Paramore: Rodriguez decision could set a precedent

The price of paper just got a lot more expensive. That’s especially true if you are a college coach and have a buyout clause in your contract.

What may be a landmark settlement was agreed upon Wednesday in West Virginia when former Mountaineers coach Rich Rodriguez and the University of Michigan agreed to pay all of the $4 million the school said it was owed when Rodriguez bolted for the Wolverines with five years left on his contract. The two sides had been squabbling both publicly and through the court systems when lawyers for both parties reportedly agreed on a deal late Tuesday.

Why is it so important? This is likely a precedent-type situation. Before this, no school had ever tried publicly to force its coach to abide by the terms of a buyout clause in his contract. Such a clause typically states that the coach must pay a certain amount of money if he fails to fulfill the length of his agreement.

In most cases, the school has allowed the coach to leave without paying the buyout — remember Bo Schembechler’s now-famous statement that “a Michigan man will coach the Michigan team, not a guy who wants to go somewhere else.”

But in this era of $3 million salaries, athletics directors and university presidents have started taking a new approach. And you can’t blame them. Dole out that kind of compensation, you want a commitment, or at least an honest effort to live by the letter of the contract.

Purportedly, West Virginia lawyers were going to force Michigan’s president and A.D. to give depositions about whether UM had agreed to pay Rodriguez’s buyout. The administrators balked, leaving the obvious conclusion that the Wolverines have invested far more in Rodriguez than his nouveau spread offense.

What does it mean elsewhere? I think it sends a loud and ominous message to people like Dennis Franchione and others like him who leave a program high and dry for the next offer that comes along. And if you’ll recall, during the tense days of Auburn’s December negotiations with Tommy Tuberville, he referenced the fact he had a $6 million buyout at the time and wasn’t really a candidate for another post. Now, Tubs isn’t the only one that must realize schools can indeed mean business when they invoke a penalty for breach of contract.

One would think what happened in West Virginia also gives athletics directors more leverage when negotiating these mega-bucks deals. A commitment isn’t so one-sided anymore.

That is assuming universities already have a coach under contract with such a stipulation. Most do. One exception: Nick Saban at Alabama.

Saban refused to sign a pact with a buyout clause when he agreed to what was then the biggest benefit package in college football history.

As Saban put it, “I’ve never had a buyout clause and have no intention of having one now.”

Perhaps that’s why he’s been such a road warrior, picking up stakes whenever he so chose. As for the rest of the college coaching world — basketball
included — get used to staying where you are.

That is, unless you lose big.

Then you get to collect.