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Posted 03:31 a.m., May 9, 2008
COLA -- Admittedly, it wasn't something I immediately considered when hearing Wednesday that Dawn Staley would become USC's new women's basketball coach. But it evidently did to some in the Columbia area.
Some fans are up in arms that Staley, coming from Temple, will make more money than longtime coach Ray Tanner.
Staley, 38, will take over her second coaching job at, all told, about $650,000 a year. (That's almost as much as new men's coach Darrin Horn, by the way.)
Meanwhile, Tanner, after 11 years, makes about $200,000 a year.
Sure, there's gross disparity there. But you really have to consider the differences in the sports. And you really, really have to remember that college baseball at USC isn't what college baseball is on the whole.
You can name on two hands the number of colleges that care as much about baseball as USC. There are just so few that have that sort of fervor. That's impressive for USC, but you need to keep it in mind when it comes to salaries. Tanner's salary is simply within the market range.
While Staley's figure (to be approved Saturday by the BOT before the news conference to introduce her) is on the high end of the women's market, it's still within range.
Men's coaching salaries, clearly, have been on the rise for some time. Women's are following suit. Perhaps baseball will be next, but I somehow doubt it because of its inability to catch on in terms of TV contracts (with the exception of the NCAA tourney).
Eric Hyman shouldn't be chastised for making an offer like he did to Staley. He's trying to raise the overall profile of the athletic department, and in Staley, he's certainly got someone with the earmarks of handling that job. I fully expect her to make women's hoops at least relevant at the school. It's never going to become a "Lady Vols" sort of thing at USC, but there is enough of a market here for the sport. It can succeed in its own right. I really believe that.
I hope that fans are patient with Staley as she works to create something. I hope it doesn't come up that she's making X amount of money, therefore she better do Y. She deserves a fair shake, just as Darrin Horn does on the men's side.
About Horn. Something I mentioned in my 107.5 FM guest spot today was that USC has a unique opportunity to market the arrival of two new coaches, men's and women's, at the same time. That very, very rarely happens to a school. For starters, I'd expect Horn to be at Staley's introduction Saturday unless he's got something pressing going on. It'd be a show of solidarity, of moving forward, for the programs.
-- Th
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