.7 million for the remaining two years on his contract, a sum that will now be reduced because Strong accepted a job as the coach at the University of South Florida on Sunday.

Houston’s recent coaching search was impacted by its buyout demands. The Cougars reportedly wanted to include a hefty buyout to try and keep a coach from leaving after only a few years. On Friday, they promoted Major Applewhite from offensive coordinator to head coach.

Former Houston coach Tom Herman, who left after two years to replace Strong at Texas, owed Houston a $2.5 million buyout.

Contracts can include offset clauses in which the amount of the buyout owed decreases or is terminated if the coach finds another job. Some coaches must attempt to find comparable employment.

But some coaches like Dooley can double dip.

Since Dooley’s buyout was guaranteed, he’s been receiving the $102,049 monthly checks from Tennessee along with his salary from the Dallas Cowboys, where Dooley has been the wide receivers coach since 2013. Dooley’s salary for the Cowboys has never been publicly disclosed.

The most glaring example of double dipping is Charlie Weis.

The one-time New England Patriots offensive coordinator was terminated from Notre Dame in 2009 and paid more than $16 million to settle his final contract with the final payment due at the end of 2015, according to public filings. Kansas hired Weis in 2011 and fired him three years later with more than $5.4 million still owed in monthly installments through this month.

The escalating costs of hiring and firing coaches stands in stark contrast to the presumptive mission of colleges.

“Education is supposed to be about educating students and sticking as much money as you possibly can in academic programs for those who are in need. But here you have schools spending tremendous amounts of money to basically say goodbye to a mistake,” Greenberg said. “Then you have to ask where is that money coming from, and in many instances there are charitable organizations created for big programs to get that money so it’s not coming out of institutional budgets. Alumni and boosters will step up to the plate and pay the price for getting rid of coaches if they don’t like him or he’s not winning. It’s an interesting game.”