Another coach, another shakedown
Pat Forde has an excellent column up at ESPN.com calling out college basketball coaches on their money-chasing hypocrisy. Seems appropriate after N.C. State AD Lee Fowler threw a pile of cash at Rick Barnes only to see Barnes get a huge raise at Texas and, yesterday, he got turned down by John Calipari when Memphis AD R.C. Johnson scrambled to put together a "show-me-the-money" package for Cal.
Not sure who Fowler turns to next, but expect John Brady to get a nice raise at LSU and Billy Gillispie the same at Texas A&M in the next few days. The coaching arms race -- driven in part by fans who will accept no less than a big name as their coach -- has created some unnatural market forces. As ECU AD Terry Holland said in today's N&O, nothing you can do about it absent collusion, which antitrust laws prevent.