Georgia assistants place loyalty over pay

Athens — Rodney Garner makes these points very clear: He loves the University of Georgia, he loves Mark Richt and he loves his job.

But the Bulldogs’ man of many hats — he is defensive line coach, recruiting coordinator and assistant head coach — may one day leave anyway.

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AP

‘I’m staying for a man, not for money,’ said Rodney Garner, referring to his close relationship with coach Mark Richt. ‘But I turned down a significant amount of money to do so.’

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Brant Sanderlin/bsanderlin@ajc.com

Offensive line coach Stacy Searels also chose to remain at Georgia despite lucrative overtures from Auburn, his alma mater.

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There’s just too much money being thrown around in college football. And Georgia’s not doing much of the tossing.

Two weeks ago Garner was offered a three-year contract worth $400,000 per year to join Lane Kiffin’s staff at Tennessee. He turned it down to remain at Georgia, where he has a one-year deal that pays him $263,301 including supplements and bonuses. The Bulldogs offered Garner “a very minimal increase” for staying, he said.

“I’m staying for a man, not for money,” Garner said, referring to his close relationship with Richt. “But I turned down a significant amount of money to do so. My family and friends think I’m crazy. I’m serious, they think I’m nuts. At some point it’s going to get to the point that I have to think about securing my future.”

Offensive line coach Stacy Searels also chose to remain at Georgia despite lucrative overtures from Auburn, his alma mater. And defensive coordinator Willie Martinez reportedly is being considered for an opening at Miami, his alma mater. No contact had been made between the two parties as of Friday, Richt said.

But with the money that is being offered to assistants, loyalty will only win out for so long.

The Vols hired defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin — Lane’s dad — from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for $1.2 million. He also will receive a $300,000 retention bonus if he’s still around on Dec. 31, 2009. Ed Orgeron, who’ll do the same job for Tennessee that Garner is doing for Georgia, was hired for $650,000. Both men received multiyear agreements. In fact, all nine Tennessee assistants have multiyear agreements. Its salary pool for assistants — $3.325 million — is now tops in the Southeastern Conference.

Georgia’s pool, for comparison’s sake, is a little more than $2 million, according to documents obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution through a Georgia Open Records request. The Bulldogs offer assistants one-year contracts.

Tennessee athletics director Mike Hamilton makes no apologies for skewing the numbers.

“It’s a different model,” he said, pointing out that the Vols’ salaries, including the head coach’s ($2 million), would rank fourth in the league behind Alabama, LSU and Florida when compared to last year’s contracts. “Sometimes you’ve got the head coach making a lot of money and the next person is significantly below that. In this situation Lane has used the team concept to spread the money in a little different way than it’s been spread in the past. Maybe it is breaking ground in some regards.”

The escalation hasn’t been limited to the Vols. Defensive coordinator John Chavis, fired at Tennessee where he made $340,000 a year, was hired by LSU for $525,000 to do the same job. Oklahoma State recently hired Miami defensive coordinator Bill Young for $700,000, twice what the Hurricanes were paying him. USC just laid down $1 million for a new offensive coordinator. New Auburn coach Gene Chizik brought in a running backs coach (Curtis Luper) and a wide receivers coach (Trooper Taylor) for $400,000 each.

“Well, I think it’s impacting everybody,” said Richt, who determines his assistants’ salaries with input from athletics director Damon Evans. “I don’t know where it’s going to end. But it’s happening right now and everybody’s going to have to make life decisions on what they want to do about it.”

All this activity is taking place at a time when the country is in a decided economic downturn and universities — including Georgia — are cutting budgets and discussing tuition hikes.

“I don’t even know where to begin,” said Dutch Baughman, executive director of the Division I-A Athletic Directors’ Association. “We’ve watched the escalation of compensation over the last 12 years or so and, frankly, the question that keeps coming up is, ‘How are we going to slow this train down?’ The answer is, I don’t see anything that’s going to allow that to happen.”

Not with the money streaming into college football, and the SEC in particular. The conference recently signed new television agreements with ESPN and CBS that will reportedly bring in more than $3 billion over the next 15 years.

“Do I have concerns about where coaches’ salaries are headed? I would say each institution has to do what they feel is best,” Georgia’s Evans said. “As far as keeping up [with the competition], you’re talking about two or three institutions that have made some significant changes to their staff that have caused their salaries to go up. I think you’re going to see that more. When you see programs that may be down and they want to make a change, when they make that change typically it costs you more money.”

Indeed, it’s the coaching staffs with the most stability — and some might say the most success — that seem to be benefiting the least from the escalation trend. Two-time BCS champion Florida, like Georgia, offers its assistants only one-year deals. Defensive coordinator Charlie Strong is the Gators’ highest-paid assistant at $310,000. Including a supplement and longevity bonus, Martinez is the only Georgia assistant to make more than $300,000 ($320,300).

So far the Bulldogs have been able to avoid turnover, a cornerstone of Richt’s coaching philosophy.

“If you’ve got the right staff, which I think we do, I think staff stability is very important,” he said. “Prior to us getting here, I think Brian VanGorder was like the fifth defensive coordinator in five years. I think Neil Callaway was the fifth line coach in four years. Georgia was certainly talented prior to us coming in but having that stability was valuable for having the success that we have had.”

Richt was asked if increased salaries and multiyear contracts were necessary to maintain that stability.

“Well, you’ve got to stay competitive, I do think that,” he said. “It doesn’t mean you need to blaze the trail.”

Meanwhile, Garner has made out all right under the current system. Four times in the last five seasons other teams have made calls and Garner has received at least $119,629 in raises the past five years. That doesn’t include the Tennessee increase , which has to receive board approval before Georgia will release it.

It seems only a matter of time before the next offer rolls in.

“It’s not me; it’s the marketplace,” Garner said. “I would prefer it if I didn’t have to go through this all the time.”