Let’s take a look at how MTSU’s head football coach Rick Stockstill gets paid.
He receives $97,078 from the athletic budget for being a football coach and $97,078 from the academic budget for being a professor in the Department of Health and Human Performance, according to the 2009-10 salary budget.
But he is no ordinary teacher. Pipeline records dating back to 2007 show that he teaches only one three-hour course a semester, except for in the fall of 2007 when he taught one two-hour course. The three-hour class he teaches each fall is entitled “Coaching and Officiating Football,” and his spring class is entitled “Intermediate Coaching and Officiating Football.”
The rule of thumb at MTSU is that a professor teaches 12 hours a semester, even though the Tennessee Board of Regents says professors can teach up to 15 hours a semester if needed.
What makes the situation more unusual – and an all-around insult to the academic integrity of MTSU – is that he does not even teach the three-hour class he gets paid almost $100,000 to teach.
After checking up on a couple leads about him not actually teaching the class, as well as trying to track down where the originally scheduled classroom is now located, I found that it is actually Chris Matusek, MTSU’s football director, who teaches the class.
This means that Stockstill is receiving a great deal of academic funds for nothing.
The justification behind this is MTSU athletics doesn’t make enough money to pay its coaches, so it has to dip into the academic budget to keep them around. According to a health and human performance professor who wished not to be named, MTSU wouldn’t have the coaches it has if it didn’t draw money from academics.
In total, there are 20 coaches, athletic trainers and others who are primarily employed by MTSU athletics that have their salaries divided between athletics and academics, according to the 2009-10 salary budget.
Like Stockstill, these university employees typically teach three hours a semester. Stockstill’s is by far the highest, though; his total salary is MTSU’s second highest, behind President Sidney McPhee’s $263,857.
I wouldn’t be surprised, since Stockstill doesn’t teach his three-hour course, that rumors are true and some of the other head coaches don’t teach theirs either, especially during their respective sporting seasons.
The aforementioned health and human performance professor said that with coaches getting paid to teach classes they don’t teach, rifts have been caused between the Department of Health and Human Performance and MTSU athletics, and professor complaints are justified.
Stockstill’s academic salary alone is $15,000 higher than the highest-paid health and human performance professor and $52,000 higher than the lowest-paid one, according to the 2009-10 salary budget.
But I don’t blame Stockstill for accepting the money. It’s mainly MTSU’s fault for offering him the money to begin with.
And though the budget cut crisis has slightly subsided this semester due to stimulus money, it will arise again in a few years.
Because of this, MTSU can’t continue wasting academic funding on coaches, both symbolically and literally. This is especially true if the coaches aren’t even teaching their classes.
Michael Stone is a senior journalism major.
Coaching pay pilfers academics
Published: Sunday, October 25, 2009
Updated: Monday, October 26, 2009
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Professor of Biology