Texas Tech professors, whose salaries have stagnated, miffed over $500,000 raise for football coach
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
February 21, 2011
A recent pay boost for Texas Tech football coach Tommy Tuberville has miffed some professors whose own pay has stagnated against a spartan state funding backdrop.
Several professors at a faculty senate meeting Wednesday questioned the university’s January announcement it will increase Tuberville’s annual pay by $500,000 through 2015, one of the university’s few raises as it braces for lawmakers to cut tens of millions of dollars from the university’s revenue.
The five-year $11 million contract guarantees Tuberville at least $2 million per year, up from $1.5 million in the original contract he signed with Tech in 2010.
Through a spokesman, Tuberville and Tech athletic director Gerald Myers declined comment.
Tech president Guy Bailey said Friday the school was fulfilling a promise it made to Tuberville a year ago when it hired him at “less than market value.”
Bailey told Tuberville they would consider tweaking his contract after a season’s worth of season ticket sales, which set records last fall. Also, Bailey said, the raise comes as Tech slowly withdraws acacdemic subsidies to less-lucrative sports, a funding hole he expects Tuberville’s football program to fill.
Still, Bailey said, he understands faculty ire.
“I’m sympathetic,” he said. “I’d love to be giving pay raises right now more generally.”
