Schiano's contract includes an annual $4 million salary with multiple opportunities to earn bonuses, an annual car stipend, a country club membership, access to a private jet and a promise to build a new multimillion-dollar football operations center. | Getty Images Rutgers faculty oppose new football coach's contract

Faculty union leaders at Rutgers University are railing against the $32 million contract offered to new head football coach Greg Schiano, saying it "sucks resources" from students and the university community and contributes to the "arms race" among other schools in the Big Ten conference.

David Hughes, a professor of anthropology and treasurer of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT faculty union, which represents 4,800 full-time faculty and graduate workers, spoke out in opposition to the contract at Tuesday's board of governors meeting in New Brunswick along with Diomedes Tsitouras, executive director of the AAUP union representing biomedical and health sciences faculty members who have been without a contract since June of last year.


"One person’s employment contract should not take priority over 1,400 of my members," Tsitouras told POLITICO. "We’re kind of frustrated that they don't treat our people with the same level of respect as a football coach."

The board unanimously approved an eight-year deal for Schiano, who led the team to several bowl appearances during his earlier tenure as head coach from 2001 to 2011. The contract includes an annual $4 million salary with multiple opportunities to earn bonuses, an annual car stipend, a country club membership, access to a private jet and a promise to build a new multimillion-dollar football operations center for which Schiano will be required to help raise funds.

"It's ironic and hypocritical for the administration to be so generous towards this one employee," Hughes said in an interview with POLITICO.

Hughes said that when he was engaged in tense contract negotiations with the university earlier this year, President Robert Barchi frequently spoke out about the university's strained financial position.

Barchi told state lawmakers in May that even with Rutgers' $4.6 billion budget, the university "struggle[s] to break even."

"The administration's behavior with respect to athletics tells you they're not in a precarious situation," Hughes said. "The university has the money to do this, they don't even need to take it from students, but they’re doing that."

Hughes said each New Brunswick undergraduate student pays about $340 as part of a campus fee to the athletic department, which comes out to almost 3 percent of tuition costs for in-state undergraduates.

According to its most recent financial report from 2018, Rutgers athletics received $2.9 million in state funds, a subsidy of $15.2 million from the university’s general operations budget and $11.9 million in a student-fee subsidy.

"If they just stopped sucking this money out of students, you could give a tuition cut right there," Hughes said.

According to Schiano's contract, the coach will be required to secure at least 50 percent of all funding needed to build the new sports facilities from private donors and the athletics department would then “fund the debt service on any remaining cost."

Hughes noted, however, that the upkeep and heating costs of the promised indoor facility and football operations center would not be funded by wealthy donors but by the university community.

"The donors don't pay maintenance and upkeep. Ticket sales don't pay for maintenance and upkeep. If this facility ever gets built, its upkeep is going to come out of the educational side of the budget," Hughes asserted.

University spokesperson Dory Devlin responded by saying in an email: “There is no aspect of the agreement that will require an increase in student fees, tuition or other additional operational support. All of the funding required for this agreement will come from Athletics revenue, including Big Ten revenues, ticket sales, philanthropy, media rights and merchandise sales."

Hughes and Tsitouras also said that if Schiano succeeds and the football team starts to win again after several dreadful seasons, athletic spending will continue to skyrocket at the expense of students' education.

"We can't all win. If Greg Schiano actually succeeds and we beat Maryland and everybody else, then what are they going to do? They are going to hire a fancy coach, they'll start beating us again and there is going to be an arms race among the Big Ten schools and we’re all going to lose money."