A costly conference

Gators won't apologize for spending big bucks on coaches

Life as a Gator isn't quite as much fun these days. With little warning, the old ball coach packed his visors and took his act to the nation's capital. Billy Donovan is cranking out W's, but you're kidding yourself if you think he's a Gainesville lifer.

Nobody is too crazy about Ron Zook stepping in for the departed Steve Spurrier.

And around the Southeastern Conference, the University of Florida is getting ripped fiercely for driving up the cost of playing sports. It was bad enough making Spurrier the highest-paid college coach at $2.1 million a season. But now, in part to lend credibility to their hiring of Zook, Florida is paying the career assistant $1 million plus a truckload of incentives -- a good bit more than Larry Coker will re-up for after taking Miami to the national championship.

Folks up in Tennessee just shake their head. Here's Phillip Fulmer, a national title under his belt (the same number as Spurrier), making $1.3 million a season -- and in the midst of renegotiating his contract.

"Obviously when you hire an assistant coach [Zook] at more than we're paying our head coach, it puts some pressure on you,'' said David Woodall, Tennessee's associate athletic director for internal operations.

The Tennessee reaction to the Zook figure? "It jumped out at you,'' Woodall laughed.

If anyone is looking for apologies from Florida, forget about it. The Gators have the dough and they're going to spend it, on both marquee sports and minor sports.

And AD Jeremy Foley willingly justifies going dollar-for-dollar with the pro offers, to a point.

"When we had a head football coach like Steve Spurrier, who obviously had opportunities to go to the next level, it was in our best interest to try and do all we could to keep him around,'' Foley said. "If we got to pay him $2 million to keep him happy and satisfied, then that is what we have to do.

"If I have a very young and talented and marketable basketball coach (Billy Donovan), who is building what we want to build here -- and that is a big-time basketball program -- it doesn't do me any good to have him coaching somewhere else. If people are willing to pay him a million bucks, I'm going to pay him a million bucks first because his expertise is generating those dollars.''

Problem is, few are playing with the same bucks.

The Florida athletic budget this year is $44 million, right in step with Tennessee -- and fourth richest in the country, Foley acknowledges. You're talking considerable disparity. The $30-$32 million range finds programs like Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama and Auburn. Vanderbilt is around $20 million. Then you're looking at Mississippi and Mississippi State budgeting $15-$17 million annually.

"They have a reputation of jacking everyone's salary up,'' said an athletic administrator at one SEC school. "As a result, their salaries are way out of kilter with everyone else in the conference. You give Spurrier $2 million and other coaches are going to come in and say, 'Hey, we're winning championships, too.'

"If you look at it as a business, then what Jeremy Foley is doing is no different than what the Yankees would do. Maybe I am just too naïve, but it shouldn't necessarily be a business.''

But it is.

Baseball follies

It was only a matter time before hardball commissioner Bud Selig stood accused of a conflict of interest. You can't run the game and have a piece of a club, even if you put the Milwaukee Brewers in your daughter's name. If nothing else, it flunks the smell test.

So surprise, Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., is calling for Selig's head (that's union boss Don Fehr leading the cheers), focusing on an undisclosed $3 million loan the Brewers received from a company controlled by Minnesota Twins owner Carl Pohlad in 1995. Pohlad would be paid well under baseball's current contraction proposal (read: The Selig Plan) to fold his Twins, likely more than what he'd get on the open market.

Interestingly, a CNNSI.com analysis of federal election records reveals Selig to be friendly to the Democratic Party, with all of his $22,250 in contributions heading that way. So you'd think Conyers would cut him some slack, except the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee didn't directly benefit. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., received the maximum allowable contribution of $1,000 for his last campaign from Bud . . . and shockingly, he's a Selig man, saying contraction "should not cause questions about the integrity of a good man who has devoted his life to baseball and to his community.''

Thanks for the advice, Senator.

Few can imagine the merry band of owners calling for Selig to resign, anyway. Even fewer see the former car salesman pulling the plug on another season -- not with this year's All-Star Game booked for Milwaukee.

Loose lips and the White Rat

Some who know Whitey Herzog well weren't surprised the crusty, old-school baseball guy would harbor thoughts of major league baseball being guilty of reverse racism, as he described it. That's just Whitey. Still, they were stunned he let his guard down at a public forum last week.

An ex-player suggested Herzog might have thrown down too many cocktails before addressing a baseball luncheon crowd in Des Moines. Or, hey, he's in his early 70s now, is finished with the game and doesn't care what anybody thinks.

Fact is, Herzog was a terrific field manager, a likeable character who treated his players fairly, so no one wants to see him hounded by the PC police. Yet his comments are a slap in the face to minorities who helped him win championships in Kansas City and St. Louis.

"What is he saying to all the minority players who played well for him and helped get him where he is?'' asked a top black athlete who played for Herzog. "You can't get there just by being the manager. You need players. They put out for him and then he comes out and makes a statement like that.''

Scholarly games

Mike Bellotti was right on the mark -- his University of Oregon football team proved it was more deserving to play for the national championship than Nebraska. But let's put aside won-loss records and 40-yard times. Bellotti could make a case his Ducks are sharper in the classroom, too.

Oregon handily tops Nebraska in the latest graduation rates: 70 percent to 50 percent. So, too, Miami with a surprisingly solid 57 percent.

If you value classroom performance, check out the Best and Worst of graduation rates from this year's bowl teams -- using the NCAA's latest study of players who entered school in 1994, which provides six years for a player to earn a degree.

Top 10 Football Graduation Rates
Rank		School Bowl (result)	Football Graduation Rate	All students Graduation Rate
1		Stanford  Seattle (L)	93%	93%
2		Syracuse  Insight.com (W)	91%	74%
3		Boston College  Music City (W)	85%	86%
4		Southern Cal  Las Vegas (L)	82%	73%
5		Iowa  Alamo (W)	78%	63%
6		Kansas State  Insight.com (L)	77%	54%
t7		Illinois  Sugar (L)	71%	76%
t7		Toledo  Motor City (W)	71%	34%
9		Oregon  Fiesta (W)	70%	58%
t10		South Carolina  Outback (W)	69%	55%
t10		Louisiana Tech  Humanitarian (L)	69%	45%

Bottom 10 Football Graduation Rates
Rank		School Bowl (result)	Football Graduation rate	All students Graduation rate
1		Louisville  Liberty (L)	20%	30%
2		Florida  Orange (W)	31%	69%
t3		Georgia Tech  Seattle (W)	33%	69%
t3		Iowa State  Independence (L)	33%	62%
t3		Michigan State  Silicon Valley Classic (W)	33%	66%
6		Tennessee  Citrus (W)	35%	56%
t7		Colorado  Fiesta (L)	36%	64%
t7		Fresno State  Silicon Valley Classic (L)	36%	40%
t7		Texas A&M  Galley Furniture (W)	36%	69%
10		Louisiana State  Sugar (W)	39%	52%