Copyright Charleston Post and Courier
We still don’t have a clue how many millions of dollars Clemson and USC are paying the football players who are having less-than-impressive seasons, because both schools keep making up reasons they don’t have to obey a state law that requires government agencies to tell us how they spend public money. But we do know what Clemson coach Dabo Swinney makes, we know that regardless of what happened Saturday against Duke, he has likewise had a less-than-impressive start to the season, and we know what fans are like. So with this fall’s head coach-firing epidemic racing across the nation and before the fan demands for the school’s winningest head coach’s head heat up too much, we’d like to offer this suggestion to Clemson President Jim Clements and the board of trustees: Don’t even think about it. While we’re at it, USC President Michael Amiridis and trustees shouldn’t even think about buying out coach Shane Beamer, who would claim nearly half as much, at $27 million, as the far more seasoned Mr. Swinney. You'd have thought USC brass would have known better than to sign such a contract, after they paid Will Muschamp $13.7 million in 2020 to not coach. Mr. Swinney, of course, would cost multiple years' worth of player revenue sharing to let go: He signed a 10-year, $115 million contract extension in 2021 that made him one of the highest-paid coaches in the NCAA. If the administration decided that it wanted him to stop coaching this year, it would owe him $60 million. If top officials can just hold back the fans until January, the price would drop to a mere $57 million. To not coach. Nice non-work if you can get it. The sports world seems pretty confident that Mr. Swinney will determine his departure date precisely because of the high price tag to send him packing. Frankly, even if Mr. Swinney lost the rest of his games this season, we’d consider Clemson deciding to live with the consequences of its decisions a really good outcome — particularly if that co-existence were to teach Clemson not to enter into such ridiculous contracts in the future. But there’s little if any reason to believe any Division 1 college would learn such a lesson and start negotiating contracts that do not pay coaches to not work. So at this moment when the rapid professionalization of college football is placing ever-increasing pressure on universities to dump losing coaches faster than ever, we call on our Legislature to give Clemson, USC and other state institutions some breathing room: to lead the nation back to sanity by outlawing departure payouts. The obvious alternative is to write contracts that anticipate turnover after what the schools consider unacceptable performance: If you can’t tolerate a losing season, write a requirement to win into the contract. If you’ve got to have a conference title, make that a requirement. Ditto a national championship. It’ll cost a lot more money to find a coach who will sign that contract, but it’ll end the money wasted on buyouts. It might also deflate the unrealistic expectations of college presidents, trustees and fans. While lawmakers are at it, they should outlaw buyout clauses in contracts with school superintendents and Ports Authority CEOs and all the government employees whom taxpayers are paying to stop doing their jobs. Instead, tell people what you expect them to do, and then fire them — at no cost — if they don’t live up to your demands. If they do live up to the demands in their contracts, then keep paying them … to do their job. Click here for more opinion content from The Post and Courier.
