| By Jarrett Davis 07/15/2017 | davisjarrett@gmail.com/a> |
 |
| (Photo: Richard Shiro, AP) |
I really loved Ray Tanner as a baseball coach.
The pressure
never seemed to rattle him, his pitchers and certainly not his 2010 infield and 2011 wasn’t bad either. There is
finally enough public information to form an opinion on Ray Tanner as an
athletic director. We waited some time for him to be faced with a high profile
hire, and now it has come and passed twice.
Some of what has occurred under Tanner has been great and other moments
he looked unsuitable in the role.
The first huge accomplishment for Tanner was nailing down
both Dawn Staley and Frank Martin.
It is true neither coach was hired by
Tanner, but he gave them very competitive contract extensions. Frank Martin’s salary rose from 2.1 M to 2.45 million in 2016-2017. Based on those numbers he ranks in the upper
tier among basketball coaches in the SEC.
One more NCAA run and they will need to push his salary to 3M mark and
into the realm of great coaches that are on the fringe of a national
championship. Martin’s buyout is 4.8
million this season, 3.5 million the following season, and 1.5 million in
2018-2019. Tanner handled this moment
smoothly and locked down his man.
That’s
a win.
Dawn
Staley’s new contract runs through 2024-2025, and made her the highest paid
women’s basketball coach in the SEC.
Coach Staley deserved it and Tanner made sure she got it from South
Carolina, that’s a win.
The South Carolina athletics programs have greatly benefited
from being in the SEC. Some of it was
history, and media attention, but mostly it came down to money. The SEC revenue splits are essential to the
health and balance of the conference.
The ongoing trend is the teams that spend win.
When Ray Tanner missed on Kirby Smart and Tom
Herman people were upset about the plan C hire of Will Muschamp. Coach Muschamp had been all the right places,
and had all the proper experience. He
simply needed a second chance and South Carolina was a great fit being the
program like Muschamp had not had great recent success but great
potential. I am 100 % behind coach
Muschamp, and I will be pulling for him as long as he is at South Carolina. That being said when you hire a football coach
if you want to win you have to throw your money on the table.
Muschamp
makes 3.0 Million annually, the university saved just over 1 M per year in
the transition from Spurrier to Muschamp.
Muschamp ranks 12th, ahead of only Barry Odom among SEC head
coaches in 2016. Why does the SEC west
always beat the SEC east? The truth is in the money, 7 of the top 8 SEC
salaries are coaches from the SEC West. Perhaps
Muschamp was the perfect fit for South Carolina but either way there was not
enough money offered to attract top talent.
It felt like a loss to everyone watching, hoping and anticipating
something to celebrate.
The
assistant football coaches at South Carolina did fare much better. In 2016 Muschamp’s assistants will make 4
million dollars, ranking them competitively 6th in the
conference. The athletic department also
added a lot of talent to the administrative recruiting office. 11 employees were hired to work behind the
scenes helping Muschamp lure in much needed talent. This was needed to keep up with competition.
Well done. That’s a winner.
Mack
Brown recently said that the arms race was once centered on facilities, but
now it’s in staff members. Football
analyst has become an important term in the world of NCAA football. It’s a vague title with even less specific
duties associated with the position. New
Texas coach Tom “Prick” Herman plans to hire an army of analyst and support
staff.
In 2013-2014 Alabama spent 2.7 M
on 8 football analysts on the Saban staff.
These people can’t be involved in practice, but they can recruit, game
plan, and break down film in far greater detail than on field coaches. Committed teams want no stone unturned and
they get ahead through choosing to pay administrative employees than other
schools don’t. I don’t think the Gamecocks have gotten to this point yet.
This is simply another place that if you truly
want to win a national championship you must spend money. Ray is losing here.
I never thought that I would question a Ray Tanner baseball
related decision, but I wasn’t happy with the hiring of Mark
Kingston. Coach Kingston has been
winning people over, and we will all be behind him when the time comes. Still yet, the teams that win championships
and lure in talent like Kevin O’Sullivan, get it done by making offers that
simply cannot be refused. It would seem Tanner has been refused 5 or 6 times in the last 18 months. Kingston’s contract is for 475,000 plus
125,000 for media/personal services.
That happens to be last in the conference.
Ray
Tanner has a vision and culture he has built at South Carolina. He has hired coaches based on a personal
connection, program management, and student athlete leadership.
Can South
Carolina win championships based on Ray Tanners ability to identify diamonds in
the rough? I don’t think they can. 30
years ago education was more important than big time commercial power 5 sports,
but that is not the case now.
The
athletic department that spends the most has the deepest and strongest staff,
leading to great recruiting and eventually to championships. God bless Ray Tanner but in the present, the
tactics are not enough. The only way to
take the program to new heights is spending top dollar on top talent
By Jarrett Davis 07/15/2017 Follow @LWOSJarrettD