UGA’s athletic director says helping student-athletes succeed academically is a top priority for coaches. But under new UGA football coach Kirby Smart’s terms of employment, it ranks near the bottom.
Smart is eligible for is a $50,000 bonus if his players meet academic targets, according to a UGA memorandum of understanding.
Pitted against the $1.6 million Smart could earn for on-the-field performances, the academic incentive is “chump change,” said Murray Sperber of the University of California - Berkeley’s Cultural Studies of Sport in Education program. More precisely, the academic performance bonus is less than 1 percent of Smart’s total possible compensation.
“UGA certainly spells out its priorities and what it values with a contract like this,” Sperber said.
UGA athletics officials were not available Wednesday, but Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Matt Kempner asked athletic director Greg McGarity earlier what message is conveyed by academics being such a small part of Smart's potential pay.
It shows “an emphasis on academics is an essential part of the expectations of a head coaches’ responsibility, and there are rewards for going above and beyond what is expected,” McGarity texted.
Helping players do well academically is a "top priority," he added.
In college football — even SEC college football — academic bonuses are not uncommon.
Former coach Mark Richt’s deal called for a $50,000 academic performance bonus, too. That bonus was based on the football team’s average grade point average matching or besting UGA’s average undergraduate GPA.
Smart’s bonus is tied to a slightly different measure: the team ranking in the top third among SEC schools for graduation rates and academic eligibility measures.
UGA football’s academic performance today is far short of the top third ranking Smart would need to earn the academic bonus. In fact, UGA football’s academic ranking relative to other SEC football teams has actually dropped over time.
Six years ago, UGA had the second highest academic progress rate in the conference. Today, it's number nine. UGA's NCAA graduation rate puts it seventh among SEC schools.
McGarity told the AJC earlier that the academic targets “are difficult to achieve.”
It’s not clear whether giving coaches million-dollar bonuses if every player graduates would result in squads of Rhodes scholars. But paying for performance can have “unintended consequences,” said George Mason University professor of public policy James Finkelstein, such as cheating.
And paying football coaches more when students do well in class raises a larger question about the relationship of athletics to academics, he said.
“Why should the coach get a bonus and not the dean?” he asked. “As a matter of academic policy, as a faculty member, I would resent the fact that the coach would get a bonus because I’m doing my job.”
“If the team wins, why shouldn’t the professors get a bonus?”
