Thursday, December 09, 2004
Contracts
When Urban Meyer signed his contract with the University of Utah to be their head football coach, he had a clause inserted that said he would incur no penalty if he broke the contract in order to take the head coaching job at Notre Dame, Michigan, or Ohio State. He put the U. on notice that he was interested in these jobs and would take them if the chance arose.
Well, Notre Dame made him an offer and he decided to go for Florida instead. The Gators will pay him enough money to cover the penalty and then some. Not a classy move, some will say, to give notice about certain jobs and then break the contract to take another, but Urban's a much richer man now.
On to Philadelphia, where Eagles coach Andy Reid is ripping up the NFC East and is on his way to the Super Bowl (or at least another heartbreaking NFC Championship loss). Reid is widely considered the best active LDS football coach around. So when BYU's coaching spot opened up last week, he was on everyone's dream list. We all knew we wouldn't get him (and we won't), but we thought it was because he likes the Eagles and the NFL money and such. Turns out Reid has an anti-Urban clause in his contract. It specifically forbids him from leaving the Eagles to coach BYU (another article I read that has since been altered indicated that the penalty was about $8 million). He's Eagles property till 2010.
Of course Reid agreed to the contract with that clause in there, perhaps indicating that the BYU job doesn't interest him at all. But you gotta admit--that's kinda weird.
And if BYU can afford a new $50 million practice facility, can't they come up with $8 million to help Reid out of his contract?
(Parenthetical sidenote: I think the NCAA should put a moratorium on coach hiring till after the bowl games. All this pandemonium going on right now is hurting teams as they prepare and don't know if the coach who led them through the season is going to be the general at their last game. And besides, if Reid loses the NFC Championship again, the Eagles might fire him anyway. But BYU will have long since hired someone else by then...)
Well, Notre Dame made him an offer and he decided to go for Florida instead. The Gators will pay him enough money to cover the penalty and then some. Not a classy move, some will say, to give notice about certain jobs and then break the contract to take another, but Urban's a much richer man now.
On to Philadelphia, where Eagles coach Andy Reid is ripping up the NFC East and is on his way to the Super Bowl (or at least another heartbreaking NFC Championship loss). Reid is widely considered the best active LDS football coach around. So when BYU's coaching spot opened up last week, he was on everyone's dream list. We all knew we wouldn't get him (and we won't), but we thought it was because he likes the Eagles and the NFL money and such. Turns out Reid has an anti-Urban clause in his contract. It specifically forbids him from leaving the Eagles to coach BYU (another article I read that has since been altered indicated that the penalty was about $8 million). He's Eagles property till 2010.
Of course Reid agreed to the contract with that clause in there, perhaps indicating that the BYU job doesn't interest him at all. But you gotta admit--that's kinda weird.
And if BYU can afford a new $50 million practice facility, can't they come up with $8 million to help Reid out of his contract?
(Parenthetical sidenote: I think the NCAA should put a moratorium on coach hiring till after the bowl games. All this pandemonium going on right now is hurting teams as they prepare and don't know if the coach who led them through the season is going to be the general at their last game. And besides, if Reid loses the NFC Championship again, the Eagles might fire him anyway. But BYU will have long since hired someone else by then...)
Comments:
I completely agree that there should be a moratorium on coach hiring. This year has been a debacle. Let the colleges fire coaches whenever they want, but once bowl season begins there should be no coach hirings until noon following the last bowl game. The problem is the month loss in recruiting, but the NCAA rules clearly state the recruit is recruited to the school, not the coach (If you can actually believe it).
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