Mendenhall receiving his dues
Mendenhall is receiving plenty of kudos
His week, Bronco Mendenhall continues to receive positive recognition mentioned by AD Tom Holmoe, as the 2007 football season sinks in and pundits and coaches start to look to 2008. He is getting respect.
In Fort Collins, a sports writer made reference to Mendenhall’s quest for perfection, highlighting the need to better starts to his seasons, but none-the-less having dominated the Mountain West.
Matt Hayes, on Tuesday, wrote about non-BCS schools in the Sporting News and brought out the fact schools like Hawaii and BYU have to make the most with less.
Wrote Hayes,
“The coach builds from the inside out..
It’s so much more than X’s and O’s. The key to change begins with identity and culture.
When Jones arrived at Hawaii, the team had lost its ties to the Island people and less than 10 percent of the players on the roster were Polynesian. This past season, more than 70 percent were Polynesian.
When Bronco Mendenhall took over at BYU in 2005, the Cougars had veered from the tough-guy philosophy of LaVell Edwards and become a finesse team with no identity. Since then, BYU has won 21 of 24 Mountain West Conference games and has bowl victories over deep-pocket BCS schools Oregon and UCLA.”
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The MWC has certainly upgraded its coaching salaries in the past three years. Patterson at TCU gets paid the most, but recent upgrades around the league have made the MWC more competitive. Mendenhall received a new contract and a boost this past August. His salary is kept private by BYU, but it is estimated he went from the $450,00 range towards $750,00 or so.
AFA’s new coach Troy Calhoun took the Falcons to 9-4 in his first year and the Academy re-did his salary with a $560,000 base and total package worth $645,000 a year. When CSU fired or “reassigned” Sonny Lubick, they hired Steve Fairchild for $700,00 a year.
A website, http://coacheshotseat.com/SalariesContracts.htm, has the MWC salaries behind other non-BCS schools, although I think they have inflated some numbers. For instance, Fort Collins media say Fairchild is making $700,000 but this site says it is $800,000.
Fresno State’s Pat Hill supposedly makes $1.23 million, followed by TCU’s Gary Patterson at $1.2 million and Tulsa’s Todd Graham at $1.1 million. Recently hired Greg McMackin at Hawaii is supposed to be making $1.1 million and George O’Leary at Central Florida 1.08 million.
This site puts Mendenhall’s salary (which is not public and so noted) at $1 million a year and Utah’s Kyle Whittingham, which is public record, at $678,000 per annum.
Mendenhall is on the record saying his reported salary on line is not accurate. It’s hard to nail down because the majority of his salary comes from an endowment created by a Coaches Circle, funded by donations from boosters outside the “base” salary on record by the university’s regular budget alloted to employees and staff members.