According to Governor Dennis Daugaard's FY 2015 Budget Book, the 32nd-highest paying state job is the head coach of men's basketball at South Dakota State University. That vital job pays $200,000, just $314 less than SDSU's VP Academic. The only other people making more than that at SDSU are the Dean of Ag/Bio and the President.
By pure market rationale, here are some jobs that the State of South Dakota values less than supervising young men dribbling and dunking:
- Dean of the USD Law School ($194,500)
- Head coach of SDSU women's basketball ($180,000)
- Dean of graduate studies and research at DSU ($145,186)
- Commissioner of economic development ($123,064... and still overpriced)
- Deputy Attorney General ($121,798... making more than Marty because they had to add fiction writing to the job description)
- Circuit court judges ($117,099... because facing vindictive criminals in court is easier than drilling the full-court press)
- Professor of mechanical engineering at School of Mines ($107,004... because building better bridges and robots is only half as important as sinking a buzzer-beating three-pointer)
- Attorney General ($103,892... o.k., given current performance, I'll agree with that prioritization)
- Warden of the state penitentiary ($97,850... see above, on judges)
- Warden of the state women's prison ($74,573... granted, not nearly the workload of the men's warden at the state pen, but still more bodies under supervision than on a basketball team)
My high school lit teacher said each society builds its biggest temples to its gods. Does the South Dakota budget show that we also write our biggest checks to our priests?
My guess is that people in South Dakota and nationwide put more emphasis on the SDSU basketball program than on who runs the female incarceration facility. There is an old saying in the military that it is easier to replace and general than a private, its easier to get a professor in mining than it is to get a winning basketball coach. Fighting a losing battle if you think you can get people to change their minds about sports programs at any educational level.
It's really pathetic that coaches are paid so much. You listen to pre-game and after game interviews, and all the coaches are doing is talking really fast and out both sides of their mouths. Of course that does take some talent. Any of these interviews that I have heard, they just don't sound real intelligent. There is way too much emphasis put on sports now, instead of education.
Joseph, 50% of people who are fighting battles are fighting losing battles.
And I'm curious: why is it easier to get a good mining professor than a winning basketball coach? Is basketball harder than mining?
When 66 county seats are just too many:
STATE ASSISTANCE TO
LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
AND SCHOOLS
$412,145,103 28.4%
In comparison he is probably under paid. Just the facts of the game. Also SDSU basketball's success has been a good advertisement for SDSU.
In 39 states, the basketball or football coach is the highest paid state employee.
His pay doesn't compare to the Board of Regents salaries.
If we want to be as good as all those libbie states we need to pay our football coaches more!!! If it's good enough for California it should be good enough for us.
I must agree with my friend Larry. Too many seats. Too much waste.
De, that's 39 states with their priorities seriously out of whack.
Hang on, Bree. Where do you see the salaries for the Regents? The university presidents make big bucks, but I don't think the Regents get much beyond their per diem and expenses for coming to meetings. Their executive director, Dr. Warner, gets $346K.
There are no public sector games worthy of those salaries. None. I mean, really, who cares whether they win or lose, this year, next year, last year, to 20 years ago. Similarly no metric exists to justify the regents' salaries, or the excessive numbers of campuses, school districts, and counties and counties governments. The only plausible reason is that the ruling republicans must simply love government at the expense of any semblance of fiscal prudence.
Yes, they are shamefully overpaid. I'd like to see an end to the big, moneymaking, university-dominating sports. That would mostly be male basketball and football. Replace them with teams paid and financed corporately.
Very few of the "student/athletes" really are. When a football teams graduation rate gets near 60% it's notable! Let the NBA and NFL pay their minor leaguers, rather than foisting it on the public.
I recall that a few years ago there was talk of penalizing coaches personally for cheating. Let them pay a fine proportional to the school's. If the school is banned from the post season, so is the coach. In other words, penalties were not only for the school, but also go with the coach wherever she/he goes.
College sports is a mass delusion. We like to talk about"building character, the old alma mater, school spirit," etc. Puh-leeze. A player goes to the school that will provide the best opportunity to get that athlete to the pros. The only cheating that counts is the one they get caught for.
And we all know that. But it's not real if we don't say it out loud. Nuts.
Outrageous. The free market GOP explanation would certainly include the "what the market will bear" mantra. If you want to go beyond outrageous, look at some of the perks, too.
What it really comes down to for athletics, particularly for D1 and professional athletics, entertainment professionals, etc. --- all critical to society --- is a very sweet deal, indeed. Call it a minimum wage plan for the entertainment elite.
We can take comfort, however, in the notion that apparently lesser valued professions are populated by those motivated more by making a difference than by making a buck.
Too bad more people don't appreciate that...
Ssssh, listen. Sorry, don't hear a thing from the lib prof's as they continue feeding the system with passing grades. By golly, it must have something to do with salaries! BTW, CEO Warner does come from the liberal socialist society of Boston Mass.
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Bree, guys like Ol Harv don't come cheap, and you shouldn't expect them to come for nothing. I'll buy dinner and drinks if you can find the stipend for those directors.
Washington, DC — At a press conference today, President Obama announced plans for the first ever federally funded Muslim outreach program. The program will be available nationwide for all elementary school students grade K-12 beginning February 1st, 2014. The program is designed to educate children about the fundamentals of the Muslim religion and Islamic belief.
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This should help even things out. No more is it just the ropers and the dopers or the jocks and the nerds. IED's into IUD's courtesy of Uncle Sam, coming to a school near you soon!
PBS has been hyping the value of diversity for a couple of years with much hype of Hispanic cooking, music, art, language, etc. Then and international study of education comes out and when questioning a spokesman, the News Hour moderator said the US had a reason for the low scores...our diversity. Somehow using the diversity as a positive and negative at nearly the same time leaves a bit of logic and reason in the dust.
"De, that's 39 states with their priorities seriously out of whack."
Agreed.