INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana University has paid more than $4 million since 2000 to coaches and athletic department administrators after they left the school, The Indianapolis Star reported Sunday.
One college sports expert said IU’s most recent buyout — $750,000 to former men’s basketball coach Kelvin Sampson — shows that college athletics have “spun totally out of control.”
The Star reported Sunday that Sampson’s buyout, which IU agreed to Friday, brings to $4,012,000 the sum that IU has paid out to former athletic department personnel since 2000.
Former Athletic Director Michael McNeely received $839,000 from IU, and former men’s basketball coach Mike Davis got $800,000. Former football coach Gerry DiNardo received $616,000, former football coach Cam Cameron got $498,000, and former men’s basketball coach Bob Knight received $283,000.
Five other former athletics department staff members collected another $226,000.
Andrew Zimbalist, a Smith College professor and one of the nation’s leading experts on sports economics, said the payments are another sign of how far removed college sports are from the rest of the university.
“This whole thing has spun totally out of control,” he said. “The economic parameters are way off.”
IU spokesman Larry MacIntyre said the money for the buyouts has come out of the school’s athletic department and does not involve public funds.
“It’s part of the cost of doing business in college athletics,” he said.
College athletic departments do receive a public subsidy in the form of tax-free status as a part of education. And although athletic departments generate much of their own income — chiefly through television rights, tickets and donations — most, including IU’s, are not self-sufficient.
Sampson’s payout would cover tuition for 95 in-state IU students this school year.
Yet compared with the buyouts of some other schools’ coaches, IU got off cheap.
In 2006, Alabama paid $4 million to buy out the contract of football coach Mike Shula. That same year, Minnesota paid a combined $4.9 million to say goodbye to football coach Glen Mason and men’s basketball coach Dan Monson.
Sampson’s contract allowed IU to fire him “for cause” and owe nothing beyond his regular compensation for that month. Despite that, school officials said they were concerned about a wrongful-termination lawsuit.
An anonymous donor provided $550,000 of Sampson’s buyout, although because that donation goes through the IU Foundation, it’s considered university money.
IU officials said the $200,000 they paid made the settlement a smart business deal in light of the NCAA’s accusations of “major” rules violations involving phone calls Sampson allegedly made to recruits.
Sampson had “major” NCAA rules violations at Oklahoma, where he coached before coming to IU. The Hoosiers self-reported NCAA violations by Sampson in October.
The coach has maintained that he didn’t knowingly break the rules but the NCAA is accusing him of knowingly and repeatedly breaking the rules, and then lying about it to investigators.
Zimbalist said IU’s buyout of Sampson is troubling in light of the alleged violations.
“I think it’s downright outrageous that people can violate NCAA rules left and right and then walk out with $750,000,” he said. “Elsewhere, when you violate the law or the rules, you go to jail or pay a fine.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
