Fresno State extends expiring coaching contracts, keeps ball rolling through COVID-19
With a majority of its contracts with assistant coaches and some head coaches expiring on Tuesday, Fresno State has extended those deals for a period of six months to keep intact leadership of its 21 sports programs and minimize disruption for its student-athletes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The gist of it is, we value our people, we understand that these are times of uncertainty and to the extent that we can we’d like to maintain the talent that we have here to steward our student-athletes. That’s our approach,” athletics director Terry Tumey said.
“We understand that these are times of uncertainty so we need to be cognizant of the ever-changing dynamics as it relates to our state, what we’re going through as a community, and the financial constraints that go along with that. We have to be sensitive to that, but we’re also sensitive to the connectivity of our student-athletes and what these coaches mean to their experiences.”
None of the coaches or assistants, an athletics department source said, will be taking a pay cut with the six-month extension.
The Bulldogs’ coaches and assistants last year received $12.6 million in salary, benefits and performance bonuses; $6.6 million for head coaches and $6.0 million for assistant coaches, according to the financial report the athletics department submits annually to the NCAA.
The six-month term of the contract extensions also provides the athletics department some flexibility as it navigates the coronavirus pandemic and its financial impacts. Fresno State could extend those contracts for another six months or longer at the start of 2021, depending on where it is with a return of its primary revenue driver, football, and its other sports programs.
Fresno State still has not received a go-ahead from California State University system and state officials to implement a plan to bring student-athletes back on campus, and there is much uncertainty regarding a 2020 football season. For instance, the Bulldogs could play a full schedule, or just Mountain West Conference games. They could play in front of no fans at Bulldog Stadium, or with a stadium capacity capped at 25% or 50%.
The financial impacts could be severe for a department that already is dealing with a cut in institutional support, which in 2019 accounted for $20.9 million of its $49.8 million in revenue. It already has furloughed about 60 part-time and stipend employees for two months, and later about 55 Athletic Corporation employees for two weeks.
“It’s still so up in the air,” Tumey said. “We’ve seen it. One moment we feel as though we’re in a safe haven and then literally in a 48-hour period we see how fast this virus can move with a rise in cases.
“At the end of the day our job is to maintain this model, but also keep people safe. We have to do both, and we’re very serious about that.”