One of Georgia Tech athletic director Mike Bobinski’s favorite observations about spending in college athletics is that costs never go down. That has proven particularly the case with coach Josh Pastner’s assistant coaching hires.
Altogether, assistant coaches Tavaras Hardy, Darryl LaBarrie and Eric Reveno will make 35 percent more than coach Brian Gregory’s three assistants (Chad Dollar, Tom Herrion and Mamadou N’Diaye) earned this past season. Contracts and offer letters were obtained through open records requests.
“If you’re going to hire good assistant coaches, you’re going to have to obviously have a good staff (salary) pool,” Pastner said. “Those things matter. But that’s a credit to Mike. Mike’s the one who envisioned that. He’s the one who understood the importance of rebuilding.”
Dollar and Herrion received $190,000 each, while N’Diaye’s salary was $170,000, a total of $550,000. Reveno’s salary is $260,000 and Hardy and LaBarrie are scheduled to earn $240,000, a pool of $740,000.
Pastner himself will receive considerably more than Gregory, who earned $1.075 million annually. Pastner’s contract is worth an average of $1.87 million over six years, a 74 percent increase.
It’s a considerable investment for the athletic department, which typically strives to break even, and a demonstration of its commitment to compete in the ACC.
“We went out and, I felt, hired a really good staff,” Pastner said.
