The lone dissenter

Colorado prof thinks coach's raise should go to players

Don’t you love it when an intriguing character enters the picture?

I mean, nobody utters a peep when Bobby Bowden or Bob Stoops sucks up a fat raise. They’re coaching pros, right? So why not Gary Barnett, whose Colorado boys went 10-3 last season, won the Big 12 title and missed by an eyelash of playing for a national title? Why not throw wads of bucks at him, too? Sign him to a fresh deal.

Well, not so fast.

It seems Jim Martin, the engaging stir-it-up character here, is strongly opposed to giving coach Barnett one more nickel. Not that he isn’t in the coach’s corner. Hey, the guy’s a fan of Buffalo football, often going so far as to travel to road games. Hardly the Nutty Professor type. And he’s a Republican, not a breed typically hell-bent on chucking the system.

Problem here is, Martin won’t sign off on $2 million a year for Barnett when college athletes still can’t receive a cent from the riches produced by big-time sports. This is a subject often debated with his students at the University of Denver’s School of Law, where as an adjunct professor he teaches “Sports and the Law.’’

So when the University of Colorado board of regents gather Thursday, Martin promises to cast a nay vote -- likely the only one among the nine regents -- on a package hiking Barnett’s salary to $1.6 million a season, plus a $2 million bonus if he stays through the 2007 season.

“My biggest objection, and reason I am going to vote no against Gary Barnett’s contract, is that I feel that we are making these revenues off the back of student athletes,’’ explains Martin, an elected member of the system-wide board for 10 years and former chair of its athletic subcommittee. “That it is inequitable, unjust and unfair for universities -- and, in this case, head coaches -- to accept salaries while the student-athlete has been recompensed a very small percent.’’

Martin rattles off numbers to make his case. In 1992, former football coach Bill McCartney pulled down $325,000 a year and the athletic budget was roughly $9 million. Talk now is of a deal paying Barnett $2 million and a budget approaching $30 million. And yet, with the in-state cost of attending Colorado probably cheaper than day-care, Martin says the value of tuition and fees has jumped only from $1,000 to $1,500.

If somebody is losing out on the soaring revenues, it’s the athletes who help generate the money. So Martin feels compelled in his position to speak out on the inequity in a system that still only awards revenue-producing athletes a scholarship.

Of course, Martin has been diplomatic about his “no’’ vote, taking time to personally call Barnett, CU president Elizabeth Hoffman and chancellor Richard Byyny about his decision. While appreciating Barnett’s value to CU, he strongly feels the need to buck the system itself.

“Something would be fundamentally wrong to sit back and participate in paying a head football coach over $2 million a year while a student-athlete is relegated to not having spending money on a weekend,’’ Martin says. “It is unconscionable. College coaches shouldn’t accept these kinds of things.

“At the same time, you have [Colorado] going out to defend [such] violations from the NCAA as absurd as giving T-shirts to college recruits.’’

Ah, yes, a day after regents figure to reward Barnett, CU athletic department folks are scheduled to appear before the NCAA Infractions Committee to explain multiple recruiting violations, most of which occurred under the watch of former football coach Rick Neuheisel, who subsequently bolted for a bigger paycheck at Washington.

That’s life in the quasi-professional arena of college sports, particularly major football and basketball. The potential money is enormous and the pressures to win equally so.

Martin, along with some others, argues it wouldn’t be such a mess if college presidents and the NCAA were more honest. If they just admitted that we’re no longer talking club sports. That at the highest levels it’s a multi-million-dollar enterprise, that the athletes need to be fairly compensated for their labor.

“The coaches and universities can make everything that they can and try everything in terms of revenue generation,’’ Martin says. “And nothing is going to be questioned by anyone, meaning the NCAA and even governing boards, because of fear we would be in violation of anti-trust laws.

"On the other side, the student-athlete has no bargaining power whatsoever. In fact, the entertainment on Saturday afternoons is not the coaches. In our case at Colorado, it is [junior quarterback] Craig Ochs and the players on the field. It takes coaches to put the players together, so they all need to be recompensed.

“But you now have professional agents representing college coaches, and I don’t mind saying Gary Barnett was represented by one of the biggest sports agents in the country -- IMG. My objection is not to him personally. I’ve been talking about this for 10 years. I have written to my own board members. I have attended NCAA conventions. You just think social change eventually has to come about.’’

The change Martin proposes isn’t that goofy. It’s basically the trust fund idea that was used for Olympic athletes up until little more than a decade ago, after which no one balked at the thought of professionalism.

“The money would be put in a trust and there’d be x-dollars left for individuals when they graduated from college, so they have something to start life with,’’ he says. “These are full-time jobs. They’re putting their body at risk.

“And you have all this money coming into the pot from the Nikes, Reeboks, from ABC Sports, Fox Sports Network, from ticket sales and sponsorship deals. No one is looking out for the student-athlete. They’re the reason we have the autumn experience. Don’t get me wrong, I am the biggest football fan. I think college football is the most exciting, invigorating sport there is.’’

Great, professor. You won’t get an argument from this camp. But fat chance, even if it makes sense, of selling colleges and coaches on the idea of sharing the loot.

Mike Fish is a senior writer for CNNSI.com.

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