King Kaufman's Sports Daily
A Texas newspaper looks into the green, green world of high school football coaching. They make way more than teachers. Not to mention players.
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Aug. 29, 2006 | The Austin American-Statesman is running a fascinating, multiday special report on high school football salaries called "Fields of Green: High School Pay."
What? High school pay?
Coaches' salaries. What did you think?
Don't worry. There's no movement afoot for high school football players to get paid, though at least in Texas and a few other places where high school football is a quasi-professional sport, maybe there should be one. And anyway it's not a bad guess that quite a few players do get paid in the same illegal ways college players do.
American-Statesman writer Alan Trubow reports that football coaches at Class 4A and 5A schools in Texas, those with at least 950 students, make over $30,000 a year more than teachers at those schools. The coaches average $73,804 a year in salary, the teachers $42,400.
Interesting as that is, it shouldn't be surprising. In fact, Texas high school football coaches making more money than teachers might be the ultimate "Dog bites man" story. Coaches, unlike teachers but like their better-paid brethren in college football, run a lucrative business in which the workers work for free. There's plenty of dough left over to make sure a good coach doesn't go generate revenue for another company.
Sorry, I mean another school's athletic department.
The pay disparity also shouldn't be surprising because it's not new. Ten years ago, the paper reports, the Associated Press found that the average 4A and 5A salaries were $54,000 for coaches and $31,000 for teachers. What I find surprising is that the teachers are actually keeping pace with the coaches.
Ten years ago, the average teacher was making 57.4 percent of the average coach's salary. If you'd told me Texas high school teachers were making 57.4 percent of football coaches' salaries in 1996 and asked me what percent they were making today, I'd have guessed 35. The correct answer: 57.4.
That figure's a little misleading because coaches work a longer year than teachers. They're on 226-day contracts, the teachers on 187 days. So in pay rate, teachers make 69.4 percent of what coaches make, on average.
"I think all of these coaches earn every penny that they get," Trubow quotes Texas Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley saying. "Those football coaches put in more hours than most people realize."
Maybe so. I'm guessing teachers put in more hours than most people realize too, but Trubow cites surveys showing that teachers say they work 40 to 70 hours per week while football coaches work 70 to 100. That's a significant difference.
Next page: "Return on investment," role modeling, and explain again why the players don't get paid?