A small price to pay given that Navy has beat Army in nine of the last eleven games.

Dumbest Post Ever, Tom

These guys are paid by their respective alumni associations. Boosters. Just like every other coach in the country.

The inference that they are federal employees is a foul - even for you.

If you had any integrity, you'd drop this off the blog.

So your definition of lacking integrity is someone who disagrees with you? That's pretty sloppy.

I didn't say who paid them, I just noted who they are paid to coach. Last time I looked, the Army, Navy and Air Force football teams were part of the U.S. military establishment.

Best,
Tom

The answer to the headline question is nobody. The football coach at Navy is not paid with money from Congressional appropriations. The athletic department is funded by other sources.

Ticket Sales? Branding? I am glad this being mentioned.

I pay. I pay for these institutions. I pay the student/officers to be. I pay for their instructors, their food, etc. etc. etc. I pay for these things because I have been told that by doing so, superior officers will be produced and that will help us win wars. I don't pay for bragging rights because one small group of student/officers to be bested another at a game. I couldn't care less about bragging rights. They are a distraction from the basic purpose. They are a dangerous distraction from the basic purpose if our society is willing to give extra money for bragging rights instead of something germane to student/officers to be; like say more firearms ranges, more flying time, sea time or any of a hundred other things that have more to do with war as a profession.

What in the Sam Hill is the matter with us?

The salary is emblematic of misplaced priorities. To use an example from an earlier post, why aren't the boosters raising $1.3 million for the Model United Nations? That program is much more in line with the service academies' mission.

Playing the free market card is intellectually lazy. For one, booster organizations are nonprofits, not corporations. Last time I checked donations to nonprofits count as charitable contributions not a purchase of goods or service.

But beyond that, the services academies are public enterprises not private ones. We the people set their mission and don't require a financial return on investment. So it's fair to ask a) is the Navy or Army or Air Force getting sufficient recompense for allowing a parallel organization (the NCAA) to effectively trade on the services' brand and b) does the effort support the organization's primary mission.

But let's use your free market analogy for a bit. As I argued above, a parallel organization with a parallel staff is effectively trading on the organization's brand and manpower without paying to license that brand.

With a normal product, the coach's rising salary over the years would be considered an indicator that the value of the product is increasing. The producer would have the opportunity to increase its own costs in much the same way increased profit margin on a value-added product can prompt traders of raw commodities to up their prices in return.

But unlike traditional universities, it would seem very little revenue (if any) is returning to the service academy. (The public way overestimates the amount that sports programs plow back into traditional universities, but that's a topic for another day.) They are, in effect, giving the cow away for free. So I think it's fair to demand certain non-monetary compensation from the boosters — such as holding salaries to a certain level.

Yes, the coaches probably won't be as good, but who cares? That's not the primary mission of the service academies. The recruitment issue is a canard. The service academies have an incredibly competitive admissions process, and the football team is hardly the reason most enlisted join.

Sandhurst does just fine without a football team — American football or otherwise. Why is it so essential that our service academies have coaches making six figures with another half a million paying for other coaching staff?

You guys are just sour pusses. Go Navy Beat Army.

There was a lot of grousing about the way recruited athletes were treated at USAFA when I was there. A West Point friend of mine once told me that "F.A." had two meanings in the Army. One was Field Artillery, the other was Football Alumni. Soon after I graduated, GAO came in and quantified the grumbling. The numbers looked really bad.

http://www.airforcetimes.com/legacy/new/1-292925-982901.php

http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-1001

http://www.legistorm.com/showFile/L2xzX3Njb3JlL2dhby9wZGYvMTk5Mi8z/ful21468.pdf

Additionally, and I couldn't find it immediately, there was another report done on the career paths of USAFA graduates from the mid-90's onward. In sum, the findings were:

- Recruited athletes (not just football, but they made up a preponderance) constituted nearly a quarter of incoming classes at USAFA.
- Most of them did not meet the "average" academic profile of cadets.
- Several did not meet minimum admissions standards
- Athlete graduates were less likely to stay in past their initial 5-year commitment
- Athlete graduates were less likely to make O-6

To be fair, USAFA graduates as a whole were found to be less likely to hit those last two benchmarks than their ROTC peers.

Here's what the report missed, and this is a point of turning data into information as previously discussed on the blog-- note that almost 25% of cadets were not hitting the "average" academic scores. Considering the averages that USAFA boasted, that's a pretty big handicap to overcome. So the question is how many 1600 SAT scores do you have to bring in to average out the rocks? The term "mathlete" was well-known in the cadet vocabulary. The GAO reports are solid enough that I'm comfortable slinging this statement out there-- the bell curve looked more like a sinkhole at USAFA, and still may. Your actual population of "well-rounded cadets" is quite small. What you've really got is a lot of dumb jocks and a lot of weak nerds.

And some religious nuts, just for good measure.

I knew a kid that was recruited to be a quarterback for the team. He showed up for the first day of practice his first year, only to find out there were nine other guys trying out for the slot. They scratched him off the roster before the first semester was over. I was a junior that year and did my best to help the kid. He wasn't so quick in Algebra class, but he made huge efforts on his military duties and did everything he could not to look like "that guy." He was a sharp cadet. But he wound up quitting. Before he left, he told me that DeBerry had come out to see him personally on a recruiting trip. Blew a bunch of smoke up his tailpipe about how he'd go far on the team. The guy felt so lied to that he couldn't stand it. He wound up going to the ROTC program at his State U.

So the problem isn't how much a coach gets paid. It's how the system gets corrupted by a preoccupation with sports. I'm proud of my alma mater and I still feel fortunate to interview stellar cadet athletes in my job. But that doesn't mean I don't feel compelled to point out issues where I see them. USAFA is a good school. It could be better. Lance Sijan played football, and I'd never for an instant pretend he didnt' have all the right stuff. It's not the sport that corrupts people-- it's the emphasis the institution puts on it.

I think things have changed, but probably not as much as they need to. You can talk about how football increases applicant pools all day. As far as I know, no one cares much about MIT's football record. Starting a program that allows Eagle Scout cadets to go work at Philmont during summer leadership training would be just as effective in generating interest, and would probably reach a more desirable demographic.

Given their respective win-loss records (navy's current season notwithstanding).

I've got side with JWPREL on this one. College football is a racket. Last month's Atlantic had a great cover story on how the NCAA is very much a racket. Keep in mind, all college athletic associations are non-profit organizations that are affilliated with non-profit universities. Coaching college football is probably the most lucrative non-profit management job this side of the CFO of the Ford Foundation.

Of course, Gourley is right about some of the athletes at service academies. Football and Basketball were the worst offenders. And I also knew some Mathletes.

I'm guessing the CEOs/principle partners at our largest defense firms make a hell of a lot more than $1.5 million per year. And that *is* from tax dollars (indirectly) and not through non-appropriated funds like these coaches. That is much more related to budget crunches than this cheap shot at the Academies.

....after 43 years of doormating to them...Navy Alumni sold all but state secrets, as far as I know, to raise cash to stop being NCAA's french army. This coach's pay, like the entire DoD budget, is a post war bulge in cash dispensing by the war's real profiteers.

Navy can now go back to funding a coach at a reasonable level of compensation and Leon Panetta could easly defend posterity while taking an easy trillion dollar pork cut.

Course it's really just the SEC and then everybody else... Heh.

And let's not forget, let's not forget: one of the only things keeping our happy little banksterupt republic peaceful is the massive distraction all these wonderful sportsmen provide. No sports... and it's either drink, go to church or - yikes - think about all that complicated stuff... like who-all we're at war with and how we're gone pay for it...

These Coaches and their field-generals do more to promote domestic tranquility than all the King's Horses and Men combined and squared. It's time we got out priorities straight...

Let's give em all Medals of Freedom, and Create a cabinet-level Sports Czar.

I tell you this: Whoever promises a Presidential Pardon for JoePa will win PA in 2012...

This makes me want to vomit.

On a personal note as someone who graduated with a degree in Math from USMA, I'd like to set the record straight on the term "Mathlete". It was originally coined by a newspaper in 1933 to refer to well-rounded cadets at USMA due to victories against Harvard in both football and the precursor to the Putnam Exam.

On the note of overpaid coaches and the defense budget, those are two mutually exclusive problems even if you cap coaching pay for the service academies. The problem lies in the implied purpose of the service academy alumni associations - to support those activities that the government can't/won't. This mentality creates a clear delineation on many things between what the government/taxpayers pay for and what the alumni association pays for. Specifically, they underwrites the athletic programs because very little if any government money goes to fund these programs outside of the general support to the corps as a whole and allowing them physical space to practice and play on.

I have to admit that USMA's alumni association's fixation on sports generates a large amount of cynicism within myself and others. Do not think that the football coach's salary is the most discouraging statistic about what they fund. Unfortunately, if you cap the pay for coach's salary, I think you would discover that at best alumni dollars would go to some other activity that does not directly support the "basic purpose" of the academies because at the end of the day that is the point. At worst, alumni dollars would decrease because they would see less of a need for their donations since athletics will now cost less (which would additionally reduce money that goes to support academic and military-related extracurriculars).

If you really want to prepare to save money at the academies, then convince their alumni associations that they too share a responsibility to fund the academics and military aspects of the curriculum and not just the US Government.

Truth in reporting: I'm a Navy Grad.

Yes, the Football Coach IS paid a lot. But he's a successful fourth year coach that took over a program that is having more sustained success than any point in it's history. So he should probably be paid more than the other Academy coaches. But that's not the point.

OK, everyone else has covered the point about his money isn't not from tax dollars. True. But why would the academy misplace it's priorities so drastically?

They haven't.

The mission of the United States Naval Academy: "To develop Midshipmen morally, mentally and physically" to serve in the highest levels of "Command, citizenship, and government." The academies, or at least Navy, value the lessons learned on the athletic fields: fitness, leadership, perseverance. Those are lessons that translate easily to the battlefield, whether in the USS Cole, Marianas Turkey Shoot, A marine in Fallujah, or in a house in Abbatobad (sp?) Pakistan. Look at the number of Navy Football players selecting a service outside of a quick 5 years of service and out. Marines, Seals, Aviation. Those are hardly the marks of young men looking for the quickest way out.

The Football team is just ONE of over 30 Varsity sports--it was 33 last time I counted, and we won't even discuss club sports. Most major NCAA programs have less than 20, including BCS schools that are the gluttons of money spent by alumni, boosters and TV contract through their football programs. The young men playing Lacrosse and women playing Field Hockey are hardly leaving the service to pursue professional sports.

And just because an Officer leaves the service doesn't mean that Naval Academy has failed. Roger Staubach did his years of service, played football, but is now an active philanthropic member and successful businessman in the DFW region. He is contributing at the highest levels of citizenship.

The success level of athletes in the service doesn't generate much discussion after their years at Annapolis, but the money that football generates makes the education of those other 32 sports possible.

Field Hockey doesn't pay for itself, you know.

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